Der Weg abwärts - Argentinien (E)

verfasst von Popeye, 09.09.2002, 14:00

-->Der nachstehende Artikel aus dem Economist vom 5.9.02 beschreibt im Detail welche Maßnahmen Argentinien diskutiert und implementiert werden. Da muß man lange zurückdenken, um vergleichbare Präzedenzfälle zu finden - ca. 60-70 Jahre!



Carving up the scraps of power
Sep 5th 2002 | BUENOS AIRES
From The Economist print edition





President Eduardo Duhalde's authority to cut a
deal with the IMF is seeping away, challenged by
Congress and courts

Get article background

FOR months, Eduardo Duhalde, Argentina's president,
and his finance officials promised that an IMF deal
was imminent. Recently, it seemed that this might
even be true. But it has become clear that for every
obstacle the government painstakingly surmounts,
Argentina's Congress and its courts are capable of
erecting another one. With a presidential election not
due until March, and with no convincing candidates
emerging, the prospect of Argentina recovering from
its shocking economic collapse seems to recede like a
mirage on an endless Pampas road.

The government is still going through the motions of
trying to reach an agreement with the IMF which
would at least roll over Argentina's obligations to the
Fund itself. This week yet another IMF mission was in
Buenos Aires. Roberto Lavagna, the economy
minister, earlier made great play of writing his own
draft letter of intent (though such documents are
normally quietly negotiated). But the IMF dashed his
hopes."In the monetary area and the banking area
and some aspects of the legal side, clearly there are
issues remaining," the Fund's spokesman, Thomas
Dawson, said last week. He added that the two sides
were not"talking about any kind of final timetable"
for a deal.

The government thinks this unfair. The economy
seems to have stopped shrinking at last. Since June,
the peso has hovered close to 3.60 to the dollar.
Although that is a devaluation of 72% since January,
inflation remains restrained. The central bank's
reserves have risen a little. So have tax revenues.
The central government had a budget surplus of
200m pesos in July, though that would disappear if
Argentina resumed debt payments. Moreover, with
financial turbulence spreading to Uruguay and Brazil
(both of which promptly received IMF bail-outs), the
case for helping Argentina seemed to be stronger.

But the government has yet to
show that it has a coherent
economic programme. In
particular, it has not decided
what to do about bank deposits
frozen by a previous government
last December. Congress, having
blocked a plan to turn these into
bonds, has turned its attention
to bank bashing. The average
Argentine still blames the banks
for the confiscation of savings
(though this was decreed by the
government) and much else
besides. The banks, in turn,
having written off huge losses,
want reassurance that
Argentines still want a banking system.

Congress recently extended for three months a ban
on mortgage foreclosures and the seizing of debtors'
cars. The Senate unanimously approved a bill
reinstating a 2% tax on interest and commissions for
a bankrupt trade-union health scheme. (At least one
banker is reported to have been told that this
measure could be scrapped-for a fee). Another
measure would make foreign banks' head offices
liable for new deposits in their Argentine branches.
Until such measures are withdrawn, the banks want
any deal with the IMF halted. But they have agreed
with the government to delay indexing most loans to
inflation.

Then there are the courts. On taking office in
January, Mr Duhalde misguidedly set in motion the
impeachment of the Supreme Court. But having failed
to raise the necessary two-thirds majority in
Congress, he is now desperately lobbying to halt this
because the court is bloody-mindedly ruling
government measures unconstitutional. Last month,
it struck down a 13% cut in government salaries and
pensions made last year. That creates a large fiscal
hole. The court may also reverse a government
decree which converted dollar deposits into pesos.
That would mark the end of the banking system,
whose dollar-denominated assets were turned into
(devalued) pesos at par.

The creeping paralysis of government has led to calls
for the presidential election to be brought forward.
But the candidacy of the ruling Peronist party is being
squabbled over by half a dozen contenders. None are
impressive. Leading the polls, but with less than
20%, is Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, who as interim
president in December declared the debt default, and
was previously the satrap of the western province of
San Luis for 18 years.

Argentines are clamouring for new leaders. But none
has yet appeared. Increasingly, authority is slipping
back to the provinces, where it belonged for the first
chaotic half-century of the country's independent life.
The danger Argentina faces is one of stasis, in which
the election fails to produce a government capable of
imposing its will, or of starting to rebuild the
country's discredited institutions. No wonder that the
IMF is now demanding"political consensus" for any
deal.

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gesamter Thread:

• Der Weg abwärts - Argentinien (E) - Popeye, 09.09.2002, 14:00
  • Re: Komisch. Die argentinischen Bonds steigen nämlich schon wieder. (owT) - Ecki1, 09.09.2002, 14:19
    • Re: Komisch. Die argentinischen Bonds steigen nämlich schon wieder. (owT) - tas, 09.09.2002, 15:05
      • Re: Komisch. Die argentinischen Bonds steigen nämlich schon wieder. (owT) - Ecki1, 09.09.2002, 15:31