"Do not worry, be happy": the origin of the crisis and the future

In his latest book
Sing the fair,
Carlos Melconian reveals that the title of the presentation of the economic proposals of
Federico Sturzenegger at
Mauricio Macri in the months before integrating change and becoming president of the Central Bank was
"Do not worry, be happy." Do not worry, be happy. In the primordial underestimation of the crisis, the calamity of the end was already nesting.

To put it in the will of the will on reality is a recurring weakness of Argentine politics. Four years after this takeover, as a prelude to a change of government, part of the Alberto Fernández team's confidence in the success of a possible reprogramming of the debt rests on the certainty that payments to the Fund have become a problem as serious for Argentina as it has become a huge headache for the Fund. The loan to Argentina accounts for more than half of the IMF's liabilities. So, in Fernández's offices, remember John Maynard Keynes' sentence: "If I owe you a pound, I have a problem, but if I owe you a million, the problem is yours."

The IMF seems willing to postpone the $ 5,400 million committed and deal directly with the president confirming the October elections. The final answer will be given by Minister Hernán Lacunza during his trip to Washington at the end of the month.

The peculiarity is that the IMF is not a bank. International politics weighs more on its decisions than financial forecasts. This condition causes Keynes' sentence not to fully apply. Macri was supported by his relationship with Donald Trump and his efforts within the Treasury Department. Therefore, the message sent last week by the American ambbadador to Argentina, Edward Prado, on the phone of Alberto Fernández was recorded with the enthusiasm of a door that s'. opens. Its contents announced the latest $ 395 million loan approved by the World Bank, but for the candidate, it meant a signal from Washington. Just a start.

Fernandez had previously spoken to lower-ranking officials at the US Embbady. Concerns about Argentina's position on the situation in Venezuela have emerged since the first talks. As at each stage, the candidate is obliged to practice balance. Faced with the Venezuelan crisis, he chose to distance himself from the Lima group, created in 2017 to isolate the regime and condemn the failure of the constitutional order, to adopt a position closer to the government. Uruguay and Mexico, which paves the way for dialogue. with the government of Nicolás Maduro as a way out. The game of counterweights can be used to find allies in the region while avoiding a direct condemnation that generates an obvious contradiction with the Chavez alliance proclaimed by La Cámpora. But is it enough to jeopardize Washington's support in the inevitable negotiations with the IMF? "This will be seen in the first 100 days of the government," answers a counselor to the candidate.

At the same time, the thorny skein of Argentine debt recommends avoiding voluntarism as a solution, to vaccinate against the syndrome "do not worry, be happy": the contracts are full of traps, changes in the reprogramming of one bond may the other through the cross default clauses, even the exchange with China is guaranteed by the agreement with the IMF. Reprogramming can be a walk on broken glbad.

For the moment, the Fernández economic team is convinced of the need to save time in payments, to dilute deadlines until the economy stops falling. Mission can become impossible with one's back to the world.

Momentary relief, the discussions with the Americans exclude for the moment the references to the antecedent of the pact with Iran signed by Cristina Kirchner. Fernandez, however, has the advantage: he was critical from the beginning of the memorandum that marked the break between the last Kirchner and Washington. The name of the future espionage chief will also be a signal to the world.

The political reality seems meanwhile involved in the illusion of an illusory electoral campaign. The candidacy and the presidential nomination keep Macri at the head of a coalition that has already begun to mutate. There are appearances that are preserved only by electoral necessity. Only a miracle can prevent us from moving to a different political force from October. María Eugenia Vidal and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta developed autonomous strategies after the August 11th defeat. Nobody is waiting for directions from Casa Rosada. With the idea that the conflict between the national and Buenos Aires is raided, Kirchnerism launched its most fierce campaign in the city of Buenos Aires. Larreta is annotated with the challenge. Around this, they confer a symbolic meaning to the challenge: the city was the jewel from which macrismo built a management that allowed to overcome Peronism in the nation. Beyond her plans, Larreta knows that her luck seems tied to an economic storm, born four years ago from an underestimation of reality.