I am not in any way qualified to ask this question, but wouldn’t devaluing your currency by half cause 100% inflation on all imports, and effectively double all foreign denominated debts?
Yes in normal countries. But Argentina has an official fixed rates that is unrelated to reality. This means there are two exchange rates, the official one and the real one. Thie measure just puts the official one closer to the real one. And as Argentina uses gov money to pay the official rate thus this reduces the gov expenses and in the long term it stabilises the currency. Yes, in the short term its a shock to the economy making some thins more expensive (for those that had access to the gov rate) but its just bc before the gov subsidised those things indirectly.
Most of the ideas of this president are actually good. Its just a shame that he has to insult and act to apply them. He’s just doing what the IMF has proposed for years and telling everyone it’s a revolution.
Correct. Usually when governments devalue currency, it’s a move to find equilibrium slightly above the black market value of that currency.
I read that the official rate was 380 to the dollar and is now 800, while black market rate was 1000.
So this devaluation is still 20% higher than the black market rate.
He’s just doing what the IMF has proposed for years
So he’s just throwing Argentina to the neoliberal wolves?
In particular yes. And even if its usually a bad idea an equilibrium must be found between social services and Liberal policies. And Argentina is clearly in much need of some Liberal policies. This president might take it too far, making some irreparable mistakes like doralisation, but seeing the state of the Argentinian economy its provably an overall positive. But again, its. Abit sad that he feels like insulting is the way to do it.
Also, the IMF usually gives good advice to counties, most of its bad reputation comes from them trying to impose unpopular measures to counties on the border of collapse and it usually fails. But that’s like blaming Hospitals for not beeing able to save all patients. They usually ask for a but too much (as you said they are liberals after all) but its a good idea to listen to them
He’s just doing what the IMF has proposed for years and telling everyone it’s a revolution.
Because after a decade of socialist assholes, it is.
It was the corruption, not the socialism, what little of that there actually was anyway. At no point did the workers own any of the production. You are pretending the definition of socialism is subsidies. It isn’t.
Yes, but, it looks good on a certain internal report so no matter how much damage it does to poor People, go go austerity!
But never fear, the wealthy are already protected from any loss.
Adding to the other answers, there is also a 100% or so tax on any purchases done outside of the country, this tax is meant to push the cost when using official dollar to match the actual value.
The main problem here is that the tax is not going away so official dollar is going from 365(actually 730) to 800(actually 1600) when the street value is around 1000.
I just read on a Spanish headline that with this little trick (and aid cuts) he just multiplied Argentinians electric bill by 6x
magic!
Oh, “shock therapy,” eh?
That worked so great for Russia in the 90s… just ask any Russian oligarch!
