Roberto Cachanosky criticized the 2023 Budget and revealed a worrying fact about the Argentine economy

The Economist Robert Cachanosky questioned this Friday, in LN+, the draft budget presented, outlined a “complex” diagnosis for the third quarter and pointed out that the Government has a difficult scenario while inflation accelerates. The specialist did, however, realize the structural problems that the country has and allowed to coincide with a recent statement by Cristina Kirchner, who pointed out that “the country has no currency.” “Argentina does not have a currency in the strict sense of the word because weight is not a store of value”, he summarized. The specialist pondered, however, that the lack of a strong currency in the country is part of a structural problem that crosses several governments, including Kirchnerism. “The monetary destruction of Argentina is ferocious”, he pointed out. Cachanosky consigned an impressive figure. “Cumulative inflation in Argentina from 1935 to now is 590 billion%”, he indicated. At the same time, he discouraged trying to measure that number. “The only thing that number can tell you is that we don’t have currency,” he added. While the new Budget is being discussed and the Government has to adjust to the goals agreed with the International Monetary Fund, he also explained the size of the subsidies to energy, transportation and other areas that the Government has granted since 2006, when the subsidies began to be applied. Cachanosky maintained that, from 2006 to now, the State has disbursed “$145 billion” in energy subsidies. At the same time, he indicated that in concept of economic subsidies to other areas, such as transportation, the amount amounts to “$240 billion”.Inflation in South American countries in August. Video capture In any case, he pointed out that the country does not only have a “fiscal problem” and emphasized the debt that the Central Bank maintains with the banks due to the sub in the interest rate. He specified that the effective annual rate is above 100%. “There are 7.5 billion pesos of debt. That debt accrues, generates a loss when paying that interest rate, equivalent to 4 points of the gross product. That is more than the primary deficit that the Government is forecasting in the budget”, he explained. And he launched: “That debt is unpayable.” In that line he recalled when Alberto Fernández campaigned he had promised to generate savings in the payment of the interests of the leliq to give medicines to retirees. “Today he pays three times more than he was paying [Mauricio] macri”, he pointed out. In this context, Cachanosky was critical of the 2023 Budget and assured that its content “is smoke” and insisted that there is a lack of clear direction. For instance, he compared it to the presentation of the Austral Plan in 1985. “At that moment, Raúl Alfonsín went out on the balcony of the Casa Rosada, said that whatever was necessary would be privatized, spoke of the war economy, and announced a series of of things that were not fulfilled, but it gave an overview,” he said. The economist anticipated a “complicated quarter” for the Government in the last part of the year with a drop in real wages, and consumption problems. He stressed that the dollars that the field is liquidating now “will not be at the end of the year” and maintained that the rise in prices will not slow down. “Inflation is not going to drop below 5% or 6% per month.” However, he questioned the government’s discourse regarding the effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine as the only explanation for the rise in prices in the country. In particular, he crossed the argument that the problem in the country is due to “the price markers”. In his exposition, Cachanosky cited the monthly inflation data that had the countries of the region. While the Argentina had a 7% increase in prices, Chile had 1.2%, Uruguay 0.8%, Paraguay 0.4%, and Brazil -0.3%. “The price markers are only here,” he said ironically.