This Friday marked one year of assassination attempt against Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the most serious event in the 40 uninterrupted years of democracy in Argentina.
In a statement from the Solidarity Party entitled «Nunca más es Nunca más» we stated: «The bullet didn’t come out but it could have come out. The intention to eliminate another or another just because they think differently contradicts the most basic principles of the democratic pact inaugurated in 1983. After the savage civic-military dictatorship, a slogan was installed as unchangeable in Argentina: never again in the place of arguments could be the bullets. The battlefield should definitely be that of words, mobilization and public assemblies. The logic of elimination was supplanted by the exercise of difference, argument and tolerance”.
We also maintain that “the assassination attempt is involved in a climate of impunity, an obstructive and negligent investigation, and a judicial decision not to investigate the financial links that made it possible. There was also no accompaniment from the opposition, which did not even repudiate the fact. The lack of condemnation and the emergence of an atmosphere of secrecy is also part of the political violence in the country.»
The future is with more democracy and not returning to the times of violence. The future is with more distribution and equity and not returning to the times of neoliberal policies.
They have been insisting on the need to rebuild the income of various sectors of society, especially those who are at the base of the social pyramid. This is becoming more and more essential. But its implementation is not a magic pass: that income has to come from somewhere. Any redistributive policy involves transferring resources from one part of the economy and society to another. It’s what we always say: the way in which it is accumulated and distributed defines the result and meaning of most of the initiatives taken in economic and social matters.
Responding to that need, the government moved forward with a series of measures. Regarding the fixed sum of $60,000 payable in two installments for workers who earn less than $400,000 and which is not remunerative, its costs will be 100% absorbed by the State in the case of micro-enterprises and by a 50% in the case of small companies Only medium and large companies will have to face the total of these increases. The initiative benefits 5 and a half million people.
In addition, the $37,000 monthly bonus is implemented for the months of September, October and November, which reaches 7,800,000 retirees; the increase for workers in private homes, around 424,000 people; the improvement in the income of the Alimentar Card that reaches 2,400,000 Argentines; the increase in Potenciar Trabajo, which reaches 1,300,000 beneficiaries. These initiatives do not solve the fundamental problem of the sectors that suffer the most from inflation. But they do bring relief.
Our country bears the agreement with the IMF that tries, in each renegotiation, to apply various conditions. For example, the agency, according to the Minister of Economy, requested a 100% devaluation that ended up being 21.8% due to the firmness with which the Argentine government negotiated. Although there is always a change in relative prices whenever a devaluation is generated, in this case there were increases that have nothing to do with the rise in costs. There are increases in profitability in price makers and in the different members of the value chain that have a direct impact on the pocket of consumers. Therefore, it became even more necessary to recompose the income of the population, especially the most vulnerable sectors.
Of course: for these measures to have a distributive effect, it is essential that inflation does not continue to rise. But the rise in prices is not a meteorological phenomenon. Inflation is to the economy what fever is to a person, a symptom. For this reason, to discuss the problem of inflation, as it happens with fever, it is necessary to define why there is inflation. The causes must be established. Many operators insist that the rise in prices is a consequence of excessive money issuance. But this year, issuance is markedly less than inflation. They also claim that rising wages is what drives up prices. But salaries come running from behind and when they do very well they manage to tie and make up for what they lost. Something similar occurs with the exchange rate and with rates. That is to say: all the variables that we have always been told cause inflation currently tend to lag behind inflation.
And then why do prices go up? In these years, the cake to be distributed grew by 10.7% in 2021 and 5% in 2022. How is it possible that the cake is bigger and a good part of Argentines have smaller portions? On the one hand, it is explained by uncertainty and the speculation that takes advantage of it and, on the other, the distributive bid. But let’s go back: the pie grew, but the bottom of the social pyramid does not get a bigger slice of that pieto. Something had to be done. And what was done was to launch new redistribution measures: some of them are resisted by the sectors that, as a consequence of this redistribution, would earn a little less. Of course, measures are not enough. but they mark a way to go deeper.
According to a Credit Suisse report on global wealth, During 2022, 1% of the world population accounted for 44.5% of the planet’s wealth. The same document ensures that the situation is even more serious due to regional disparities. The world is rich, the capacity to generate wealth has increased, technology generates formidable opportunities, but accumulation and distribution policies continue to be regressive and favor very small portions of the world’s population. And, then, we see people emigrating to avoid starving or countries building walls to stop the entry of immigrants. The problem of the concentration of wealth and income is a global, regional and local phenomenon.
In Argentina, the government must insist on its redistribution policies in a scenario where the opposition proposes neoliberal measures that have already failed and radicalizes its hate speech and violence.
* National deputy for the Frente de Todos and president of the Solidarity Party.