Who is Silvina Batakis, the newly appointed National Minister of Economy?

[gracielle]

5 July 2022 by Javier Lewkowicz

La mirada de Silvina Batakis sobre inflación, dólar, tarifas, reservas y déficit fiscal | El lugar que jugará la política

Batakis asumió formalmente y demostró que cuenta con el aval político que hace tiempo había perdido Martín Guzmán. Mensaje del FMI.

www.pagina12.com.ar

Silvina Batakis' view on inflation, dollar, tariffs, reserves and fiscal deficit. She formally took office and demonstrated that she has the political backing that Martín Guzmán had long since lost. Message from the IMF. The new Minister of Economy gave signs of continuity in relation to the economic program that the Gov't has been deploying so far. She is in favor of putting the fiscal accounts in order and keeping her feet on the plate re: the IMF agreement. She anticipated that she wants to have a good dialogue with the business community and highlighted the need for greater planning, for which it is essential to lower inflation. She also indicated that she feels "comfortable" with the current level of the official exchange rate, despite the gap with the parallel exchange rate. The IMF offices in Washington said that "we look forward to working with Minister Batakis and her team to continue to support Argentina and its people in strengthening macroeconomic stability and addressing its profound challenges to lay the foundations for more sustainable and inclusive growth." "I will be in contact with the IMF early tomorrow --by Tuesday--," responded Batakis....

In televised statements, she expanded on the concepts: Inflation...., Dollars...., Fiscal Deficit...., Exchange rates ("The blue dollar is a very marginal market but it is in the collective consciousness of all of us. The big operations are made at the official rate. I feel comfortable with this official exchange rate."), Electricity/Gas Rates ("We are going to continue with the segmentation. It is required that those who have the capacity to pay do so in its entirety and allocate those resources within the Budget towards the interior"), Debt in Pesos...., Juntos por el Cambio ("They defaulted the peso debt and issued $100 billion of extremely toxic debt. People have to have a memory.") Unexpected income ("It is an instrument not only for tax collection but also fair because it allows income redistribution."), Universal basic income ("We need to discuss it, but it is an issue that is not even settled in developed countries."), Salaries ("We need the working class to recover wages.")....
.
...One of Batakis' next tasks as head of Economy will be to travel to Europe to renegotiate, once again, the 2.4 billion dollar debt with the Paris Club.

 

[Redpossum]

I suspect the other shoe hasn't dropped yet, and things will make more sense when ti does.

As far as Cristina's long game, it is to get Argentina out from under the thumb of the IMF again. Nestor and all of Argentina paid a heavy price to get those vermin out of Argentina last time, and Macri brought them right back, like the vendepatria tool he is.

"No temo tanto a los de afuera que nos quieren comprar, cómo a los de adentro que nos quieren vender" *
--Hipólito Yrigoyen

100 years later, those words are more true than ever.



* "I do not fear those outside who wish to buy us, as much as those inside who wish to sell us"

 

[gracielle]

Updated on July 4, 2022 at 9:29 AM GMT-3 by Patrick Gillespie with assistance by Scott Squires

Argentina Taps Leftist as Economy Minister in Growing Crisis

Argentina President Alberto Fernandez tapped leftist economist Silvina Batakis as the country’s new economy minister after her predecessor’s resignation deepened a political crisis that has been hurting its finances and markets.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[Redpossum]

Updated on July 4, 2022 at 9:29 AM GMT-3 by Patrick Gillespie with assistance by Scott Squires

Argentina Taps Leftist as Economy Minister in Growing Crisis

Argentina President Alberto Fernandez tapped leftist economist Silvina Batakis as the country’s new economy minister after her predecessor’s resignation deepened a political crisis that has been hurting its finances and markets.

www.bloomberg.com

Leftist. Hah.
People outside Argentina always do that; they attempt to draw analogies that are just not valid. Ask Myriam Bregman, (A real leftist), about Batakis and see what she has to say.

 

[gracielle]

Leftist. Hah.
People outside Argentina always do that; they attempt to draw analogies that are just not valid....

Left | Definition & Facts

Left, in politics, the portion of the political spectrum associated in general with egalitarianism and popular or state control of the major institutions of political and economic life. Leftists tend to be hostile to the interests of traditional elites and to favor the interests of the working...

www.britannica.com

left, in politics, the portion of the political spectrum associated in general with egalitarianism and popular or state control of the major institutions of political and economic life. The term dates from the 1790s, when in the French revolutionary parliament the socialist representatives sat to the presiding officer’s left. Leftists tend to be hostile to the interests of traditional elites, including the wealthy and members of the aristocracy, and to favour the interests of the working class (see proletariat). They tend to regard social welfare as the most important goal of government. Socialism is the standard leftist ideology in most countries of the world; communism is a more radical leftist ideology.

