| From: Thomas M. | 12/4/2023 10:37:06 AM | | | | | | Why Milei Must Shut Down The Argentina Central Bank
by Daniel Lacalle
dlacalle.com
The monumental fiscal and monetary hole that Peronists Massa and Fernández have left for Javier Milei is difficult to replicate. Ex-president Mauricio Macri himself explained that the inheritance Milei receives is “worse” than the one he found from Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Peronism leaves a country in ruins and with a massive time bomb for the next administration.
The enormous economic problems of Argentina start with a primary fiscal deficit of 3% of GDP and a total deficit (including interest expenses) exceeding 5% of GDP. Moreover, it is a structural deficit that cannot be reduced unless public spending is slashed. Public expenditure already accounts for 40% of GDP and has doubled in the era of Kirchnerism. If we analyze Argentina’s budget, up to 20% is purely political spending. The previous left-wing administration only cut spending on pensions, which were half of the adjustment in real terms, according to the Argentine Institute of Fiscal Analysis.
Massa and Fernández’s interventionist policies and price controls have left a shortage of meat and gasoline in a country rich in oil and livestock, demonstrating again what Milton Friedman said: “Will we read next that government control of prices has created a shortage of sand in the Sahara?”
We must not forget that the Fernandez administration leaves Argentina with an annual inflation rate of 140% following an insane increase in the monetary base of more than 485% in five years, according to the Central Bank of Argentina.
This confiscatory and extractive fiscal and monetary policies have created a disaster in the central bank reserves. Fernandez leaves a bankrupt central bank with negative net reserves of $12 billion and a time bomb in remunerated liabilities (Leliqs) that exceed 12% of GDP and effectively mean more money printing and inflation in the future, when they mature. With a country risk of 2,400 basis points, the self-proclaimed “socialism of the 21st century” government has left Argentina and its central bank officially bankrupt, with 40% of the population in poverty and with a failed currency.
Milei must now confront this poisoned legacy with determination and courage.
Macri, who suffered from the error of gradualism, recently argued that there was no room for mild measures, and he is right.
Milei has promised to shut down the central bank and dollarize the economy.
However, can it be accomplished?
The answer is yes. Absolutely.
To understand why Argentina must dollarize, the reader must know thatthe peso is a failed currency that even Argentine citizens reject. Most Argentine citizens already save what they can in US dollars and conduct all major transactions in the US currency, because they know that their local currency will be dissolved by government interventionism. The government has 15 different exchange rates for the peso, all fake, of course, all of which have only one objective: to steal from citizens their US dollars at a fake exchange rate.
The central bank is bankrupt, with negative net reserves, and the peso is a failed currency. Therefore, shutting down the central bank is essential, and the country needs to have an independent regulator without the power to print currency and monetize all the fiscal deficit, and it must eliminate the possibility of issuing the insane Leliq (remunerated debt) that destroys the currency today and in the future.
Shutting down the central bank requires an immediate and strong solution to the Leliqs, which will have to include a realistic approach to the monetary mismatch in a country where the “official exchange rate” is half the real market rate against the US dollar. Taking a bold step to recognize this monetary mismatch, closing the central bank, and ending the monetization of debt are three essential steps to end a path to the destruction of a country comparable to that of Venezuela. Milei understands this and knows that the US dollars that citizens save with enormous difficulty should flow back to the domestic economy by recognizing the monetary reality of the country making the US dollar a legal tender for all transactions.
The monetary issue is one side of a hugely problematic coin.
The fiscal problem needs to be addressed.
Milei needs to put an end to the bloated fiscal deficit, and that requires an adjustment that eliminates political spending without destroying pensions. This must involve selling some of the many inefficient and bloated public companies and the excess spending in purely political subsidies. Secondly, Milei must put an end to the ridiculous trade deficit. Argentina must slash the misguided protectionist and interventionist laws if the Peronists are open to the world to export all they can. To do this, it needs to put an end to the ridiculous “currency exchange rate clamp” and the 15 false exchange rates that the government uses to expropriate dollars from citizens and exporters with unfair rates and confiscations.
