Argentina Freezes Prices To Break Inflation Spiral

[Ceviche]

Argentina announced a two-month price freeze on supermarket products Monday in an effort to break spiraling inflation.​

The price freeze applies to every product in all of the nation's largest supermarkets — a group including Walmart, Carrefour, Coto, Jumbo, Disco and other large chains. The companies' trade group, representing 70 percent of the Argentine market, reached the accord with Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno, the government's news agency Telam reported.​

The commerce ministry wants consumers to keep receipts and complain to a hotline about any price hikes they see before April 1.​

Polls show Argentines worry most about inflation, which private economists estimate could reach 30 percent this year. The government says it's trying to hold the next union wage hikes to 20 percent, a figure that suggests how little anyone believes the official index that pegs annual inflation at just 10 percent.​

The government announced the price freeze on the first business day after the International Monetary Fund formally censured Argentina for putting out inaccurate economic data. The IMF has given Argentina until September to bring its statistics up to international standards, or face expulsion from the world body in November.​

President Cristina Fernandez and her economy minister, Hernan Lorenzino, responded over the weekend with a flurry of attacks on the IMF, saying the agency's data-gathering efforts had lost credibility in the lead-up to Argentina's historic 2001 debt default. They said IMF advice is leading Europeans astray by favoring big banks over measures that can grow economies out of crisis.​

However, Lorenzino also said that the government will begin using a new inflation index starting in fourth-quarter 2013 — just in time for the IMF's decision.​

 

[Rich One]

A parody

 

[Lulu-Kyoko]

This is what Forbes has to say:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2013/02/04/no-one-ever-learns-the-argentine-price-freeze/

 

[henryb]

Argentina announced a two-month price freeze on supermarket products Monday in an effort to break spiraling inflation.​

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Clarin says

Las cadenas les prometieron a Guillermo Moreno que mantendrán sus precios sin subas por 60 días.​

Store chains have promised. This is not a law. A week later the stores can say that economic situation does not allow them to keep prices steady, and that's it.

 

[Rich One]

Promises Promises.... jajajjajajaj...... the frozen prices apply to the ones included in the Canasta Basica ? only a few hundred? the rest can climb a piacere, like in the past.... jajajjaja

 

[JamJam]

Frozen and then what??? A massive increase.

More spin than Nu Labour.

 

[PhilipDT]

Promises Promises.... jajajjajajaj...... the frozen prices apply to the ones included in the Canasta Basica ? only a few hundred? the rest can climb a piacere, like in the past.... jajajjaja

I read that it was ALL the products not just canasta basica.

Either way someone needs to bash these morons over the head with a freshman econ textbook or something. How in the world do they expect this to work? In the same way the Forex freeze stopped capital flight???? Jesus Christ....

 

[Joe]

Christina has just solved a problem that has baffled economists for decades: how to halt inflation. By the stroke of a pen Christina has rewritten the economics text books and is now guaranteed the Nobel Premio in Economics for 2013.

 

[garryl]

I am speechless, this decision is retarded, an insult to average people's intelligence.
If they really believe this is how they can stop the inflation, then .. come on, they can't be
this stupid.
Stop printing the worthless peso, the price hike will be stopped.
No one can afford to sell at loss, if the inflation goes up at current speed, there will be
no food at Discos. CFK's supporters are really retarded. This is a really f*ked up, I am
sorry for the people here.

 

[Joe]

Better stock up on as many necessities as you can afford for the next two (or more) months as grocery shelves start to empty.

The wealthy of course know this and will stock up. The poor mother who needs milk for her babies one month from now will be the one to suffer. She doesn't know she needs to stock up and doesn't have the money anyway.

But this is a win-win for the politicians because they win by "helping the poor" to keep prices down and then they win again by railing against the evil corporate supermarkets when the shelves start to run dry.