Argentine cacerolazos* join Quebec cacerolazos**

since i gave up my place in buenos aires, i've been grossly negligent in posting on argentina... that doesn't mean, however, that i haven't been keeping up on argentina news... 

the on-going telenovela that is argentina is endlessly fascinating, particularly the exploits of its fashionista president, cristina fernandez de kirchner... cristina is a hoot and would be vastly amusing if she weren't leading a country of nearly 40 million people... she is in her second term following the two terms of her husband, nestor kirchner, who died unexpectedly midway through her first term... she won the last election with 54% of the vote and recently moved to shore up her populist credentials by nationalizing the ypf oil company and kicking out the principal shareholder, spain's repsol... but i've been wondering how long it would take argentines to grow tired of the inflation, corruption and general economic mismanagement that continues to be a hallmark not only of her presidency but of argentina governance in general, stretching back for generations... the straw that broke the camel's back was no doubt cristina's decree limiting u.s. dollar transactions, a decision that led to an enormous increase in capital flight... now, it looks like the good citizens of argentina have had it and have joined their quebecois brethren in making a joyful noise and returned to the street protests that characterized their response to the 2001 economic collapse ...


Pots and pans to protest corruption in Buenos Aires

Middle class Argentines protest with pots and pans against corruption, crime, inflation and the dollar clamp

For the third night in ten days angry Argentines took to the streets of Buenos Aires and other major cities banging pots and pans to protest corruption, rampant crime and insecurity, inflation and the dollar clamp in the midst of an economy that is showing clear signals of exhaustion and growing questions on the current course of affairs.

when i left buenos aires a year ago december, annual inflation was running over 28% and, from everything i've been reading, it hasn't slowed down a bit... i honestly don't know how ordinary argentines make it day-to-day in that economy... i first went there in 2004 and paid 5 pesos for a haircut and the peso-dollar exchange rate was 3-to-1... when i left in 2010, i was paying 25 pesos for a haircut and the exchange rate was 3.8-to-1... i have no idea what i would pay for a haircut today but i do know the exchange rate is now 4.4-to-1... one other thing i do know is that, in an attempt to "make it" financially, argentines cheat, lie, steal and stick it to each other as much as possible and when they're not sticking it to each other, they're REALLY sticking it to the tourists, which usually results in this...

Argentina rapidly becoming too expensive for foreign tourists

Argentina is rapidly becoming an expensive country for tourists and evidence of this is the declining number of tourists arriving in the country in the first months of the year while the number of Argentine travelling overseas is soaring, according to Mario Lielman, chair of the Buenos Aires Tourism and Travel Agencies Association.

i have a very warm spot in my heart for argentina and argentines but, as i've come to learn, argentina is, in many ways, its own worst enemy...

* A cacerolazo or cacerolada is a form of popular protest practised in certain Spanish-speaking countries – in particular Argentina, Chile and Uruguay – which consists in a group of people creating noise by banging pots, pans, and other utensils in order to call for attention. What is peculiar about this type of demonstration is that the people protest from their own homes, thus achieving a high level of support and participation.

** In 2012 in Québec, a province of Canada, citizens are currently using cacerolazo after the adoption on 18 May of Bill 78, an act which severely restricts rights to peacefully assemble. Bill 78 has raised the ire of the Quebec Bar Association, the Quebec Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, and others. While court challenges are underway, the "Casseroles" or "Pots and Pans Demonstrations" continue nightly in towns and cities across the province, concentrated in Montreal's various neighbourhoods. This joyful Montreal video of Cacerolazo in action has gone viral: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/25/montreal-pots-and-pans-video-bill-78_n_1546694.html

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Nationalizing the Federal Reserve - an idea whose time has come

actually, the goddam institution should have never been created in the form it now exists and we've now been handed the perfect opportunity to make things right...

Ellen Hodgson Brown has a solution for you.

Nationalize the Federal Reserve.

