Bulletins and News Discussion from July 22nd to July 28th, 2024 - Fracas in Dhaka - COTW: Bangladesh

Despite the "good intentions" and "positive messages", the relations between milei's Argentina and the Imperialist Monetary Fund are not good. Even they, an institution that pillaged the country over and over again, take a step back while looking at milei's policies.

Caputo meets with Georgieva, calls her ‘best IMF director ever’

The Fund’s managing director said it supports the government’s efforts to ‘turn the economy around’

Economy Minister Luis Caputo met with International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva, who called the encounter “constructive” in an X post. Georgieva, who met with Caputo during the G20 summit of finance ministers and central bank governors in Río de Janeiro, congratulated Argentina’s “strong performance in the fight against inflation, fiscal consolidation and support for vulnerable people.”

(This is exactly what they're not doing lmao)

“We are committed to support the [government’s] efforts to turn around the economy for the benefit of Argentina’s people,” she added. Caputo shared Georgieva’s message and called her the “best IMF [managing director] ever!”

The photograph that accompanied the post led to speculation in social media, as Georgieva’s right arm seems to be missing. However, an IMF spokesperson said that the picture was not digitally altered.

Yes, her arm is missing in the picture, but it is not digitally altered. Damn, I hate when my arm simply disappears.

Despite consistent praise of the administration’s austerity measures, the Fund and the Argentine government have not always seen eye to eye over the past few months.

President Javier Milei accused the lender’s Director for the Western Hemisphere, Rodrigo Valdés, of being too kind to the previous administration. Milei said he turned a blind eye to certain aspects of Argentina’s economic management because he belonged to the left-wing conference São Paulo Forum — a group Valdés is not affiliated with.

Caputo also said on June 11 that, that week, the administration would seek a new loan from the IMF the government would use to lift the country’s foreign exchange restrictions. However, In a press conference on July 11, the Fund’s spokesperson Julie Kozack backed Valdés and said there was “no specific timetable” for a new deal with Argentina.

This government is trapped in a huge problem. First, they're facing infighting between milei and his VP (congressmen close to her made official visits to imprisoned military officers that took part in disappearances, tortures and killings during the 70s), milei is kinda mad because maybe he thinks this isn't the time to reinstate former criminals or something I dunno. They're not seen together too much and it is said she hates milei's sister, Karina, who's more or less like Hitler's Martin Bormann at this point -- his personal secretary and main advisor. Those who like to throw theories around say that his VP will stage a soft coup by securing support from former president Mauricio Macri and some military officers.

Second, everything is falling apart on the economic front. This is the number 1 issue for them and for pretty much everyone else. Milei was voted into power because "he knows about economy" (he doesn't, his view is fully distorted and toxic) and therefore he should be able to fix it, but after 6 months of government it ain't looking good. Not only it's looking bad, but problems have worsened: Inflation slowed down to a single digit but at the expense of everything else, the Reserves are starved of US Dollars and so far they have secured no reliable source of foreign currency, the IMF being reluctant to give new loans is worrying to them. The economy is shrinking, productive activity is being reduced, consumption is slowing down, the buying power of the average argentinian has been demolished and poverty is well above 50%, just the other day I saw an statistic which indicates that about 300 people are pushed into homelesness each month in Buenos Aires alone. The honeymoon is over, and it's time to start showing positive results.. but they're unable to.

Ding ding! Well look at that! It turns out the economy isn't a pure mathematical thing after all. Actually, the economy is deeply embedded with society and it's material reality. Sure, you can talk about complicated issues like "fiscal deficit" all day long, but when bread skyrockets, fuel skyrockets and taxes become unpayable due to your policies, these discussions go through the window.

People will get impatient. You can't resist like this for too long. People really can't really take it anymore, with pulverized salaries, unrelenting inflation, the rent going insanely high due to deregulation and the government publicly announcing that people will have to sell their personal reserves of US Dollars just to pay taxes, for how long this madness can be sustained? It'll implode, sooner or later. Now they even announced that 12h hours work days are being discussed, they wont be able to introduce such thing but holy shit they're fucking terrible and give no hope to anyone at all lmao.

Unless they pull an absolute miracle, or the IMF gives in and begins to rescue Argentina's economy by sheer force of gigantic loans, there's no way out. They have showed positive attitudes towards the deregulation policies, but they have also warned about the boiling social panorama. They want to pillage the country for sure, but they don't want their people to get beheaded one after the other because they went a little too overdrive.