The use of inflation by the government, to do dirty work, requires a couple of essential elements: that people perceive it almost as an autonomous phenomenon, for which entrepreneurs can ideally be blamed, and that it has a rhythm that makes it go unnoticed, buffered by the illusion of parity that make up for it sometime. In Argentina, all those margins have been spent. Inflation has passed the limit of what is tolerable. And it's not a question of abstract perception. It is the acceleration of increases that generates fear, anxiety and panic. The value of the coin is destroyed before our eyes. In a single month there are three, four or five remarks of the same product. And while the water enters the ship, the government wants to fix the damage to the ship's hull by putting band-aids. Poor of us. In fact, more and more poor of us.
However, this is not the issue that seriously reveals to the government. For if they were serious, first, they would not have irresponsibly allowed prices to reach this level; secondly, because if they were serious, they would not have the improvisation and imperience that they display before everyone's eyes.
For things to happen you have to be able to do them, know how to do them and above all want to do them. All three items are doubtful with this government. They can't do what they don't have an internal agreement to do, they can't do what they don't know how to do because they have basically turned out to be useless, and they just don't want to do it. So what is this overplayed display of a war discourse against the price hike? More of the same: special effects to make it look like they do something. Unfortunately, the only thing that extinguishes the fire is to stop throwing gasoline and start minimally throwing water. That, in the economy, is an ordering that requires exemplarity, at least some wisdom, and spending less.
For a force that considers that governing is spending no matter how and they have shown it by accelerating the broadcast with total irresponsibility in the election campaign regardless of the consequences we are now experiencing, that puts them in a territory of heresy. If arriving in the state is taking boxes, fighting over plots of power, who distributes the most, and turning bureaucratic springs into hunting grounds, how can we ask them to change that cosmogony of the state's tit, for a skinny cow looking sad from the other side of the wire.
But while people suffer and despair because money is not enough, while the remarks no longer only recall the beginnings of hyperinflation for those who experienced it, but reignite fears that were thought to have been overcome about the possibility of it happening again, the government is at war. And not with the prices. That's sarasa. Those are blanks. People already know that price agreements are like containing a tsunami with three bags of sand. And the wave is big, very big. Then at the same time as the situation desperates, the hypocrisy of the officials feels like a tease. They have a notorious talent for bringing out the worst in people's spirits.
At the summits of power, the most important figures wage a duel that only reveals what power is for them and does not seem to have anything to do with the people. It's about winning to use the springs, resources and protection of the state to gain personal advantage. People appear in speeches and speeches, if necessary, are changed.
It's funny, Cristina Kirchner was able to win in 2019 because she offered society a moderate formula, staging an alleged learning about the blessings of Peronist unity, which had made her enter the magnanimous territory of greatness, crowning even a reprobate, who had in fact most criticized her. The flan expired beforehand was called Alberto Moderado.
Alberto Moderado, was a product of delicious marketing. A lot of people bought it. It came with cream and dulce de leche, he prayed a lovely Peronist packaging; and as a bonus track, there was a lot of roast in the fridge. The Moderate Albert filled editorials of the newspapers, enraptured young people keen on the cynicism of politics who also swallowed the toad, and was blessed even in the Vatican.
We now know, thanks to the letter of the Christinist intellectuals, what was already suspected: moderation is the devil's thing and it is the complete opposite of the people.
The headline “Moderation or People”, the letter that directly vetoes the government of Alberto Fernández, could not be more explicit. The Moderate Alberto wasn't the town. And that's why Cristina intervened it from the beginning. She was slow to prove it because the pandemic put her under close observation. And when he thought he had the power, she began to show him who was in charge. Exhibiting his domination, depopulating the cabinet of the faithful, forcing him to humiliate scenes of submission and the permanent wear and tear of contradiction.
Alberto Moderado was only a marketing product, a hook for giles or a shortcut for the very alive. Too bad the lead actor believed the role. Now, two years later, they inform him that moderation, that wonderful property that appeared in the electoral vial smells like the most satanic of sulphurs and exorcism must be executed.
In the next few hours, we will see the militants of hard Kirchnerism criticize their own President, almost as much or more than Macri. Cristina, who admires both the Russians and the Chinese, would have wanted to secure power until 2036 as Vladimir, the Terrible Putin or for life as everything indicates Xi will achieve, “I make myself the jack with war” Jinping. Those wonderful autocracies that inspire the vice president like nothing else.
But Cristina Eterna is also a product that came out of the market. Gaining time and accepting finiteness is more expensive and less elegant. If you have to betray or break, it's done. The important thing is not unity, nor inflation, nor the people. The important thing is to secure the next candidacy, to have the cow tied up in the next securities, to retain the voters who guarantee the next few years in the state conchavo. Overall, there will always be an explanation, a culprit, and a lot of discursive elasticity. What you don't touch is the box. What is avoided is jail. What is being attacked is justice.
As they say in football, the President depends on himself. The account of his ambition is heavier than the Fund's surcharges. When she said yes to Cristina, going against everything she had expressed in the last decade, she underestimated her. Now he realizes that the presidency is not collegiate. He has to go out and say that he is the president. You have to explain that this is how the Republic works. In the midst of enormous political loneliness, he will have to decide whether to abide by those words at least. Because he said so much in the wind that his word is more devalued than the peso.
The charade is over. Moderation was never in Cristina's dictionary. And the king was naked. “Life put me here, what do you want me to do?” , the President told a journalist. The reality is that Cristina put it there, but now she must decide whether to take the constitutional letter against her designs. If power is to be in control of one's own decisions, for Alberto Fernández, it is now or never.
Perhaps, in these definitive hours, it would help the first president to remember one of General San Martín's maxims: “You will be what you should be or else, you will be nothing”. And you better hurry, because far from the palace, on the street, the oven is not for buns, and the bread comes out very expensive.
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