”Everyone is worse“, reads on the plinth of a newscast. “Buying ice cream, a luxury”says the one from another channel. The Argentines live days “Horror” due to skyrocketing prices, while Congress discusses two mammoth reform packages that have them “stunned”.
Javier Formoso, 45 years old, is one of them. “Hope? None. From what we are beginning to see, the terror is just beginning“, he said, while walking through a neighborhood fair in Buenos Aires.
The measures being discussed in Congress? “I don’t understand anything anymore,” Formoso responded, shrugging his shoulders. “This is the ‘every man for himself’”.
The Argentine president, the libertarian Javier Milei, took office more than a month ago hoping to stop inflation based on two major projects: a megadecree and a call “omnibus law”.
Both packages, together, add up to more than a thousand measures that seek to revolutionize the Argentine economic system by bringing the idea of the free market to practically all areas. The rules regulate topics as varied as lithium, divorce, the resale of tickets for massive shows and judges’ togas.
The multiplicity of regulations has also generated endless memes and jokes, like that of a radio station that recently “promulgated” the repeal of the 7 am alarm clock.
The megadecree is in force as long as it is not rejected by one of the two chambers of Congress, and is also the subject of numerous appeals for protection that accuse it of being unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the “omnibus law” is debated at the level of parliamentary committees and could pass to Deputies next week.
The discussion of both initiatives generates “a waterfall of information“, Belén Amadeo, a political scientist at the University of Buenos Aires, told AFP.
And as a result, “There is a huge noise, a huge confusion around these issues, which is not helping the average citizen to really understand what is happening.”.
Congress and the street
The constitutionalist Félix Lonigro criticized the scope of the Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU), despite agreeing with it, in part, because he considers many of its measures banal.
“I am struck by how Milei believes that some things can be so urgent, such as the reform of football clubs. I think it has to do with the character, with his intemperance, his anxiety, which she transfers to government management.”, he commented to AFP.
The same can be said of the omnibus law, whose supposedly urgent treatment can take weeks or months.
And while all this is being discussed within the walls of Congress, the news programs dedicate a large part of their day to recounting the loss of purchasing power of Argentines.
They transmit scenes from supermarkets, butcher shops or pharmacies zooming in on the prices of the products, and they disseminate reports on the price differences of beach balls or alfajores, a type of local cookie.
“The only thing people understand is that prices are going up; all other debates are not understood. They want to know how much the lettuce is going to go up, how much they are going to pay for rent, how much the gas, telephone, and electricity bills are going to go up.“Amadeo said.
“The economic need is very great and the social instability and especially the emotional instability is great.“added the expert.
“We must resist”
Milei himself put a grain of sand into that unease when he said that the fruits of his adjustment “they will see each other in 15 years”.
To begin with, it devalued the official exchange rate by more than 50%.
December inflation is historic: 25.5% for 211.4% year-on-year, the highest since June 1991 (200.7%), the official statistics agency Indec confirmed to AFP.
The inflation generated since December caused a 20.3% drop in salaries, according to a report from the Argentine Workers’ Central.
It means that, for example, “two out of ten people are not buying their medication“due to the increases, said the Minister of Health of the province of Buenos Aires, Nicolás Kreplak, on Thursday.
But this does not translate into an automatic drop in popularity for Milei. According to the consulting firm Analogies, 49.4% of Argentines have a positive image of the president, compared to 44.8% of negative image among 2,542 respondents in January.
At the same fair where Formoso lamented, retiree Lucrecia Rossi, 73, preferred to be patient. “You have to resist. Because it is a stranger who went up“he told AFP, referring to Milei. “It would seem that he has good will, let’s see”.
Source: Gestion
Ricardo is a renowned author and journalist, known for his exceptional writing on top-news stories. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he is known for his ability to deliver breaking news and insightful analysis on the most pressing issues of the day.
