Saturday, September 22, 2012

As Goes Argentina, So Goes US?

Argentines certainly like their economy to be screwed up.
In April, (Argentine President Cristina) Fernandez, who succeeded her late husband Nestor Kirchner in December 2007, seized control of (the country’s biggest oil producer) YPF from Spain’s Repsol SA, blaming lack of investment by her country’s biggest oil company for a doubling of fuel imports in 2011. During her first term, she expropriated $24 billion of private pension savings and nationalized Aerolineas Argentinas SA, the nation’s flagship airline.
So, she and her co-thugs robbed their own citizens subjects victims of $24,000,000,000, nationalized the major airline, and for some reason foreigners got leery of pouring more money into their reach. Now Fernandez has proven them right to be leery.
With Argentina locked out of global credit markets since its $95 billion default in 2001, Fernandez has tapped the bank’s holdings since 2010 to help pay the nation’s foreign debt. She plans to use $8 billion of reserves for the same purpose next year.
Argentina's government welched on their debts and is paying bills by spending capital robbed from their victims, but at least they have put Eva Peron back on their currency.
Argentina’s inflation data has been under question since early 2007, when Kirchner replaced senior staff at the national statistics agency. Last year the government fined more than a dozen researchers as much as 500,000 pesos ($107,000) each for reporting inflation rates that were higher than official data.

To avoid fines, economists now share their research with opposition lawmakers, who release a monthly report based on the data. The September report said prices rose 24 percent in August from a year earlier. Two days later, the statistics agency said annual inflation was 10 percent.
So, who do you trust? The government or your lying eyes?

Eliana Raszewski has more here at Bloomberg News.

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Thursday, September 20, 2012

Honey, You didn't Build That!

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