Argentina's Macrisis: Income poverty rises to 40.8%, highest in 15 years

[sandensea]

The Catholic University of Argentina's Social Debt Observatory, which publishes a twice-annual survey of living conditions in the country, found that 40.8% of Argentines were living below the poverty line in the third quarter.

This was a sharp increase from the 33.6% recorded a year earlier, and the highest reading since 2005. Extreme poverty - those earning less than 40% of the poverty line - rose from 6.1% to 8.9%, the highest since 2006.

Poverty affected 32.1% of households. Those hardest hit were people in households led by unregistered workers (66.4%) and blue-collar workers (51.8%); some 59.5% of children are now poor.

Income poverty has risen steadily, from 28.2%, since the April 2018 collapse of a carry-trade debt bubble known locally as the "financial bicycle" plunged the country into its deepest recession since the 2001-02 convertibility crisis.

The 'bicycle' collapse forced President Mauricio Macri to turn to the IMF for an unprecedented $57 billion bailout; but of the $45 billion lent, an estimated $36 billion were ultimately used to finance capital flight.

Despite record harvests GDP has since fallen 7.4%, with unemployment rising to 10.6% - the highest since 2006. Those with jobs have seen real wages erode 19% as inflation more than doubled to over 50%.

The crisis has also affected Argentina's sizable middle class: So far this year, real retail sales are down 12.3% and new auto sales are down 43.4%.

Income poverty in those with middle-class occupations jumped from 4.9% last year, to 14.2% currently.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&tab=wT&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.baenegocios.com%2Feconomia-finanzas%2FUCA-la-pobreza-salto-al-408-y-alcanzo-el-nivel-mas-alto-de-la-decada-20191205-0015.html

Families sift through clothing at a barter market in Villa Carlos Paz, in central Argentina.

These improvised markets, known as trueques, had not been widely seen in around 15 years - but have made a comeback this year after President Mauricio Macri's "financial bicycle" debt bubble collapsed in 2018.

The resulting "Macrisis" led to his defeat in October - making Macri the first Argentine president to lose re-election.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Absolutely ghastly. New constitutions are going to have to be designed, it would seem.

We are being shown much more clearly, and much more quickly, criminal enterprises can conspire to manipulate their ways into office, and as soon as getting there, start wrecking ALL the social progress the country has needed so badly, and achieved, before the fascists arrive and start moving the money around for their own excesses, their own profit.

There is no way to avoid the obvious now, when it all happens so quickly, bringing untold tragedy for so many powerless people. Any system that allows someone like Macri to dismantle a system which had taken so long to pull out of the ditch the fascists had created earlier, and return it to the poverty it had tried so hard to overcome, has to be reworked because it can't be allowed to keep happening.

People have noticed the similarity in our own system here, under Trump, lately, too. These perverts refuse to follow the law. The law needs to be rethought to keep pace with new, more extreme forms of exploitation, and repudiation of all moral sensibility the right-wingers are proud to flaunt now that they can get away with it.

New measures are needed to address new evils, new destructiveness. Their power grabbing appears to be working out for them as long as they can get by with it. It's time they discover the end is near!

Inauguration Day in Buenos Aires can't get here nearly soon enough! Macri should be driven directly to prison, with his vicious, smug accomplices.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Seeing that photo brought a twinge of sadness, then I remembered stores are springing up here

in this country, all over the place, for "repurposing" items people have bought which still would be safe, and worthwhile for someone else to use. That is probably very much the same, isn't it?

These stores have really just started looming into view very recently.

It just hit me that the photo above just might be much closer to what is happening in the U.S. than a lot of people are aware.

I do recall seeing a program on PBS years ago concerning the catastrophe left behind by the military dictatorship, after it murdered over 30,000 suspected "leftists" and tortured far, far more than that, and the horror created in the country by the devastation of the economy after they were through with it, and satiated with the bloodlust they had indulged.

[sandensea]

3. True. Barter markets and (especially) thrift stores have become quite popular in the U.S since Bush

That debacle in '08/'09 really hit a lot of people hard, as you know.

And even though many have since recovered from the Dubya debacle, they still go to second-hand stores to save a little money. Nothing wrong with that, God knows.

So you can imagine in Argentina, where living standards were modest to begin with. Higher than in the rest of region (it was, anyway) - but still, always a lot of poverty.

This is another good reason they need to legalize abortion as soon as possible - and of course increase birth control/reproductive education funding (which Macri has cut).

Many poor families in Latin America see children as a way of creating a future source of income, as well as a source of pride in their otherwise sad circumstances. Plus, the father will often impose on the mother to have them - whether or not she wants any more.

President-elect Fernández, as you've heard, is very much pro-choice. But even in his own party, there's a sizable pro-life minority.

And in a close vote, if they join the right wingers (Macri's "Let's Change" ) in voting against the bill, that might just defeat it.

They'd have to wait until 2022 to bring it up again if that happens.

In the meantime, the economy needs real stimulus. People need it badly - and the country's bondholders do too.

"The dead," as Néstor Kirchner liked to say, "can't repay."