I never said door-to-door wasn't a disaster, nor that Macri shouldn't have to "own it". My point is also not comparing Macri to Cristina. I was referring to comments two other people made that seemed to suggest (even if tongue-in-cheek) that things were better under Cristina.
As far as "Macri hasn't done anything and shit's gotten worse" type of comments go, in general (not pointing to anyone specifically), I am saying give Macri a break. He has done a lot, as I've mentioned in other posts, as far as removing corruption, or actively pursuing it. It is a completely different atmosphere if one knows what to look at. It may not be trumpeted in the papers, some people may not notice it, but it's there in many things. However, I don't know that there's a good yardstick in Argentina of how to measure the drop in corruption.
I agree with a lot of what Ries says, but one thing I would mention: aside from those imports to individuals being made easy, the door-to-door policy does not generally affect imports as usual here. Businesses importing stuff for distribution and resale (which I'm betting is far more volume than door-to-door without doing any research) go through freight forwarders who deal with customs agents. It's a whole different issue. Therefore to me, since the door-to-door policy mostly affects individuals due to the restrictions inherent in the policy to begin with, I don't think that the importance of door-to-door, outside the expat and cheta communities, is that urgent to Macri.
Also, let's not forget the coming electronics tax break that's supposed to happen in November.
Ries is completely right about why Macri hasn't thrown out all import restrictions, along with other issues, and is an extension of what I'm talking about when I say that Macri isn't king, and I explained a bit further in another thread. Macri can't just wave a magic wand and everything is the way he thinks it should be, or the way he's promised he would try to make it. He has a lot of opposition, on a whole lot of different levels (clear up to a big majority of the population itself, as far as not wanting him to stray too far from Peronist policies in many things)), and his clearest mandate, to me, was a lot of what he's already done as far as working towards getting Korruption [sic] under control. Go see my post in the other thread (can't remember which one right now), where I talk about someone I know who used to be involved in corruption as to why I think that.
Is door-to-door screwed up and horrible? Hell yeah. Does the door-to-door fiasco mean that Macri's administration is a joke and not doing what it said? No, but it is far from a bright moment for them. Does the fact that we're suffering inflation and other woes mean Macri isn't doing what he said he'd do economically? No it doesn't - we knew before he took office it would be like this. Give it another 6-8 months and then start complaining if things aren't starting to look a bit better at least. Has corruption eased? I won't mention any specific acts, legal or illegal, but I can state that I know of something that could be done a year ago if you knew the right person that now cannot be done, at least among anyone I know. Things have changed, there is a different attitude among public servants.
That, to me, is an honest analysis of what Macri's been doing, but I don't have any data measured by any analytic metrics to prove it. If anyone expected Macri to completely redo tax laws, import/export laws and tariffs and completely reform the country, I believe they may have been thinking of a completely different reality than any I would consider here, in Argentina. I'm trying to measure Argentine politician by Argentine standards (which hopefully he, himself will raise somewhat), not some impossible-to-achieve standard from the "first world", in one fell swoop. One realistic step at a time.
