In Matheu street, where the headquarters of the Justicialista Party (PJ) is located, there are some unappealable sentences. One of the attendees at the meeting on Friday explained it crudely some time ago: “A Peronist without power is a piece of furniture. If he’s lucky, someone will pass him a flannel every once in a while.”. President Alberto Fernández, not only after the announcement of not running for re-election, but much earlier, has begun to follow that path. The problem is that there are 230 days left where, on a daily basis, there are dozens of economic challenges that seem to have no one to address them.
Just to put some numbers that make a milestone in the chronicle. April 1stwhen the country was informed that in the United States they were condemning Argentina to pay billions of dollars for the careless nationalization of YPF, the official retail dollar was at $216, cash with settlement (CCL) was $406 and the parallel was around $391. Just over 20 days have passed and the values are $225, $456 and $460, respectively, at the close of this note. From then until now, there has been no measure to control the rise on the listings.
But, beyond the fact that the sale of bonds or some other loan is credited to the accounts of the Central Bank, economic management is paralyzed. In fact, there is only one mainstay that remains as a policy and that is to find fresh dollars from somewhere to put them on the table and calm the demand. Now, if that is going to be the only clear and concrete policy, it is necessary to enter a field where the President is the main manager: that of the expectations.
What does that have to do with this? It happens that if the only current policy is to run with dollars wielded as swords to offer them to those who are willing to pay them, well the price begins to be the big variable. In other words, in the supposed and hypothetical case that they get them, Up to what price are economic agents willing to buy? Or, if you want it simpler,Is it expensive or cheap to buy dollars?
With a “former president in office”, as defined by a leader of the PJ, with a Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, who attends to politics with the look of a supposed candidate, and with an electoral calendar that could extend the definitions until the end of November, when the ballotage is held, because the feeling is that any wreck is cheap for those who have a lot of pesos. That is to say, nobody knows if it is expensive or at a price, what prevails is the feeling that it will be more accessible than in a while.
Without concrete economic measures and without any anchor of expectations, everything seems to indicate that any offer of dollars will be scarce compared to those who want to get rid of the pesos.
This same journey that is done with the dollar could be done with the vast majority of goods that have imported components. The consumer, who also moves with the same logic and it is far from the stock market and financial sophistication of others, if it does not have access to the dollar, it validates product prices, also with the certainty that today’s value is less than tomorrow’s.
for weeks, the punctual management of the Public Administration is practically nil. A thermometer of this is the Official Gazette. Today, for example, 230 days after crossing the band and in the midst of a strong rise in the blue dollar and with consolidated inflation above 100%, there is no decree published. The edition of the day barely contains six administrative decisions. Something else: they are all official designations. No effective measure of presidential rank.
This little anecdote expresses two problems: the first, lack of management; the second, the constant trickle that occurs in the expansion of spending. This point is precisely one of those that requires coordination and decision in an election year. It happens that there are several ministries whose budgets run at the rate of 100 flat meters. Someone should coordinate that counter where everyone orders. Others, on the other hand, seem sleepy.
An example could be the Ministry of Social Development. According to official budget execution data, published by the Ministry of Economy, The one managed by Victoria Tolosa Paz executed until April 21 41% of its annual budget for food items. Those games must be reinforcedif the rate of spending is maintained, and much more if, as happens in election years, the wallet relaxes.
On the other side, among those who do not execute, or what is the same, they do not manage, there are some ministries, such as the Interior, Housing and Habitat, and Tourism. The portfolio led by the Kirchnerist bishop for the presidency, Eduardo “Wado” De Pedro, executed 12.65% of the total budgeted, while the one that is destined to the construction of houses, barely 14.6%. The one with the leanest numbers is the ministry of Matías Lammens, who barely spent 10.8 pesos out of every 100 that he had stipulated. Of course, the comparison of those with this one is unfair, since Tourism has a higher seasonality than those. Perhaps one of these lazy offices still hears that there are officials who do not work.
Without coordination and without power, it seems difficult for the Government to give certainty in economic matters to anchor expectations. According to data from the School of Government of the Torcuato Di Tella University (UTDT), the Confidence in Government Index (ICG) is at historically low values. “The ICG for April was 1.07 points, with a decrease of 9.1% compared to the month of March. In year-on-year terms, the index had a negative variation of 25.5%. The current level of confidence is 45.6% lower than that of the last measurement of the government of Mauricio Macri (December 2019) and 53.9% lower than that of the first full month of the government of Alberto Fernández (January 2020)”, says The report.
There is something else worth mentioning about this indicator: “The drop in the ICG for April leads to the lowest value of Fernández’s management. The only minor since May 2003 was in December 2009, during the first presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (ICG=1.04). The score obtained in April in the component ‘General evaluation of the government’ (0.63 points) is the lowest since December 2002, during the government of Eduardo Duhalde (0.56 points)”.
This level of deterioration in the image of the Government in general, but of the President in particular, makes the margin of action difficult. From what he shows, Alberto Fernández is not in a position to anchor economic expectations enough to face this crucial part of the Argentine situation. The problem is that the economy has other actors beyond the officials. Sure, they have very different methods and times. The market does not seem willing to wait 230 days without measures.
