This Started With Quillfire...
In this thread here -
https://steemit.com/steemit/@quillfire/the-bane-of-bidbots-an-intelligent-and-civil-discourse
Quillfire made some comments about his perception of Argentina, which I will quote below. My reply needed to be lengthy, and we were already down to half-column width from repeated replies, so I decided to reply with a full blog post. And this is it.
Please note that I view Quillfire with a very friendly eye. I think quite highly of him, and sincerely respect & admire his observations on what's wrong with Steemit and how to fix it. He's right on the money on that topic and many others.
Quillfire, good buddy, there ain't no easy way to do this, so I'm just going to hit you right between the eyes with both barrels of the truth, and hope our nascent friendship survives.
Now, Quillfire's comments. Note this is an extract, but a contiguous one. There are things on non-Argentina topics removed both before and after the part I have quoted, but the quote itself is completely unedited.
Quillfire said -
BEGIN QUOTE
Macri tried to do "too much, too fast" ... evolution, good; revolution, bad ... and hence, the 50% plummet of the peso, inflation and all the rest of the knock-on effects.
In fairness, though, prior governments created an economic system that was untenable. The Labor Laws, for example, create barriers that make it almost impossible for businesses to adapt to downturns in the economy. Economic engineering never works. You create laws against malfeasance and let the free market decide winners and losers. In the abstract, it can sound cruel, dog-eat-dog and all that. In reality, creative destruction is the only way to ensure that the system as whole remains competitive. South America's decade-long socialist economic leanings have created economies dependent upon subsidization and government manipulation in order to survive.
Here's a Reuters article on the subject. Such laws would shock the sensibilities of Americans. The fact that they don't shock South Americans means that one or the other needs to do some re-thinking of their economic logic.
Argentina doesn't live in a vacuum. Irrespective of internal politics, it cannot survive in the global economy if it's companies are at this kind of economic disadvantage. Corporate flexibility is now imperative in order to deal with an ever-changing world.
END QUOTE
Non-Euclidean Geometries
Argentina is to politics as Non-Euclidean Geometries are to mathematics. The rules are different. Everything is different, and it always has been.
Everyone knows that Juan Perón took in plenty of German refugees after WW2, and more than a few Nazis. What you may not know is that Argentina also received with open arms huge numbers of Jewish refugees, both before and after the war. And both groups, along with all the other war refugees, were received on the same basis - come here and make a fresh start. Leave all your old hatreds and prejudices behind and begin a new life.
Despite all its problems, I love Argentina with a passion. I honestly get choked up trying to talk about it.
But the central point I am trying to make here is that Argentina is truly unique. You cannot understand politics or economics or anything else in this country based upon seeing it through the lens of what you know of the outside world.
The next most important point is that 90% of everything written about Argentina in the international media is horseshit; as in, simply not true.
About that Reuters Article...
Quillfire, do this for me, please. Put on your Critical Thinking cap, dial your Reasonable Professional Skepticism up to maximum, and look again at that article. Look how sloppily reasoned it is. The reporter talks about one business, mentions another very briefly at the and, and then reasons from the specific to the general. Note how vaguely anecdotal her narrative is. You call this serious economic analysis, good buddy? Really? It's a hit piece, that's what it is.
Let's look specifically at her comment that- "The workforce contracted by just 120,000 registered workers between October 2017 and October 2018, the latest government data reviewed by Reuters shows. That represents about 1 percent of the 12 million-strong labor force. "
By contrast, look at this article in La Nacion, from September 2018
https://www.lanacion.com.ar/2173935-desempleo-indec
Translation to English of first paragraph -
In one year, the labor market added 243,549 new unemployed. This number was a consequence of the rise in the unemployment rate, which went from 8.7% to 9.6% per year, in the second quarter of the year. The total number of unemployed, if the Indec numbers are projected to the whole country, was 1.9 million. But the number of Argentines with employment problems is more significant: 7.5 million.
First, note that her 120K is actually 240K. How did she manage that? Like I said, it's a hit piece, not serious reporting. Next note that figure for the underemployed, 7.5 million, out of a total workforce of roughly 12 million. Need I say this is not healthy?
And her glowing comments about US unemployment are donkey kaka as well, given that the US doesn't count anyone who has been out of work for more than a year.
Kleptocracy
Macri is a thief. His government is a cabal of thieves and con men, and the central purpose of their government is looting the public treasury, while punishing the working class as brutally as possible. The fact that the shitstorm also splattered the middle-class who voted for them concerns him and his band of thieves not at all.
I could write volumes about dear Mauricio, but I will settle for three brief examples
When Macri took office on Dec 10 of 2015, his first act as President was to pay off the vulture funds, NML Capital and the rest, every penny they were asking for. Without even negotiating, he simply agreed to pay whatever they wanted, including their legal costs for grossly illegal acts like seizing an Argentine training frigate in Ghana in 2012.
Macri's family company owed the state several billions, for decades now, from the aftermath of a privatization of the post office. When Macri became president, he issued a decree forgiving his family of that debt.
When the Panama Papers scandal hit, it was revealed that Macri and his father had numerous secret offshore accounts. He managed to get a law through congress to allow the holders of such offshore accounts to return the money to Argentina, paying taxes on it but avoiding any fines or prosecution. The opposition went along with this, after inserting an amendment that family members of high government officials were not eligible to participate in this program. Macri agreed to this, in order to get enough votes to pass the law. Once the law had been passed, he issued a decree modifying it so that his father could participate.
By contrast, please note that all the accusations against former-President Cristina Kirchner are just that - accusations. There is still no actual factual evidence of any wrongdoing by her, on any of the many charges. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. No proof at all. No hard evidence at all. It's all political character assassination. The best that can do is the obviously fabricated "cuadernos" (notebooks) which are really nothing but hearsay. A photocopy of some supposed diary supposedly kept by somebody's driver.
Opinions Are Like...
Honestly, Quillfire, the second paragraph of your comments, and the last paragraph, are about your personal socio-economic opinions. I might disagree, but we are all entitled to our opinions. This long, rambling reply isn't about opinions, it's about trying to set straight some factual misconceptions, so I'm not going to argue.
Same As 100 Years Ago
"No temo tanto a los de afuera que nos quieren comprar, cómo a los de adentro que nos quieren vender"
--Hipólito Yrigoyen
"I do not fear those outside who wish to buy us, as much as those inside who wish to sell us"
It's been just over 100 years since those words were spoken by Yrigoyen, arguably Argentina's greatest President, and things really have not changed that much. Argentina is still about the oligarquía, (the ultra-rich), aided and abetted by the naively useful fools of the burgesía, (the upper middle class), trying to screw the working class and the poor, to reduce them to a state of indentured servitude, or debt bondage.
And that, my friends, is the ugly truth.