Taxes need to be lowered in a country that has 165 taxes and the highest tax wedge in the region, where small and medium-sized enterprises pay up to 100% of their sales.
Argentina must change what is currently a confiscatory and predatory state. Additionally, bureaucratic barriers, protectionist measures, and political subsidies must be removed. Furthermore, Milei must ensure legal certainty and an attractive and reliable regulatory framework where the ghost of expropriation and institutional theft does not return.
Milei’s challenges are many, and the opposition will try to sabotage all market-friendly reforms because many politicians in Argentina became very powerful and rich turning the country into a new Venezuela.
If Argentina wants to become a thriving economy that returns to prosperity, it needs a stable macroeconomic and monetary system. It must recognize it has a failed currency and a bankrupt central bank and implement the urgent measures required as quickly as possible. It will be difficult but not impossible, and the potential of the economy is enormous.
Argentina was a rich country made poor by socialism. It needs to abandon socialism to become rich again.
Tom |
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| From: Broken_Clock | 12/7/2023 1:58:15 PM | | | | | | 10 years on an Obummercare update is clear...
Joe says health insurance costs are plummeting! "because we ignore it!"-Bidenomics 101
++++++
marketplace.org
“Everyone’s looking at their pay stubs, and you’re getting kind of updated premiums from your employer,” he said.
"Those went up this year — by about 7% — according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Yet the health insurance index as measured by the CPI went down this year.
That’s because it doesn’t track health coverage premiums, said Steve Reed, an economist for the CPI program at the BLS. “It’s a little more complicated than one might expect or hope,” he said."
+++++++
Via Political Calculations blog,
The Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010. It was slowly implemented, going into full effect in 2014. One of the main goals of the law was to make health insurance more affordable for Americans, but has it worked?
One way to answer that question is to see how much Americans are paying for health insurance since the ACA became law and to compare that how much American households would otherwise have paid if the preceding trend for health insurance costs remained in place.
We can make comparison using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's annual Consumer Expenditure (CEX) Survey. The CEX has reported how much an average "consumer unit", which roughly corresponds to an American household, has paid for health insurance in each year from 1984 through 2022. It compares those data points with the trend based on the actual expenditures for health insurance from 2000 through 2010. Here's the chart:
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Compared to the pre-Affordable Care Act trend from 2000 through 2010, Americans household consumers paid 35% more on average for health insurance in 2022 than they would otherwise have paid based on the trend for these costs from 2000 through 2010.
How does that compare with the household consumers' other major health care expenditures? The chart is adapted from an older version and narrows in on the period from 2008 through 2022 to track the change in the average expenditures per American consumer unit for several health care expenditure categories. These categories include health insurance, medical services, drugs, and medical supplies.
[url=] [/url]
Through 2022, what American household consumers pay for drugs and medical supplies has changed very little, with medical supplies within $95 and drugs within $133 of their cost in 2008.
Expenditures for medical services has seen more growth over time. In 2013, the year before the Affordable Care Act took full effect, Americans paid just $69 more for medical services than they did in 2008. By 2019, that increased to $257, which then dipped to $137 in the pandemic year of 2020. What American consumer households pay for medical services has risen rapidly since, as of 2022 they reached $457 more than they paid in 2008.
But what Americans pay for health insurance has relentlessly risen in all but one year (2017). In 2013, just before the Affordable Care Act became fully operational, Americans paid $576 more for health insurance than they did in 2008. That jumpd immediately to $1,215 in 2014, and has since risen to be $2,190 more than what American consumer units paid for health insurance in 2008.
2022 is the most recent year for which we have figures available. The Census Bureau will collect the data for 2023 in March 2024 and will crunch the numbers for several months before reporting it all sometime in September 2024. |
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| From: Broken_Clock | 12/26/2023 11:05:32 PM | | | | | | Wilol cooler heads prevail or will the fascists complete their self destructive coup de tat, lead by the Bidenistas?
Robert Shiller Warns Of 'Cataclysm' For US Dollar Reserve Status If Confiscated Russian Assets Given To Ukraine
by Tyler Durden
Tuesday, Dec 26, 2023 - 02:30 PM
If the United States shifts frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, it would be cataclysmic for the US Dollar's status as the global reserve currency, says Nobel Prize winning Yale professor, Robert Shiller.
