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he did itas he sarcastically called him JavierMiley In times of disagreements, the year began with leaps, but it ends almost at cruising speed. The diminutive was earned in the middle of Chubut’s fight with the Casa Rosada over the cutting of resources in the most dramatic part of the libertarian adjustment, at the beginning of 2024. It was when Ignacio Torres, governor of the province, the central character of that fight , threatened to stop selling oil to the rest of the country, which unleashed the fury of the President.
days ago, Chubut signed with the Nation a debt compensation mechanism that was celebrated by the government, and the Casa Rosada approved the creation of a free zone in Trelew that, in the past, they had not even achieved provincial heads of the same political color as the central power.
Torres returned last Wednesday from Paraguay, where he saw the president Santiago Pena. He traveled to hear first-hand the details of the fiscal relief program implemented by that country, where The Central Bank has plenty of dollars and there is official boasting about public encouragement for the development of private activity, the same thing that libertarian management seeks to recreate in Argentina.
The case of Chubut is an example of two-way conversion. There are many more. Those who until 15 days ago said anything to each other in the discussion about the budget, now channeled part of the problem without “catering,” according to Torres in his conversations with public officials. He knows it Santiago Caputothe vertex of the iron triangle with which the governor of Chubut has a common past and a frontal treatment.
Caputo is the multimodal terminal for claims that arrive from all over the political geography. A kind of facilitator used by those who have access to it. He can receive calls from deputies and senators, governors and even responds to referrals from his uncle, the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, for specific issues. Its ability to address diverse issues, however, is seen by official interlocutors with the Casa Rosada as a difficulty.
Rogelio Frigerio (Entre Ríos) put on a cucarda desired by the rest of his fellow governors last Monday. Next to Lisandro Catalánnumber two of Guillermo Francos in the Chief of Staff and in charge of relations with the provinces, signed an agreement for the Casa Rosada to transfer $2,000 million per month for his retirement fund.
The photo says a lot. The number, which did not satisfy Frigerio at all, represents the first step to pave a path of sorrows regarding one of the issues that bothers governors the most. It also shows the difficulties of talking about public money with a power distributed in several crowns.
It is likely that the governor of Entre Ríos, who in recent weeks also achieved modifications to the bidding document for the waterway, credits from Banco Nación and debt compensation, cannot say with complete certainty which national government official ultimately made each of those decisions.
It is a repeated story among the governors, who usually make catharsis in the WhatsApp group that brings together the 24. Those who best amortize the group therapy are Axel Kicillof (Buenos Aires) and Ricardo Quintela (Rioja). Not because of their political sign, but because of accounting: they lead the provinces that most depend on discretionary transfers from the State, something that It ended with Milei’s arrival to power.
For things to work out, then, you have to talk with Luis and Santiago Caputo, but also with Francos and Catalán; pass tangentially through Karina Milei or more directly through its terminals, Martín and Lule Menem. Almost all of them also contact the Secretary of the Treasury, Carlos Guberman, the main guardian of budget execution. At the intersection of that lobby appears the power for something to advance.
The cases of Torres and Frigerio show the management manual for next year. The Pink House will maintain bilateral negotiations with each of the provincesinstead of putting all the agreements together in something called a budget.
Milei reaches the end of the year with a triumph in the cultural battle with politics. The fact takes on greater relevance because it was not clear, at the beginning of the libertarian excursion, that the President would be able to impose those ideas. Today, the governors who came to their chair with the Together for Change team and the so-called “Peronists with a wig” They never present their list of orders without first showing everything they did to replicate in the small payment what Milei imposed at the national level.
An Excel spreadsheet that was circulated this week by the provinces shows that 13 governors reversed last year’s deficit situation in the first half of the year, to the point that no district ended up bankrupt. He cheer up Caputo was federalized.
This is how it will start next year. It will be an unprecedented experiment of which there are no recent memories in Argentina: The country would start 2025 with balanced accounts at the national level and also among the subfederal governments, which will use it as an argument to demand from the Casa Rosada everything that they believe it already collected, but did not pay them.