Which word would you choose instead to describe in political terms the hardcore nucleus within the Frente de Todos party?

 

[sts7049]

In other words her request is to take us back to the future resembling the last years of the last CFK regime:
- intensify the artificial “propping up” of the ARS with a great deal of USD that the state doesn’t have, making a future devaluation so much more painful when the bubble finally needs to burst
- go back to manipulating INDEC inflation data, because if INDEC says there isn’t an inflation problem, there isn’t
- freeze more prices to make salaries last until the end of the month, and stall production while they are at it causing shortages left right and centre
- take over social plans just before the elections to have some leverage over the most vulnerable to essentially starve them into submission while making the most of yet another “caja” of the state
- set the economic time bomb to detonate just as the next government (which they know most likely won’t be them) takes office to be able to start the “ah, pero XXX” all over again

As for the the long-game of CFK, IMO it is to ensure the survival of the family business - even if not a “coup” to oust Alberto in his last months and take care of Judicial “reforms” once and for all - and even if not seriously trying to win the presidency in 2023, the only hope it has of coming back to power in future is if the next government somehow do worse than this one - by making the problems even more expensive and painful to fix you can easily achieve that it up against “moderates”. From a more practical level, in order to keep out of jail they need positions like being a Senator etc which still require votes and an important political base. They also have a lot of useless “career politicians” who don’t do private jobs to tide over during their down time in order to keep everyone on side…lord knows that an unemployment benefit here won’t even cover the expensas in Nordelta or Puerto Madero.

it's all they know how to do. keep putting lipstick on the pig.

 

[Redpossum]

Left | Definition & Facts

Left, in politics, the portion of the political spectrum associated in general with egalitarianism and popular or state control of the major institutions of political and economic life. Leftists tend to be hostile to the interests of traditional elites and to favor the interests of the working...

www.britannica.com

left, in politics, the portion of the political spectrum associated in general with egalitarianism and popular or state control of the major institutions of political and economic life. The term dates from the 1790s, when in the French revolutionary parliament the socialist representatives sat to the presiding officer’s left. Leftists tend to be hostile to the interests of traditional elites, including the wealthy and members of the aristocracy, and to favour the interests of the working class (see proletariat). They tend to regard social welfare as the most important goal of government. Socialism is the standard leftist ideology in most countries of the world; communism is a more radical leftist ideology.

Which word would you choose instead to describe in political terms the hardcore nucleus within the Frente de Todos party?

Peronist

 

[Reply Guy]

Argentina - New finance minister, same crisis

Even without politics, Argentina's economic crisis would be incredibly difficult to manage. The political crisis within the ruling party means the new finance minister is going fail.

boz.substack.com

"Taking over as minister will be Silvina Batakis. There are currently two competing takes on the new minister:

1. Batakis is a career technocrat who is about as good of a choice as can be hoped for by the Fernández administration. She is doomed to fail.
2. Batakis is a pro-Kirchner ideologue who is a terrible choice. She is doomed to fail.

...In spite of concerns that Batakis is too close to Kirchner, she is already making plenty of comments that appear in line with the IMF requests to stabilize the economy. So the mirage of negotiations will continue, and it’s really a matter of whether the IMF continues to accept the false promises made by Argentina’s government."

 

[gracielle]

6 July 2022 by Andrea Shalal

New Argentine economy chief agreed to support objectives of IMF program -IMF's Georgieva

Argentina's new economy chief, Silvina Batakis, told IMF officials that she supports the objectives of a $44 billion International Monetary Fund program and will work constructively with the global lender, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com

 

[Quilombo]

Leftist. Hah.
People outside Argentina always do that; they attempt to draw analogies that are just not valid. Ask Myriam Bregman, (A real leftist), about Batakis and see what she has to say.

Even here this is annoying. I have K acquaintances literally asked me "If you subscribe to Marxist philosophies why do you hate Cristina and Alberto? Why waste a vote on Myriam Bregman"

Because:

Peronist

Milei's whole shtick has this been too; "Cultural Marxism", "Kommunism", etc. Some of his fans said the quiet part out loud can called Bregman a "Jewish Bolshevik" The AMIA was pretty quiet at first because she's not a member of PRO, until people started asking them for a response.

But anyways, back to Batakis; she's got a pulse so that's good enough for the Ks. Damned if she does, damned if she doesn't, it's a thankless job however you look at it.