The former vice minister of Economy Emmanuel Alvarez Agis analyzed the first months of the president’s economic management Javier Miley. Although he appreciated that it was “pragmatic“When it comes to avoiding hyperinflation, the former official stated that he has many differences with the Head of State. Thus, he criticized him for not carry out a control on the market after having made a devaluation, particularly in sectors such as prepaid and fuel.
“Argentina did not enter hyperinflation because Milei had the pragmatism to abandon dollarization and the chainsaw raising taxes,” indicated the economist this Thursday, April 25. He later commented that this was not the libertarian’s original plan, but that he used other tools and said that some friends told him: “Luckily the forces of heaven they hired an earthling and they made him Minister of Economy”, in reference to Luis Caputo.
“Many people tell him: ‘It’s a tourniquet.’ And yes, the economy was bleeding“, assessed the person who accompanied Axel Kicillof in the Ministry of Economy during 2013 and 2015. “The problem is Which hospital do you want to take me to? once you made me that tourniquet; I don’t like who Milei wants to take us to,” Álvarez Agis clarified in dialogue with Ernesto Tenembaum in And now who can help us? (Radio With You).
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Carlos Melconian responded to Javier Milei: “There are still no noodles and tuco: reality proves me right”
“My evaluation of these four months of covering the pesos and dollars so as not to explode through the air it is positive”, commented the also director of the Consulting PxQalthough he maintained that “it was not the best thing to do” and that in this adjustment “the caste is defending each of its privileges”.
He then explained that while Justice “still not paying profits“and the rich continue to receive “gas and electricity less than what it costs”, and that in the adjustment “half was paid by retireesa quarter paid for it public works and the companies that make fortunes followed receiving subsidies”.
Javier Milei at the Libertad Foundation.
“It doesn’t seem right to me. Your plan can be broken. You can go to hell“, he argued by maintaining that there is a flip side to the achievements that the President exhibited on national television with respect to the social situation.
“I am going to applaud the drop in inflation if that is with unemployment of 7 or 8, not 14. We are marching towards a unemployment problem because the government chose to generate a mega-recession by not controlling prices”he added.
Not intervening in the market with “carrot and stick”
In another part of the interview, who also served as Undersecretary of Economic Programming between 2011 and 2013 questioned that the leader of La Libertad Avanza had not applied any control over the market after the devaluation. “You can’t put the dollar at $800 and tell two sectors, prepaid and gasoline, that in no way operate within a framework of competition, let them do what they want with the prices. Not because they are avaricious and greedy, but there are three or four of them and they occupy 90% of the market,” he said.
According to his vision, he proposed that the North American currency should have been raised to $1000 and agreed on prices and wages, with “much higher rates at the beginningbut much lower for the poor” but compensating for pensions and social plans.
Economist Emmanuel Álvarez Agis.
“They are doing stick and carrot“, assured Álvarez Agis, and relativized the fact that some leaders have compared Caputo with the former Secretary of Internal Trade, Guillermo Moreno.
“If it works I don’t care if it’s Caputo, Moreno, Lenin, Trotsky or Friedman. Because not even Milton Friedman was that stupid to think that in the short term… you can’t let the market go anywhere,” he said in reference to one of the economists. beloved by Miles.
“One tells me: ‘But it would be intervene in the market‘. Well they are doing now: late and wrong. They told the oil companies that they cannot raise gasoline prices as much as they want and they accepted; The prepaid ones were told that they have to go back and they accepted; They got together with the supermarkets and told them that they were opening imports,” he concluded.
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