[url=] [/url]
"If America does this to Russia today… then tomorrow it can do this to anyone," he told Italian news outlet La Repubblica in an interview published Sunday.
"This will destroy the halo of security that surrounds the dollar and will be the first step towards de-dollarization, which many are increasingly confidently leaning toward, from China to developing countries, not to mention Russia itself," Schiller continued.
The US, EU, and allies have frozen some $300 billion of Russian foreign exchange reserve assets since last year after slapping the Kremlin with sanctions over the Ukraine war. Over the past year, various ideas have been tossed around regarding using the funds to aid Ukraine.
Earlier this month, the Financial Times described doing so as "a radical step that would open a new chapter in the west’s financial warfare against Moscow."
"I can’t convince myself that this [confiscation of Russian assets] is the right way," said Schiller, who received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2013, and is known for his expertise in behavioral economics and macroeconomics. He was named one of Bloomberg's '50 most influential people' in global finance.
"In addition to the fact that this will be confirmation for the Russian leader that what is happening in Ukraine is a proxy war, it could paradoxically turn against America and the entire West," he continued, adding that giving confiscated Russian assets to Ukraine would become "a cataclysm for the current dollar-dominated economic system."
Russia has called the confiscation unlawful, and warned that any country considering participating in sanctions should expect a mirror response from Moscow. |
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| From: Bid Buster | 2/17/2024 1:19:21 AM | | | | | | | Is Mythman still around? I'm just wondering if Maria still spreads her legs at his waving command. |
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| From: Broken_Clock | 3/1/2024 10:20:45 PM | | | | | | You can easily determine how brainwashed you were during covid. Figure each month on a sliding scale...
Knew right off : mucho common sense
March 2020: skeptical but jury still out
April : WTF!
May : Something is really wrong here?
June : I'm buying Ivermectin
Still believe the hype?
Urine Idiot!
It’s Official: We Can Pretty Much Treat Covid Like the Flu Now. Here’s a Guide.
New guidelines from the CDC Friday bring Covid precautions in line with those of other respiratory viruses
wsj.com
yes, Fauci should be hung. |
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| To: Thomas M. who wrote (436126) | 3/5/2024 5:39:07 PM | | From: Thomas M. | | | | Argentina Sees First Monthly Budget Surplus In 12 Years
The Argentine government in January saw its first monthly budget surplus in nearly 12 years, as new President Javier Milei continues to push for strong spending cuts, the Economy Ministry announced.
January was the first full month in office for Milei, a far-right libertarian who took office in December, and it ended with a positive balance for public-sector finances of $589 million at the official exchange rate, the government said late Friday.
The figure includes payment of interest on the public debt.
It is "the first (monthly) financial surplus since August 2012, and the first surplus for a January since 2011," the Economy Ministry said, according to the official Telam news agency.
Milei has been negotiating with the International Monetary Fund over its $44 billion loan and has vowed to achieve balance in public finances this year.
"The zero deficit is not negotiable," Economy Minister Luis Caputo said Friday on X, the former Twitter.
Milei, an economist, has advocated sharp cuts in spending and a reduction of public debt on the way to a dollarization of the economy.
Following a 50 percent devaluation of the peso, a lifting of price controls and strong rate increases, Argentina saw an inflation rate for January of 20.6 percent, with a 12-month rate of 254.2 percent.
The year 2023, the final year of the center-left government of Alberto Fernandez, ended with a 211 percent inflation rate.
With poverty affecting 45 percent of the population, Milei has predicted an economic rebound within three months.
barrons.com
Tom |
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| From: Thomas M. | 5/4/2024 7:04:29 PM | | | | | | Jared Bernstein was the chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. Now he is President Joe Biden's Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Tom |
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| To: Thomas M. who wrote (436134) | 5/6/2024 1:19:59 AM | | From: Perspective | | | | Scary.
I could've explained the relationship between the government issuing bonds and the Fed printing money better than that when I was in ninth grade...
Meritocracy has been turned completely upside down... |
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