The lawyer and author of The Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System And How We Can Break Free told the Lone Star Iconoclast that the idea is more American than apple pie, mom, and baseball.

"The government used to create the money in the 18th century before the American Revolution. It was a brilliant system. The American colonists printed their own money, and the people think it is the government that creates the money, but it’s not. Today, it’s banks," she explained.

Right now, the Federal Reserve is a corporate institution owned and controlled by private banks chartered to create money through a process of fractional reserve lending to themselves. Money is created when these private banks lend up to 10 times their debt deposits from the Federal Reserve to public and private institutions plus interest. This money (aka debt) is, therefore, created out of thin air.

By "nationalization," Brown means having Congress turn the Federal Reserve into the acting central bank of the United States that prints money interest free.

[...]

"They’re never going to change the system when everybody is doing well," she said. "Everybody is ready for change, so we have to scramble in and make sure that change turns out the right way and doesn’t go into fascism and police state."

yeah...

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What's this crap about "taking an ownership stake"...? It's nationalization, fercryinoutloud...

no matter how much you polish a turd (see previous post)...

The Treasury Department is dramatically expanding the scope of its bailout of the financial system with a plan to take ownership stakes in the nation's insurance companies, signaling new concerns about a sector of the economy whose troubles until now have been overshadowed by the banking industry, government and industry sources said.

Insurers, including The Hartford, Prudential and MetLife, have pushed the Bush administration to include them in the plan. Many firms have taken losses from mortgage-related securities and other investments and are struggling to replenish their coffers.

Government officials worry that the collapse of a major insurer could further destabilize the financial system because of the crucial role the companies play in backstopping a wide range of financial transactions, although the direct impact on holders of car, life and other insurance policies would be modest, industry officials said.

The new initiative underscores the growing range of problems that Treasury is scrambling to address with the $700 billion allocated by Congress this month. The shape of the plan has changed repeatedly since Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. introduced it last month as an effort to rescue banks by buying their troubled mortgage-related assets. That original mandate has now been pushed aside by a plan to take equity stakes in banks and insurance companies, and other businesses are lobbying to be included.

The government has been forced to expand the plan partly because the federal guarantees previously given some institutions, such as banks, have put other companies and financial sectors at a disadvantage, making them less attractive to uneasy investors.

The government's power to choose winners and losers in the crisis was illustrated yesterday when the Cleveland-based bank National City was forced to sell itself when regulators turned down its request for a Treasury investment after deciding the firm was too weak to save, according to people familiar with the matter. Instead, the Treasury gave $7.7 billion to PNC Financial Services Group to help buy National City. It did not require that the money be used for new lending, the stated purpose of the government plan. PNC, which has a major presence in the Washington region, would become the fifth-largest bank in the country by deposits.

the size of the bailout seems to grow exponentially minute-by-minute... pretty soon, pharmacy chains are going to be included because people are cutting down on refilling their prescriptions...

With the economy in crisis, people are cutting back on their prescriptions because they can't afford them.

A recent study says the number of prescriptions filled through August of this year is down compared to the same time period last year.

and then we'll bail out the restaurants because people can't afford to eat out as much...

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Argentina nationalizes its pension fund and its biggest airline

not to be outdone by george bush, argentina announced two major nationalizations in the past week, altho' argentina, unlike the u.s., doesn't shy away from calling them "nationalizations" rather than characterizing them as "taking an ownership stake," the propaganda spin served up by the white house...

first the pension story...

Argentina's President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner on Tuesday (Oct 21) announced
The measure would force the country's 10 AFJPs to transfer the 94.4bn pesos (US$29.3bn) in assets they held as of end-September to social security agency ANSES.

Speaking before an audience at the ANSES headquarters on Tuesday afternoon, Fernández said the measure was a "strategic decision" taken to preserve Argentine retirees' savings. The new system will be called SIPA (Sistema Integrado Previsional Argentino).

