2023-12-21 04:48:52
“May God bless the Argentines and May the Forces of Heaven be with us.”. President Javier Milei once again invoked the ‘Book of Maccabees’ and, in particular, the episode referring to a revolt of the Jewish people against the Greeks, in the year 166 BC, to launch the second chapter of an economic plan that , he insisted, seeks to modify Argentina “from the roots.” “The change starts today.”
Accompanied by his ministers, Milei announced the general aspects of a Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) which contains more than 300 measures that aim to “unlock this oppressive institutional legal framework that has destroyed our country.” The far-right Government intends to make a series of decisions that will not go through Congress. These aim to eliminate the current labor regime, in particular its system of severance payments, while enabling the privatizations of state companies and repeal a series of provisions that allowed the State to intervene in the market in times of price imbalance. The DNU, the president assured, will return Argentina to its moment of splendor, which he placed “at the beginning of the 20th century” when “it was the first world power”, a statement that often surprises historians with its inconsistency. The president is convinced, however, that the agro-export arcadia of 123 years ago collapsed when the “collectivist” era began. This long cycle was marked by recurrent crises and “they all have the same cause at their origins, the fiscal deficit”.
One week after having devalued the peso, the national currency, by 119%, opening the doors of a price race that predicts a monthly inflation of 30%, and a few hours before having faced his first protest, Milei decided to press the accelerator, convinced that the honeymoon with society could be short. A survey by the consulting firm Circuitos has just realized that 42.2% of the population is optimistic about the Government’s chances of success. More than half of the people interviewed expressed negative feelings. After his message to the Argentines, some pot-banging sounded and spontaneous actions in some neighborhoods of the city of Buenos Aires.
Giro radical
Milei knows how to run a race against time. This is what the tycoon’s management experience dictates. Mauricio Macri, who chose to apply his program gradually. The capitalist anarcho says it has learned its lesson and that is one of the reasons for the DNU, which also repeals the rental laws, so that tenants and lessees can agree on a lease in dollars, if they wish, and in Supply, so ““May the State never again violate the property rights of individuals.”. Rules that benefited the development of national companies and all monitoring of price behavior will be eliminated, considered “a persecution of companies.”
“This is industrialicide,” said the mayor of the Buenos Aires town of Quilmes, the Peronist Mayra Mendoza. “The Government has decided to transform itself into an occupying force. A sovereign front to save the Homeland,” requested another Peronist, Andrés Larroque. “It will only bring more hunger and poverty,” warned former minister Daniel Filmus.
The government has decided to transform itself into an occupying force.
Sovereign front to save the Homeland.— Andrés Larroque (@larroqueandres) December 21, 2023
In addition, it has taken measures that will change the regime of the private health system. The ambitious decree offers conditions to privatize football, the great social passion in this country with 45% poor. All this arsenal of initiatives, he said, seeks to restore the “liberal” content of the Magna Carta promulgated in 1853 and reformed in 1994. In all this time, “politicians have been busy expanding the power of the State to the detriment of the Argentines of good”. Finally, the DNU enables the deregulations of satellite internet services so that they can enter the market Elon Musk with Starlink, the tourism sector and mining activity.
“We have removed 13 zeros from the currency, we have destroyed five monetary signs, we have had two hyperinflations without wars and we have the highest blank tax pressure in the world. What must be understood is that the problem is the deficit and that the solutions to the that politicians resort to, far from fixing the problem, they make it worse,” he explained. “The use of debt as a continuous mechanism for financing the deficit and the inevitable default (suspension of payments) which produces a fall in investment and finally miserable real wages.”
Congress as a scene of disputes
This Wednesday’s expected announcement, rejected in advance by Peronism, in opposition since December 10, is just one more station in a long transformative journey. Milei also intends to submit to Parliament another series of “economic emergency” measures” that will require the support of their adversaries to be approved. Among the initiatives are the reversal of the Income Tax reform, which especially benefited the middle class, and a new money laundering law.
“There are measures that are not friendly and there is no other option.”. But when the president takes these types of emergency measures to reverse the extremely serious situation in which we find ourselves, we know that they will be temporary, they will not last 40 years,” said Martín Menem, president of the Chamber of Deputies, confident that the extreme right and the traditional right will obtain the votes necessary to advance.
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