There are songs Argentines would totally forget if a currency crisis didn’t refresh them with surprising relevance. He sang “I can do anything for a dollar / Imagine what I’ll do for two, I’d give up my own lady / Be my own lord”. Ignacio Copani in 1991 under the influence of an insatiable devaluation. ‘for a dollar’ It could have been written last week when the American currency shook this city again. The markets roared and the government of ghosts Alberto Fernandez. The hearts and pockets of millions of people contemplating and imagining the statues on the banknotes trembled.
There is Argentina scarce international reserves and consumes more money than it produces. The thirst for dollars manifests itself in moments of deceptive calm and days of anxiety. hanging shops signs that this currency is accepted as a means of payment. But at what price? Two weeks ago, 388 pesos was needed to buy dollars on the black market. On April 17, 418 pesos were needed, and on Monday, the 24th of last month, 462 pesos were needed. The next day it jumped to 500 pesos and dropped to about 25 pesos. No one knows when the clocks are currency craze. You must always be prepared and it is never enough to restrain yourself.
In the financial center of this capital, the so-called city, you can feel the speed with which the price is moving. “Change, change,” shouts a man or woman on Florida street. “Dollar, euro, reais,” he adds. It is no longer hidden, as it was when the so-called prescriptions were written. “little trees” He secretly disclosed his presence and willingness to do business. black market. Now it’s about shouting loudly, being heard and being seen. Buyers and sellers often Colombians or Venezuelans. There are so many of them that an attentive ear can hear like a chorus singing the same thing. Once an amount has been agreed upon, the swap takes place inside a “cave” called this building and offices.
daily effect
It is this roller coaster that affects the prices of neighborhood businesses, releasing p.inflationary icons and nervous breakdowns Copani’s song grotesque mirror where many Argentines feel mirrored. “For a dollar I would join the CIA and my mother, father and sister would be killed.” This hidden unrest is the daughter of a past of setbacks. As Mariana Luzzi and Ariel Wilkis explain Dollar. History of an Argentine coin (1939-2019), this currency goes beyond its natural functions of saving, investing and real estate transactions. about “a public work of interpretation of economic and political reality that no citizen of the country can ignore”. Therefore, Taxi drivers and public workers talk dollarseven though they don’t own or hoard because it’s only a minority’s usufruct.
The dollar began to become an almost daily topic of conversation during the last dictatorship, where the local currency was artificially strengthened for purely speculative purposes. “Whoever bets on dollars loses”In 1981 the Minister of Economy said Lorenzo Sigaut. The desire to support the artificial price of the currency was in vain. The Argentine peso lost 30% of its value and overthrew the military regime. keeping Raul AlfonsinThe first president of the democratic transition was associated with runaways that forced him to advance the transfer of command. Three years later, Domingo horseHe was summoned by the Peronist Carlos Menem, an official of this dictatorship, to run the economy. it became clear that he did a pair between the peso and the dollar shattered ten years later “financial playground” this ended under the rule of Fernando de la Rúa.
The largest IMF loan
Interim president said, “He who invests dollars will get dollars” eduardo duhalde, when he barely took office in 2002. It was an unfulfilled short-term promise that deceived savers. Minister Cristina Kirchner He also had setbacks. Same as its successor, right-wing Mauricio MacriThe person who received the largest loan in the history of the International Monetary Fund (IMF): $45,000 million. Fernández refinanced this heavy debt and went politically bankrupt to meet his payment commitments. His loyalty to the right did not shy away from storms and was a harbinger of other storms.
Disappointment with Peronism opens doors for the first time. extreme right. Economist, former rock singer and tantric sex expert Javier Milei the central bank and the full dollarization of the economy as a panacea. It will no longer be a matter of occasionally thinking “in dollars” but of adopting one’s own currency as one’s own. Dollarization is not suitable for Argentina,” he said. Jorge Remes Leninov Duhalde, the Minister of Economy, who ended in 2002, fantasized, through devaluation, that one peso is equivalent to one dollar. Despite the warnings of many economists, Milei is positioning himself more and more.He could be better at polls and even the president. A stanza from that song by Copani may be prophetic: ‘For a dollar I’ll vote for you, for a dollar maybe I’ll bathe’.