Bad times for tightrope walkers

When it comes to tactical maneuvers, Serge Massa he can be an ace, but if he doesn’t have a cohesive strategy, his presumed mastery of the dark arts of Creole politics won’t do him much good. Although everything suggests that he would like to subject the deranged national economy to a brutal cure, knowing that he no longer has anesthetics left, that is, more money than that coming from the overloaded ticket printing machine colorful, to try it would have to first overcome the resistance of those who, for now, constitute a good part of its own base of support.

It is that with Kirchnerism hesitating between supporting it and tripping it up, it will not be able to carry out the drastic reforms that could save Argentina from ruin, but without Kirchnerism it would depend almost entirely on the will of the opposition and “rational” Peronism to support it until they have moved closer to their immediate objectives. They will do it? It’s possible; understand very well that it would not be to their advantage to allow Cristina Kirchner and her unconditionalin addition to the piqueteros chiefs, politicians of the bunch and trade unionists who live very well from the socioeconomic model still in force, dynamite the country by privileging their “story” above everything else.

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Massa began his administration by attacking areas that have been prone to rebellion, such as energy, from where he managed to eject Dario Martinez and Federico Basualdothe Kirchnerist whom Martin Guzman could not remove. Surely I would like to do the same with countless others who will be reluctant to collaborate with a minister, no matter how super, who does not share Cristina’s voluntaristic fantasies, but happily for the new strong man of a puny government, they know that if If it occurred to him to resign, the night would come. For Massa, extreme gravity of the economic situation is a trump card, perhaps the only one he has at hand, and judging by what is happening, he is more than willing to use it.

If the character and the circumstances are different, Massa would be trying to convince tell the world that he has the enthusiastic support of everyone else in the ruling coalition, but he can’t help but understand that it would be much better for him to do the opposite. For a very significant proportion of local economic agents, not to mention those from abroad, it will be essential for them to differentiate themselves from the rest of the ruling party, showing them that it is indeed a toad from another well that would never dream of taking the recommended student remedies seriously. by the boss and her consiglieri. He has not yet succeeded, hence how impossible it has been for him to start his administration accompanied by a team of prestigious economists whose mere presence would lead one to suspect that, finally, Argentina is about to take a very different course from the one that has led it to very edge of a deep abyss, but if it is given neutralize the Kirchneristssome who have preferred to keep their distance could change their attitude.

For the country to overcome the crisis that is devouring it, those in charge of the economy will need the support or, at least, the assent of two very different groups: one is made up of the majority of the country’s inhabitants, the other by those who operate in international markets. While the former, promoted by politicians from xenophobic rhetoricgave in to variants of populist short-termism more than half a century ago, it despises it and tends to boycott societies that refuse to respect the rules it believes are essential, including that of Justice being independent of the executive power in power.

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To fix the resulting problems, many politicians try their hand at two contradictory speeches, one for domestic consumption and the other, whispered in private, for potential investors, but as things stand, the assumed ambiguity has backfired. Will Massa be able to unify the official discourse? Only if the imminence of a generalized collapse persuades a large part of the population that there really is no alternative to a radical turnaround that would deserve the approval of the international community.

As recent events are reminding us, no country is self-sufficient. Everyone from the United States and China to the smaller ones need to export what they can and import supplies and finished goods. It is for this reason that disruptions to the international supply chain caused first by the pandemic and then by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are causing so much difficulty. For the rest, if the Chinese dictatorship decides to quarantine Taiwan, all the countries on the planet would suddenly find themselves in trouble by being deprived of the ultra-sophisticated superconductors that are produced on the island which, in this activity that is so important for everything what is related to electronic communications, is a true superpower.

Although to Cristina and her followersIf they like to rage against the “import party” that according to them the national business community is celebrating, the truth is that Argentina is among the most self-sufficient countries on the planet. Although in the short term the sporadic attempts to change this situation have caused many problems and given rise to angry protests by powerful protectionist groups financed by those unable to compete with foreign companies, over the years the costs of isolation have been colossal.

It would seem that Massa has taken this reality to heart and wants the countryside, “the dollar factory” most efficient in the country, is freed from the restrictions that prevent it from acquiring a greater volume. The same could be said of other sectors, such as energy, mining and, of course, the new virtual industries based on information technology, in which Argentina would be at least a regional power.

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For now, the fact that, in the opinion of the pessimists, a great world recession is imminent is playing against those responsible for the country’s economy. Still, it could have some advantages. Although the devastating Argentine crisis is due exclusively to errors of all kinds committed by generations of rulers, it will be possible to argue that it is in some way a symptom of a universal phenomenon, since there are many countries that are in danger of being shipwrecked in the storm predicted, which would not fully benefit those who are supposed to be safe. Still, unlike almost everyone else that could go under, Argentina has abundant resources that have become fashionable: food, energy, and rare elements like lithium.

What it does not have is a reliable ruling class. This is a deficit that is much more costly than the fiscal one, but it is at least conceivable that the catastrophic performance of the current government will induce the electorate to demand changes that are more substantial than those implied by the triumph of Mauricio Macri in 2015.

It is not a question of ideology. When it comes to managing the economy, Americans, Chinese, Europeans, and Japanese agree that it is better to let the private sector handle the production of goods and many services, and let the public handle the eventual social consequences. Today, the disputes that are shaking the international scene have more to do with nationalism, although differences about the respect of the powerful for the human rights of those who are not, democracy and freedom of expression continue to separate the main opponents. Be that as it may, it is reasonable to assume that the majority here does not agree with autocracies such as China, Russia and Iran which, needless to say, have the emotional support of Cristina and her troops; Despite all the misfortunes that the country has experienced since the end of 1983, liberal democracy continues to enjoy good health.

Whether this is the case will matter if, as seems likely, the coming decades are dominated by a cold war between the Western alliance, confusedly led by the United States, and an authoritarian bloc led by China, which is expected to it will make Russia, with its gigantic nature reserves, a kind of protectorate. In such a divided world, it would not be as easy as some imagine to remain equidistant from rivals, since both have expressed their willingness to weaponize trade, as Russia has indeed done in the war of conquest it has waged in Ukraine and Westerners by trying to strangle it with economic sanctions. Faced with the emergency caused by the Russian decision to punish the member countries of the European Union for the support they are providing to their Ukrainian enemies by depriving them of the enormous quantities of gas they imported, it would be more logical to get closer to the Westerners in the hope that the Germans and Italians invest billions of euros in Vaca Muerta and, with the other Europeans, increase their purchases of farm products, which, with luck, would be enough to pull the country out of the pit into which it has fallen.

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