Desculpem ser reincidente. É que los hermanos são reincidentes numa coisa: eles são capazes de praticar as mesmas c . . . . . s várias vezes seguidas, sem mesmo se dar conta disso.
Acho até que a Economist foi muito boazinha, complacente, compreensiva, com esse caso terminal. Ela está sendo muito otimista em relação à capacidade da Argentina (ou de seus líderes políticos) de adotar os remédios certos, e superar as dificuldades pela via do ajuste, não da embromação, do subterfúgio, do escapismo, das acusações externas, enfim, essas coisas que eles sempre fazem.
O Brasil ainda não cansou de aguentar desaforos?
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
The palindrome of Kirchnerismo
Default gives Argentina’s president a political advantage, but not for long
Aug 9th 2014 | From the print edition /The Economist
IT IS a rainy Saturday morning, three days after Argentina defaulted on part of its foreign debt. In a damp and flimsy shack in Salas, a settlement of muddy lanes and foul streams on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Ramon Gallardo and his neighbours listen attentively to staff from TECHO, a housing charity. They are briefing residents about the 15 one-room huts they will build in return for a nominal contribution of money and labour. TECHO has erected many of its sturdy, weather-proof huts in struggling Haiti. But there are takers in rich Argentina, too.
Many of them are among the 20-30% of Argentines who, according to unofficial estimates, live in poverty despite a decade of economic growth. Now Mr Gallardo is worried that his work as a casual building labourer will dry up. “They told me the job I’m on will stop because of the default,” he says.
Urban myth or not, this perception highlights the risk that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has run by choosing to scotch last-minute talks and defy an order by Thomas Griesa, a New York judge, to settle with hedge funds that are demanding full repayment of their Argentine bonds. As a result, Judge Griesa blocked a payment to some of Argentina’s foreign bondholders who took part in debt restructurings in 2005 and 2010 and hold 93% of the debt. That, in turn, precipitated the default on July 30th.
Ms Fernández and Axel Kiciloff, her inexperienced economy minister, rail that Argentina is once again being mistreated by speculative “vulture funds”, and by a judge who appears out of his depth. Some of these points have merit. But unlike the last time Argentina defaulted in 2001, it is not insolvent. Ms Fernández and her late husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner, could have dealt with the “hold-out” creditors years ago by quietly buying up their bonds. Even now, her officials have offered the judge no alternative solution and seem to have no clear negotiating strategy.
Instead, the president has opted to try to turn this battle into a nationalist epic. That offers an immediate, albeit slight, political dividend: her approval rating has crept up to over 40%. In this she is being true to type. In 11 years in power the Kirchners have preferred nationalism and confrontation to pragmatism and professional competence, while focusing relentlessly on the short term. When the economy was rebounding from the collapse of 2001-02, and was helped by a big rise in world prices for Argentina’s farm exports, “they discovered that they could govern for ten years solving each day’s problems,” says Luis Alberto Romero, a historian. “But now those problems are mounting up.”
Even before the default, the economy was set to contract by about 1.5% this year. Businesses are laying off workers, or cancelling overtime. The current account and the public finances are both in deficit. Inflation is at 39%, according to Elypsis, a consultancy. On the black market a dollar costs nearly 50% more than it does at the official exchange rate.
With foreign-exchange reserves dwindling, Ms Fernández had begun to settle the disputes with investors that prevent Argentina drawing on international credit. Her priority had seemed to be to reach the end of her term in December 2015 in reasonably good order. That now looks harder. How much worse the economy gets as a result of the default depends on how long it lasts. Many financial analysts assume that the government will settle in January (when a clause in the restructured bonds that makes this harder will expire). That may be too sanguine.
The uncertainty Ms Fernández has unleashed will curb investment. The government’s only Plan B is an $11 billion currency-swap facility with China which may slightly ease the pressure on the currency reserves (and thus on the exchange rate). But if more Argentines find, like Mr Gallardo, that default threatens their job, they may start to blame the president.
The Kirchners’ decade in power resembles “a palindrome”, according to Eduardo Levy Yeyati of Elypsis. It began with default, recovery, opening up and rising expectations, and then reversed the order. But not wholly so.
Three things mitigate Argentina’s mess. One is that the government’s child allowances, which many in the Salas settlement receive, mean the social desperation of 2002 ought not to be repeated. The second is that a better-advised and more pragmatic president would find it fairly easy to put the economy back on track and win foreign investment. And third, next year’s election is likely to produce this outcome. It is the knowledge that Ms Fernández is on the way out and that her populism is no longer affordable that is putting a floor under economic decline.
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