No plan B, no easy choices

[MilHojas]

Argentina: No Plan B, and No Easy Choices

The next government will have to resolve the debt issue while also worrying about the actual economy. BUENOS AIRES – “Hope for the best, plan for

www.americasquarterly.org

 

[on the brink]

Rather bleak

 

[Pierre Smith]

Macri was doomed. If he'd have forces the changes the country needed, he'd have tanked the economy, spiked poverty, and caused civil strife. The result would have been electoral annihilation, if he even held on. So he chose this path, and faces a dignified landslide loss and the unenviable position as the heaviest spending premier in Argentine history, without even much to show for it in terms of the built form.

I'm sure he was hoping for a change in commodities prices or something to bail him out, but it never came.

 

[Api]

He didn't have the backbone to make the necessary changes. We got Kirchner-lite instead of any structural change. Argentina is going to be on this roller coaster of riding commodity prices until someone comes along and makes some actual change.

The only bright spots will be some of the mining projects and vaca muerta coming online, but then again that will just further reliance on commodities.

 

[sts7049]

Vaca Muerta won't have a future if the government doesn't stop f****** with the oil prices and keep making it difficult to get profit out of the country.

 

[garryl]

He didn't have the backbone to make the necessary changes. We got Kirchner-lite instead of any structural change. Argentina is going to be on this roller coaster of riding commodity prices until someone comes along and makes some actual change.

The only bright spots will be some of the mining projects and vaca muerta coming online, but then again that will just further reliance on commodities.

He does not know how to do it, that's the problem. He F.ed country, and now he is all over the internet/video, begging people to give him a second chance. Too late.

 

[Pensador]

What will really make the show interesting would be a mess here and a global recession occurring at the same time. And that is a very real possibility at this point in time.

 

[Stantucker]

He does not know how to do it, that's the problem. He F.ed country, and now he is all over the internet/video, begging people to give him a second chance. Too late.

The Ks were totally corrupt, stole millons upon millons of dollars from "el pueblo" and now Cristina is asking for a second chance. Equally incredible.

 

[milanesas]

I believe market forces will force a new FF government to act very similarly to Macri's. Impossible to return to highly subsidized utilities, transport, etc and fund all the government programs they criticize Macri for cutting. After some initial symbolic announcements in December reality will hit and they will turn to pressuring private businesses to raise salaries/lower prices for consumers/not lay off anyone etc and just kinda stumble around and be in survival mode. I don't think the people currently suffering economically are going to have too much patience for a new government placing all the blame constantly on Macri. If Argentina couldn't grow during a global economic boom in recent years I hardly imagine it happening with a slowing global economy. I've been wrong before but it's my two cents.

 

[Stantucker]

I believe market forces will force a new FF government to act very similarly to Macri's. Impossible to return to highly subsidized utilities, transport, etc and fund all the government programs they criticize Macri for cutting. After some initial symbolic announcements in December reality will hit and they will turn to pressuring private businesses to raise salaries/lower prices for consumers/not lay off anyone etc and just kinda stumble around and be in survival mode. I don't think the people currently suffering economically are going to have too much patience for a new government placing all the blame constantly on Macri. If Argentina couldn't grow during a global economic boom in recent years I hardly imagine it happening with a slowing global economy. I've been wrong before but it's my two cents.

I agree. Because the country is so indebted, I don't think anyone is going to be able to do very much, other than tighten the monetary controls that are already in place and try to restructure the debt. I see Alberto looking for solutions in what other countries like Portugal and Uruguay have done, but each time he runs up against the reality that these govts had to take drastic, unpopular measures and we're voted out of office in the next elections, the kind of lose of power the peronists cannot abide by.

I say Macri got us into this mess, make him get us out. Since no one is going to be able to do much, why not Macri, at least we'd have someone honest and with democratic values in power.

And I'm sure some will say but you don't realize the social unrest a new Macri govt will cause. I think there is going to be unrest regardless because Alberto has made a lot of promises to lots of groups and is now beholden to them. I don't think, as you say, these groups are going to be very patient in not getting what they want and their slice of the power pie.