And, yes, I DO take it personally: Not-so-amazing divergence of opinion on Argentina's presidential election

prompted by Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's victory in this past sunday's presidential election in argentina, the pundits weigh in, and a fascinating juxtaposition of perspectives it is...

here's one point of view that paints a very positive picture of how argentina's managed its recovery by repudiating the imf and its policies, but neglects to mention anything about the seamy reality that underlies literally everything in the country...

from the la times op-ed page...

[T]he authorities made sure that their currency didn't rise too high and didn't swing wildly as a result of movements in financial markets. (Here in the U.S., where we have shed more than 3 million manufacturing jobs since 2001 -- the bulk of them lost because of an overvalued dollar -- we might take note.) They also kept interest rates low and made growth, rather than the lowest possible inflation, the top priority.

These policies are mostly a no-no among central bankers and economists, and Argentina had a few showdowns with the IMF, including a brief temporary default to the fund in September 2003. But the fund backed down, and most of the defaulted international creditors ended up settling for 35 cents on the dollar in 2005.

Of course, Argentina hasn't gotten a lot of foreign direct investment in the last five years, and it cannot directly borrow in international bond markets. But these handicaps -- which if you read the business press should spell doom -- turned out not to be all that important. Nor are they permanent. In time, foreign investors and lenders will find their way back to a fast-growing economy.

[...]

Getting basic macroeconomic policies right for your own economy is a lot more important than pleasing international financial markets. That goes double for failed international financial institutions like the IMF. The fund not only oversaw the train wreck that collapsed Argentina's economy from 1998 to 2002, it opposed the major policies that drove Argentina's remarkable recovery.

The fact that Argentina's break with the IMF and its policies was key to the country's economic success also has implications for other countries. Over the last quarter of a century, the fund and its allied institutions -- run from Washington -- have presided over Latin America's worst long-term growth performance in more than a century. As a result, most governments in the region have moved away from the IMF. Its loan portfolio in the region has shrunk from $49 billion just four years ago to less than $1 billion today. But it still holds sway in many poor countries.

Argentina's new government will face challenges, the kind brought about by a fast-growing economy: keeping inflation in check and assuring adequate supplies of energy. But these problems are manageable. Of course, there are analysts who argue otherwise, but their forecasts over the last five years have not been very accurate.

so, ya got that...? bad imf, good argentina...

now, let's jump across the country to the wapo op-ed page, where we're offered the standard beltway point of view...

Argentina -- and Ms. Fernandez de Kirchner's Peronist party -- still have not learned the lessons of the country's history. That could make the coming years more turbulent.

[...]

For the last century, Argentina has lived by a cycle of economic boom and bust, driven by prices for its agricultural exports, by the fondness of its governments for populist policies and by its resistance to playing by the usual rules of global financial markets. The boom under Mr. Kirchner, which followed the devastating bust of 2001, follows the usual pattern: It has been fueled by high prices for Argentine beef, wheat and soybeans, and by Mr. Kirchner's stiffing of international creditors, vast government spending, and controls on energy and food prices. The predictable result has been disinvestment in the energy sector that already has caused brownouts and mounting inflation that is probably double the official estimate of 9 percent annually.

The Kirchners managed to get through the election season by manipulating the inflation figures and bullying supermarkets into keeping prices down.

[...]

Ms. Fernandez de Kirchner ... can use her mandate to deliver the tough medicine the economy needs -- including energy price and interest rate increases, a revaluation of the currency and a reconciliation with the International Monetary Fund, which holds the key to renewed foreign investment. Or she can pursue her husband's populist course until it produces another crash.

message from the wapo...? good imf, bad argentina...

even tho' i live there part-time, i am not going to present myself as a fount of argentina truth, but i do know a few things... there's a little truth in both points of view as well as some things left out... imf policies have seriously damaged many countries, although perhaps none as spectacularly as argentina... was it all the imf's fault...? of course not, but the imf does deserve a large portion of the blame... does argentina need to reconcile with the imf...? maybe, and they're trying, but i think they're now smart enough to not ever again let the imf dictate their macroeconomic policies... are price controls a good way to combat inflation...? honestly, i don't know... my guess is, probably not... is inflation higher than the government reports...? my shoe leather analysis says, oh, yeah... when i am now paying almost double cab fare, a 2/3 increase for a bag of bran cereal and a liter of drinkable yogurt, i ain't buyin' the 9% figure...

naturally, the wapo also gets in a dig about hugo chávez, venezuela and the bolivarian revolution, but neither writer talks about argentina's alliance with venezuela, both for economic development loans and energy supplies, an important omission, imho... also, neither article mentions the on-going and seemingly unmanageable corruption at all levels of argentina society... basically, i have found the average argentine to be honest, decent and well-intended, but they have become so jaded and resigned to ever-present corruption that most of them just throw up their hands, a state of mind that leads to this, another fact that neither article deigned to mention...