On Monday, local daily Clarín broke the news, citing a document from ANSES that said recent losses in AFJP funds prompted by market volatility are evidence the system is "conceptually inadequate".

then the airline...

Argentina's government has decided to seize the country's biggest airline, Aerolineas Argentinas, because talks with the current owners over a price have broken down, a local newspaper reported.

Private Spanish travel group Marsans agreed in July to sell faltering Aerolineas Argentinas and its Austral unit to the government.

The two companies employ some 9,000 workers and operate about 80 percent of domestic flights. They also have debt worth an estimated USD$890 million.

Newspaper La Nacion said the government would soon announce its decision to expropriate the airlines, citing sources in the government, trade unions and the company.

"The agreement with Marsans got exhausted with time," an unnamed government official was quoted as saying.

just another example of the ripple effect of the collapse of the global financial markets...

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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be nationalized

here we go... the house of cards is comin' down...

Senior officials from the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve on Friday informed top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage-finance giants, that the government is preparing a plan to seize the two companies and place them in a conservatorship, officials and company executives briefed on the discussions said.

The plan, effectively a government bailout, was outlined in separate meetings that the chief executives were summoned to attend on Friday at the office of the companies’ new regulator. The executives were told that under the plan, they and their boards would be replaced, and their shareholders virtually wiped out, but that the companies would be able to continue functioning with the government generally standing behind their debt, people briefed on the discussions said.

It is not possible to calculate the cost of any government bailout, but the huge potential liabilities of the companies could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and make any rescue among the largest in United States history.

there's no way to overstate how big this is... simply put, it's HUGE... and, if our esteemed government has its way, it's us, joe and jane schmoe taxpayer, who will be the ones to pay...

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Holy crap! The UK is nationalising the Northern Rock bank!

for the UK to be making a move like this, things have GOT to be EVER SO MUCH WORSE than advertised...

The Treasury today announced that the beleaguered bank Northern Rock will be nationalised.

In a statement, the chancellor, Alistair Darling, said that "under the current market conditions" neither of the two last-minute bids - submitted by Richard Branson's Virgin consortium and the Northern Rock management team - delivered "sufficient value for money to the taxpayer".

It marks the failure of the government to reach a deal with the private sector over the future of the bank. Emergency legislation will now be rushed through parliament.

Mr Darling said the move met "our objective of protecting taxpayers' interests".

every time i hear a phrase like "protecting taxpayers' interests," my hand immediately grabs for my wallet...

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Evo Morales: from $300M to $2B a year revenue increase

Evo Morales

fantastic...! i've been rooting for evo from the start... may he continue to move in the light...

We Need Partners, Not Masters

Bolivian President Evo Morales visited Italy this week to receive a special award for his government's commitment to social and health issues. He has made these issues a "political priority."

The award was presented by the Pio Manzù Centre, a research organisation based in Rimini in northeast Italy that studies economic, scientific and social policies.

Besides meetings with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and foreign affairs minister Massimo D'Alema, Morales met members of the 30,000 Bolivian community in Rome, and members of Italian social movements.

Morales told Rome's Bolivians that before he was elected President in December 2005, Bolivia received 300 million dollars a year in tax revenues from the oil industry. Following nationalisation of energy reserves, Bolivia now receives 2 billion dollars annually.

The increased revenues are being used for education and healthcare, and for creation of a microcredit programme, Morales says.

"To increase revenues there is no need to create additional taxes," he told Claudia Diez de Medina from IPS, "but simply to make better use of our natural resources." For this, he said, "we need partners, not masters."

damn right...! now, if he can lead the country away from a dependence on carbon-based energy and toward cheap, sustainable energy resources, he will have pulled off a true miracle...



President Evo Morales dancing the cueca "Viva mi patria, Bolivia"
with a Cochabambinean "cholita" during his meeting with the Bolivian
community in Rome at the Protomoteca room in Campidoglio,
on 28 October 2007.
Credit: Claudia Diez de Medina, IPS.

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