Pleasing investors at the expense of the people, Argentina sells out to the IMF

President Mauricio Macri has put the country back on the neoliberal path with policies that favor big agricultural producers inside the country, and investors both inside and outside of Argentina.

by Jon Jeter

Part 3 - Back into the debtor-nation buzzsaw: a lesson apparently not learned

But now Argentines are beginning to worry that La Crisis is returning. On May 8, President Mauricio Macri announced that he is seeking a credit line worth at least $19.7 billion from the IMF to fund the government through the end of his first term in late 2019. Days later, Argentina’s central bank announced it would raise interest rates to 40 percent — the highest in the world — to curb runaway inflation.

The return to the international financial system sent thousands of angry Argentines into the streets this month, some with signs declaring “enough of the IMF.” Retail sales contracted by 3 percent in April; consulting houses, like the London-based Capital Economics, predict high interest rates will tip Argentina into a recession this year. Workers are demanding higher wages, Macri’s popularity has plummeted, and some data suggests that many Argentines have returned to the custom of hiding dollars underneath their mattresses: dollar deposits in Argentine banks fell 2 percent between April 27 and May 14, according to data obtained by Reuters.

Small-business owners like Maria Florencia Humano are closing for good. Unable to pay either the rent or the business loans she took out, she told Reuters that she has moved in with her sister to cut costs. Said Humano of Macri, who is the scion of one of the country’s wealthiest families: “I voted for him. I made a bet and believed in him. Now I don’t believe anyone.”

What is unfolding in Argentina is the third act of a sovereign-debt crisis that began in the late 1970s after a military junta introduced neoliberal trade policies, Paul Cooney, an economist at the National University of General Sarmiento in Buenos Aires, told Mintpress. The military’s reforms were quite mild, however, compared to those implemented by Carlos Saul Menem, who was elected president in 1989 and went on to effectively dismantle the modern industrial state in Argentina — a country that boasted its living standards were more comparable to those of France than to any of its South American neighbors, save perhaps Chile.

The Kirchners represented a return to Keynesian macroeconomic policies, but Macri has put the country back on the neoliberal path with policies that favor big agricultural producers inside the country, and investors both inside and outside of Argentina. Said Cooney: “The same thing is happening again. Industry has really worsened and Argentina is once again on the edge of a likely transformative recession.”

Macri campaigned to reverse the Kirchners’ trade policies, which have isolated the country from the global marketplace. He settled with the nation’s remaining creditors and last year issued $2.75 billion of dollar-denominated bonds with a 100-year maturity; investors snapped them up.

Macri’s free-market credentials earned him a 2017 invitation to the White House to meet U.S. President Donald Trump, who earlier this month on Twitter hailed the Argentine leader’s “vision for transforming his country’s economy.”

Source, links:

https://www.mintpressnews.com/choosing-profits-over-people-argentina-sells-out-to-the-imf/243003/

[1] [2] [4]

Comments

The wounded US imperialist beast becomes more dangerous than ever as desperately seeks to start a WWIII

globinfo freexchange It seems that the declining Western superpower is losing ground and tries hardly to avoid the inevitable. The US imperialist beast, despite all the destruction that causes, is failing to fulfill its utter objectives. Which in short, are the dissolution of Russia and China, looting their vast resources, as well as the full expansion of the destructive neoliberal model throughout these areas and other countries allied with the Sino-Russian bloc. Most importantly, the wounded beast is loosing much of its strength due to the rapid de-dollarization that has started approximately ten years ago, as dollar had become the front line of the US imperialist sweeping force since the early 70s. As if nothing has changed, the beast insists on using the same tools to prevail in the global geopolitical field, ignoring the unprecedented changes and complexities under current circumstances. In a move (as it seems) of desperation, the United States House of Representative

Atlanta Police Violently Arrest Emory Students & Faculty to Clear Gaza Solidarity Encampment

