Sergio Massa is on the ropes due to the alarming shortage of dollars

It is already public and known that Kirchnerism has to deal with serious problems with reality.

And also that it is increasingly difficult for him to find it digestible storiesat least moderately credible, to explain economic shocks that are clearly evident and in which he has art and part.

Mercedes Marcó del Pont, the former AFIP chief who became secretary of strategic affairs, said in recent days: “There is no adjustment, but a slowdown in the real growth of spending to converge towards the objectives set with the Monetary Fund” . a real nonsense.

In reality, Marcó del Pont appealed to a technical discourse, pulling the bulky, to hide something so, but so similar to an adjustment that the word fits adjustment.

Very concrete, it is called deceleration cut energy subsidies and remove electricity and gas tariffsin addition to cuts, inter alia, in spending on education, health and public works.

The size of the fit on the fly

And that of converging towards the objectives set with the Monetary Fund implies a Tax compression of $ 530 billion, equal to approximately 3,840 million dollars at the official exchange rate. Bluntly and put in silver, this is the shot that will be from now to the end of the year.

Another fit measure revolves around dollar shortage increasingly pressing, in the midst of an endless and ineffective chain of traps. It is driven by the net reserves of the Central Bank, those actually available, which fall after a decline they ended below zero.

“I’m deep red”, says a specialist who releases a strong estimate provided it is not published. Another: “They don’t even reach $ 1,000 million. They are about 650 million ”.

Just to put them in an appropriate framework, it is worthwhile to relate these quantities to the 8,210 million US dollars represented by imports in July recorded by INDEC, also with the 2,281 million US dollars of highly essential purchases of natural gas, liquefied natural gas and diesel.

And what does that mean, besides what the numbers themselves say? He asked Clarione to a man who has passed several governments and who moves in the world of the real economy.

Answer: “It means, in the first place, that we are on the edge of the abyss and that we are looking for more traps and more restrictions on imports. Furthermore, they will suffer more than production activities and services heavily dependent on inputs from abroad, such as industry, trade, mining, oil and gas, already suffer.

And he continues: “It means, therefore, that the Central Bank has most likely started to get its hands on the reserves of dollar deposits and, subsequently, that it is filling the holes with the entry of exports. In the end, money is always fungible and more fungible when necessity dictates it ”.

This narrowness manifests itself in the opposite direction to abundant exports as rarely or never, especially those generated by the oilseed-cereals complex and, more precisely, by soybeans and their derivatives.

Dollars that the BCRA sees passing

That sector left $ 25,697 million between January and August, an all-time record that surpassed the previous record, that of the very recent $ 23,224 million in January-August last year.

We are talking about a currency pair close to $ 50,000 million in less than two seasons. And of the contrast with the nothing itself that went to the reserves of the BCRA.

Direct relatives of the urgency and disorder are the dollar-soy-like incentives that the ministry in charge of Sergio Massa hastily tries, targeting the more than 20 million tons that producers keep in bag silos. Under the current system, Central could end up paying $ 200 for every dollar of soy it enters and selling its own to importers for $ 140.

But nothing guarantees that, even at a loss, the move crowns Massa’s aspirations: there is not a single month, within the long statistical series of agro-industrial chambers, in which exports worth 5,000 million dollars have been liquidated, such as the The Minister of Economy wants it to happen and needs it to happen. The closest thing was the 4,200 million last May.

Hopefully for a handful of dollars, there is also a request to the IMF for $ 1,300 million, which Argentina could receive from a new line of credit from the organization. The problem is that silver would only be available in 2023, and as long as the country is in step with the objectives of the current agreement.

More than that quagmire is a move that is attributed to the banks, at least to the big ones. Market sources say in this regard: “They have been taking action for a long time to prevent any sudden technical deficiency leaving them exposed to their customers.” Exposed means, moreover, hot flashes with dollar deposits.

Another, of the kind, tells it in the club near Massa declarations and the use of the word devaluation are prohibited. Of course, the slogan does not prevent the gap between the official dollar and the parallel ones, conveniently installed in the 100% zone, from fueling maneuvers and speculations that directly affect the Central Bank’s reserves. Starting with imports.

In a succession of uncertain stories, albeit from another lever, another states that spokeswoman Gabriela Cerruti will soon have the opportunity to improve the poor performance she recorded with the July price index: “There is a sense of stabilization in many issues, “she said, anticipating the 7.4% indigestible that INDEC released after a while.

We must be careful, because as far as we know, the August CPI looks for a long 6% and thus accumulates an increase close to 60% since January. This is almost double compared to 32.3% in the same period in 2021 or, if you prefer, it means that on average, prices have almost doubled from one year to the next.

There is nothing that resembles a sense of stability, quite the contrary.

Inflation towards 100%

Yes, there is, that the consultants correspond to inflation that starts at 90% per year, rises to 94.7% and closes at 97.8%. “No risk of spiral or hyper”Analysts say, except that sailing in the 90-100% zone is the closest thing to drifting on a boat.

For now, during the current K era we have already accumulated a 197% increase until the end of July in the general price index and another 209% in the cost of food. Predictable from end to end, there is no salary that can compete with such a barrage.

Data from sources close to Kirchnerism itself reveal that, between 2017 and 2021 and especially in 2020-2021, wage earners decreased by 22% in real terms, i.e. discounting inflation. Obviously, the picture got worse in 2022.

And if wages do not stop losing against inflation, already sinking, not surprisingly, employment is also affected, albeit in an uneven manner.

Good for State K, employment in the public sector is growing, even above the increase in population, and good for the world of precariousness, self-employment is flying. On the other hand, private work falls: in 12 out of 15 activities, according to the survey of a leading consultant.

Notoriously, there are things in reality that are so close to people’s lives that it is very difficult to turn them upside down if they are not actually turned upside down. And therefore, no matter how hard the government goes, no story is worth it.