The musty smell of the cash box

Demonstrations in the streets of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires

Demonstrations erupted last week in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, to protest Worsening economic conditionsAnd the failure to deal with the spread of the new Corona virus (Covid-19), after the gap widened between the official peso price, which is 82 pesos against the dollar, and its price on the black market, which Argentines call “caves”, which approached 170 pesos for For every dollar, while the number of cases of HIV infection in the country exceeded one million, nearly 27 thousand of them died from it.

Argentina spent four stable years, during which the country, under the rule of President Mauricio Macri, who was sick from the United States, reconciled with the world and international organizations, during the period between 2016-2020, during which the country managed to issue international bonds, after a decade and a half of isolation, some of which are worth A hundred years later.
Argentina was able to achieve this only with Macri’s acceptance of implementation Terms of the International Monetary Fund It was hard on the people, to be rewarded after that by agreeing on the largest loan in the history of the fund, with a value of $ 57 billion, and world markets opened their doors wide for Argentine bonds, after investors reassured the country that the largest global financial institution trusted.
The situation changed after the sudden loss of Macri in the presidential elections late last year to Alberto Fernandez, who was not willing to surrender to the terms of the IMF, so that the Fund stopped its support for the country, and the investors, who heard the country’s bankruptcy nine previous times, declined to lend it.
Despite the agreement of the third largest economy in Latin America to restructure $ 65 billion of debt owed by it, the country was exposed to harsh conditions, approaching it to the brink of bankruptcy for the tenth time, after its foreign exchange reserves fell clearly, and the inflation rate rose to levels not seen for a while. .

Then came the Corona pandemic, which imposed on most of the world’s governments to borrow huge sums to be directed to companies and citizens who have lost their incomes, to further complicate the Argentine economic scene.
Contrary to what most of the world’s governments have done in terms of borrowing, the Argentine government preferred to print huge amounts of money, which caused an increase in inflationary pressures, bringing the inflation rate to 37%, despite expectations of a decline in the economy during the current year by more than 12%.
To deal with these developments, the Argentine government imposed a tax of 35% on individual purchases of dollars, and set a maximum limit for their monthly foreign currency withdrawals of no more than two hundred dollars, from which payments are deducted for subscriptions to popular online applications, such as Netflix, Spotify, and others.
At the same time, the government froze the prices of transportation, telecommunications and natural gas, and imposed severe restrictions on imports to keep what was left of it in foreign currency, but things are still going from bad to worse, and it does not seem that the IMF will provide real support as long as the current president remains in Judgment.
When there were signs of Argentina’s default in repaying its debts late last year, I asked one of the executives at the International Monetary Fund, what the fund would do with its largest borrowers, and the answer was clear and explicit: “We will wait to see what the US administration wants, and then we will implement it. “.
The previous story, in all its details, raises many doubts about the reports issued by the Fund on the economies of different countries, after the Argentine experience proved that the Fund’s decisions, assessments, and testimonies are affected by whoever rules the country and its orientations, even if the election fund brings it.
Economic reports and analyzes can read in several ways, and the Fund sees it as an expression of the success of the government’s economic program, and a model for other countries to follow, if it is satisfied with the country from which the reports are issued, even if the source of satisfaction is the green light issued by Washington, or the green paper received from Rich Gulf governments.
But if Washington and the major countries are not satisfied with the government of a country, and there is no one who supports it from among the major financiers of the Fund, or those who spend lavishly on such matters, then its conditions will always be in doubt, and a spot that repels investors, even if its efforts in the real reform of the economy are magnified.

This is what happened with Egypt, whose negotiations to obtain a loan from the IMF stalled during the reign of the first elected civilian president in its history, as he came to represent the political Islam trend that was not satisfied with him by the adults, before the 2013 coup, which was supported by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, both of them from The major financiers of the fund, secretly and publicly, were not rejected by the United States.
Although there are often no major differences between the various US administrations, some considered that the Fund’s Board of Directors’s announcement of its approval of lending Egypt $ 12 billion just two days after the announcement of Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential elections, then congratulating him before any president. Else, it was not a coincidence.
Once again, despite not providing much to help citizens overcome the consequences of the pandemic, the Egyptian government managed to secure an amount close to eight billion dollars a few weeks after the emergence and spread of the deadly virus in Egypt.
For the same reasons, negotiations between Lebanon, which is currently in revolt, are stumbling with the IMF, and will continue to falter as long as it continues to refuse to enter the fold of the great powers.
For these same reasons, the attempts of Tunisia, the only survivor of the Arab Spring assassination campaign, only result in obtaining crumbs from the fund, despite imposing many conditions and burdens, and for the same reasons, Turkey does not yet want to go to the fund, despite the tremendous pressure on its currency. And the fierce campaigns of the enemy.
The stench coming from the fund is not only motivated by the grant and prevention decisions and its motives, but rather extends to include the conditions imposed by the fund and those in control of it on the borrowers, even if there is another hadith.

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