The fiscal balance experiment is the basis on which the Government hopes to build a more risky structure that allows us to continue normalizing the economy and, at the same time, encouraging the recovery of activity. Last week, Caputo raised a discussion in a closed meeting that began some time ago and was mentioned by LA NACION. The issue became public. It is about that banks can lend dollars for companies that are not directly linked to exports.
The first chapter of the saga that proposes to change the financial system that was born after the outbreak of 2001 has an origin until now unknown.
Javier Bolzicothe president of Adeba (national private banks), collected the internal dialogue of local banks, a large influential group that has among its main exponents the Galicia (Escasany) and to Macrowhose most prominent face is JBritish orgies (h)also president of River. He put it in writing and sent it to the president of the Central Bank, Santiago Bausiliin a note that, as reconstructed THE NATIONIt was released in the first half of last October.
One of the triggers of the 2001 crisis It was the fact that banks had lent dollars to companies and people who earned in pesos. With the devaluation that followed the exit from convertibility, everything worsened to an unimaginable level.
The proposal of the local banks, now, goes through partially relax those controls. They proposed two things in particular: that they be allowed to lend some of their dollars to companies that have taken exchange hedges and that they open the tap to give hard currency to large and small companies. They talk about 20% of its loanable capacity.
Instead, they propose leaving out the general public, perhaps one of the weakest legs of the system that accompanied the departure of Fernando De La Rúa, and not considering the smaller companies either. The dollars that the banks lend, they say, have to remain in the hands of actors with a certain sophistication in financial management.
There are two economic actors to whom they cannot lend today, but they have already been identified as possible beneficiaries in case there is an amnesty for past mistakes. It is about the importers and of the builders. It’s not a coincidence. A telephone in La Manzanita and a Buenos Aires apartment are negotiated in dollars.
Those who build buildings, in addition, today They can get the foreign currency in another way. For example, by placing negotiable obligations in dollars. It is a business that banks are missing out on and could create a new problem for the economy.
Since last January, dollar deposits have been growing. The question that arises now is How a financial institution will be able to retain the depositor’s money if you do not pay him a reasonable premium. For that, they say, they must be able to lend and charge for it.
What will be the price of the dollars lent to the private sector? The topic is also under discussion. Although the Government denies that it is going to validate a devaluation, a part of the market is still distrustful. They do not know if the official price will not have a moderate jump upon release from the stocks.
To dispel these doubts, The financial sector proposes taking the MEP dollar as the exchange ratewhich is usually higher than the official one. Whoever takes dollars could sell and buy them in the capital market. But the conservative wing of the Central Bank believes that This exchange rate crash could lead to legal stress unnecessary when there is less time left until the exit of the stocks.
The discussion is fueled by informal conversations at the highest level between actors in the financial system and government representatives. It is an issue that raises some differences between Economy and the Central Bank line. Not necessarily with your president, Santiago Bausiliwho, despite remaining cautious, is enthusiastic that when the dollars that are in the banks pass through his window they will increase the net reserves of the monetary entity.
There are also differences between the private sector actors themselves. Local banks believe that they matured after the explosion 23 years ago, and they let the Minister of Economy and the president of the BCRA know this.
On the other hand, the international ones, among which are the Santander, BBVA and ICBCThey still have fresh memories of early 2002, when hundreds of savers hit their buildings protected with metal curtains to get their savings back. They reject the idea.
Everyone will have a great thermometer to measure the performance of the system next month. Consumers will be able to pay in dollars at any store and the latter, deposit them or spend them again. The result of this novel experience will give some clue about whether the country is interested and prepared to use the North American currency. like circulating or will continue to choose it for hoarding.
In any case, dollars will flow, but taxes will continue to be paid in pesos. That detail, which may go unnoticed, is very important. It takes this into account, for example, International Monetary Fund (IMF)because it makes the peso start in a position before in the coin competition.
It’s ironic. The Government that won an election with the promise of dollarization, ended up making the necessary changes to give a revitalized present to the peso, which will be expensive. Weight was dead, but it was resurrected. Long live the weight.
