Busy media day, with appearances on DW News (Germany) and Al Jazeera English. Both spots were on Argentina’s mounting currency crisis, with the peso losing half its value this year and suffering a really steep drop last week.
The year-long decline owes to a number of structural constraints, but last week’s near panic was caused in large part by some botched communications that created a lot of uncertainty and enhanced doubts about President Macri’s fiscal management. The government will try to rectify that this week, but losing value against the dollar is much easier than getting it all back. This is a closely watched number in Argentina, with really big political implications. The only “positive” for Macri is that the Kircheristas are themselves caught up in problems with serious corruption alleged and lots of concerning evidence coming to light.
.@tomlongphd of @PAISWarwick talks live to @AJEnglish from our @Globelynx studio on the Agerntinian government’s plan to cut minisitries: pic.twitter.com/slruDuMCsh
— Warwick Newsroom (@warwicknewsroom) September 3, 2018
I was looking at government budget plans that had the peso gradually falling to nearly 22 pesos to the dollar — by 2021. It’s now struggling to stay above 40. Those economic plans, like many others, have gone up in smoke.
I haven’t done much in this space for a while, but I will try to add a bit of summary about my time in Chile on the Fulbright from March to June, what I learned last week in Mexico for the Robert A. Pastor North American Research Initiative, and some very brief capsule reviews on some of the books I’ve been reading over the summer.
Tom Long, PhD 