Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner affirmed that “the main problem that Argentina has is the bi-monetary economy”, from which the shortage of dollars becomes “the real cause of the price spike”, which she considered ” requires agreements from all political parties but also management” to find a solution.
Fernández de Kirchner held this Friday a master conference entitled “State, Power and Society: democratic dissatisfaction”, in the city of Chaco Endurancein which he addressed the economic problem and based his questions on the understanding that “in Argentina the phenomenon that workers in a dependency relationship are poor”.
“The main problem that Argentina has is the bimonetary economy, the importance of the dollar in a total and absolute way in the formation of prices”raised the vice president when pointing out her conviction of “approaching an agreement of all the political forces about how to solve the problem” of an economy that demanded more dollars than it can earn.
In this approach, he highlighted that the bimonetary economy “it is not only the demand for dollars for imports but also that people seek and want to save in dollarsand it is not a matter of the left or the right or of social class”, when highlighting that the currency became in Argentina “in currency of savings and as price of real estate”.
“It’s a serious problem requires agreements but also management to monitor this because in 2020 and 2021 there has been a huge jump in exports by quantity and by price. Almost 30,000 million in trade surplus and yet we have reserve problems in the Central Bank,” questioned the vice president.
In that sense, he called to wonder “what about the monetary and exchange administration” and assured that “The shortage of dollars is the real cause of the skyrocketing of prices and the fixing of all costs and profit margins and profits fixed to the dollar.”
On issue and inflation
“Everyone says that inflation is by emission”Fernandez de Kirchner questioned the present a comparison of monetary aggregates against the Gross Domestic Product between 2015 and 2021.
According to that analysis, the vice president pointed out that in 2021 the economy “has the lowest monetary base again” with 6% compared to 8.5% in 2015 when fended its management or 8% of 2017 when the ruling party won the midterm election.
In the same way, compared the currency held by the peoplewhen he again emphasized that in 2021 it was 3.9% compared to 5.9% in 2015 and 5.3% in 2017.
“They lie and cheat,” he asserted based on the figures, “because people repeat that the machine was given and they have the idea that a lot of bills cause inflation, and the second step is to say that salary and pension increases are inflationary”
He also considered that “inertial inflation needs to be addressed” recalling that at the beginning of the current administration it could be anticipated that “a distributive bid because all sectors have lost with the macrismolike all food companies” among which he mentioned the business groups Arcor, Molinos and La Anónima.
At that point questioned that “neoliberalism had arrived with (Mauricio) Macri and had dismantled the Secretary of Internal Trade, a structure with territorial, functional capillarity,” recalling that in that position the Cambiemos government was headed by “the nephew of one of the largest supermarket chains in Argentina.”
He also assured that “there must be a discussion of all the parties because everyone is going to stumble over the scheme of the bimonte economyand now much more because there is a debt with the International Monetary Fund, with conditions, which is always demanding permanent devaluation above the price of the consumer price index and the interest rate above that “.
“That is not going to give growth or a drop in inflation, the only thing permanent devaluation does is increase and keep inflation inertial by explaining the debate at the front,” he assured.