Democracy Now! As a wave of student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza continues to spread from coast to coast, schools and law enforcement have responded with increasing brutality to campus encampments. One of the most violent police crackdowns took place at Emory University in Atlanta on Thursday, when local and state police swept onto the campus just hours after students had set up tents on the quad in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza as well as the planned police training center known as Cop City. Police used tear gas and stun guns to break up the encampment as they wrestled people to the ground, and are accused of using rubber bullets. Among those arrested were a few faculty members. Democracy Now! spoke with two of the arrested professors: Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department, and Emil’ Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies. Also with Palestinian American organizer and medical student Umaymah Mohammad, who describes how Emory has repeat

Indiana University Brings In SNIPERS & Then LIES About It

Katie Halper Katie Halper talks to Aidan Khamis and Bryce Greene, who was arrested at Indiana University where snipers have been brought in. Bryce Greene is a student, writer, organizer and media critic based in Indianapolis. He is a contributor to Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. He was arrested and banned from Indiana University's campus for participating in the Gaza solidarity encampment at Indiana University. Aidan Khamis is an organizer for Palestine Solidarity Committee IU and IU divestment coalition.

"Student Intifada": Stanford, University of Michigan, Indiana University, & more

The Real News Network Seven months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, a student-led grassroots movement is spreading across the US and beyond, hearkening back to the student protests of the ‘60s that played a pivotal role in ending the US war in Vietnam. In what is being called the “student intifada,” with over 100 encampments going up at different college and university campuses, students, faculty, grad students, and other campus community members are exercising civil disobedience, occupying space on campuses, defying brutal repression from administrators and police, combatting skewed and wildly lopsided narratives in corporate media, and pressuring their universities to “disclose and divest” their investments in companies and financial institutions connected to Israel. TRNN speaks with encampment organizers/participants from the University of Michigan, the Indiana University, and Stanford University, and gets updates from encampments from New York to California.

Yanis Varoufakis Banned from Germany as Berlin Police Raid & Shut Down Palestinian Conference

Democracy Now! As Germany intensifies its crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices, Democracy Now! spoke with Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, one of the planned speakers at a conference in Berlin last weekend that was forcibly shut down by police. The Palestine Congress was scheduled to be held for three days, but police stormed the venue as the first panelist spoke. Germany's Interior Ministry had also banned some conference speakers from even entering the country, including Varoufakis, the Palestinian British surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah and the Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta. " This is not about protecting Jewish lives and Jews from antisemitism. It's all about protecting the right of Israel to commit any war crime of its choice, " says Varoufakis. Varoufakis speaks also about freeing Julian Assange and his new book Technofeudalism . Related: Germany again on a dark path towards fascism

Pro-Palestinian Campus Encampments Spread Nationwide Amid Mass Arrests at Columbia, NYU & Yale

Democracy Now! Palestinian solidarity protests and encampments are appearing on college campuses from Massachusetts to California to protest Israel's attacks on Gaza and to call for divestment from Israeli apartheid. This week, police have raided encampments and arrested students at Yale and New York University. Palestinian American scholar and New York University professor Helga Tawil-Souri describes forming a faculty buffer to protect students, negotiating with police, and the ensuing crackdown that led to over 100 arrests Monday night. Uptown in New York City, the encampment at Columbia University is entering its seventh day despite mass arrests of protesters last week. "In my opinion, the NYPD were called in under false pretenses by the president of the university," says Joseph Slaughter, professor at Columbia University. "The university is being run as a sort of ad-hocracy at this point, the senior administration making up policies and procedures and pro

'Make no mistake, the full-scale assault on Rafah would be a human catastrophe': Guterres

Al Jazeera English United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed for an end to the bloodshed in Gaza. He says the Middle East is at risk of explosion if the fighting continues. In his speech, Guterres urged Israel’s allies to press its leadership to stop the war on Gaza. “ I appeal to all those with influence over Israel to do everything in their power to help avert even more tragedy. The international community has a shared responsibility to promote a humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and a massive surge in life-saving aid, ” he said. “ It is time for the parties to seize the opportunity and secure a deal for the sake of their own people. ”

Biden PANICS Over Israel's Genocide

Owen Jones Biden's latest move tells us one thing: they're panicking.

Day 1846: Julian Assange still in prison and under slow-motion execution by the Anglo-American imperialist criminals

failed evolution On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges. The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies. The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future. And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had in mind is

the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Search This Blog