IMF forgives until October

In private and in a low voice, Roberto Cardarelli, head of the IMF mission in Argentina, generally explains the agreement with the country in one sentence: he says that the technical aspects will be discussed from December 11 and that, until that will be subject to politics. They are the favors of Trump in Macri. No one like the President of the United States has done as much for the re-election of Pro's leader, probably encouraged by an easily verifiable spirit throughout the Republican Party: resistance to eventual return from Cristina Kirchner to Casa Rosada becomes here a replica of what is happening in Venezuela. The last reward was to convince the
the staff central bank should intervene with more flexibility in the foreign exchange market.

The dogmas of orthodoxy will remain after the campaign. It must be understood by the winner of the elections, who will surely govern in the minority and who will start the year 2020 with a double challenge: to continue the relationship with the Fund, to renegotiate eventually deadlines and requirements and, at the same time, to recover. For the first time in decades, as was the case during the energy crisis in Kirchnerism, the economic situation makes badysts of all ideologies coincide in diagnosis and even in treatment: the country will be condemned to eternal stagnation. 39; it does not take hostile measures that reduce the cost of recovery of investment for Argentina.

Argentina will in any case witness an external examination before the elections: the debate that the government of Jair Bolsonaro encourages in Brazil for pension reform, which is also decisive for the return of foreign capital. The project, which was under the direction of Michel Temer on the verge of being approved, was thwarted in May 2017 by audios and videos that repented the JBS refrigerator, involved in the Lava Jato, contributed to the justice: the records revealed that the president he had also approved bribes. It was a step backwards which regretted the whole establishment and that Paulo Guedes, Minister of the Economy, intends to do while returning by putting his own body to the same project.

A former student of the University of Chicago and guarantor of the course for the financial sector, Guedes foresaw that he would leave if the project was not approved before the middle of the year. They asked him in January at the Davos Forum, and the minister's response was not in line: he said he trusted the patriotism of his country's political clbad. Latin American Pugliesismo. Brazil is not growing: it has not reached in 2018 and it is likely that it will have at best an expansion of no more than 1.5% this year, far below the annual average 5% of Lula's time.

These are problems almost identical to the Argentines. This is why the Macri government is paying attention: it believes that the failure of the reform would become a new external factor of uncertainty in the middle of the campaign. The world has already emerged with tensions between Trump and Xi Jinping. This is why in Change, we see the threat of reckless Guedes. What do you add, rather than showing the abyss? "It's a useless packaging that makes noise," a minister told the newspaper. It is true that non-technocratic macristas tend to be more flexible than Guedes. Those who accompanied Macri on his last trip to Spain recall the experience told by local businessmen: the labor reform approved by the country in 2012 was not as adequate as the situation I would have asked for it, but it still served as a message to the clbad. It was a policy that a new order was starting, from which it would not be possible to retreat. This is what would happen throughout Mercosur with the
Reform of Previdência.

Guedes, however, has an advantage over its Argentinian counterparts: Brazil has not only already approved a new labor code with Temer, but most of its legislators are convinced of the need to change the payment of pensions as well. The weakness of the question may lie, unlike what is happening here, in that the president himself decided, once the draft presented and approved by his minister, not to expose one's personal political capital during negotiations with Congress.

Bolsonaro does not have good relations with
centrão, as the forces that add nearly 80% of the parliamentary representation and try to unite the Democrat Rodrigo Maia, president of the Chamber of Deputies, know, and these tensions make the banks nervous like Itaú, Santander and Bradesco, active Those who Interest in reform now trust Vice President Hamilton Mourão more than the head of state, whom they consider more likely to bear other costs. For example, those who report the cultural battle against the left, which adds conflict each week. A month ago, an advertising article of the Bank of Brazil was under discussion: it showed young people from different social strata and different badual tendencies, and the government decided to withdraw it because, said Bolsonaro, he did not represent values ​​worthy of being borne by public funds. . This week, a message from Joice Hbadelmann, chairman of the ruling Liberal-Social Party MPs' group, has broadcast on the networks a poster for the possession of weapons: the photo of a young girl in wedding dress who, with bouquet of flowers in the left hand, throws a gun right up at the right and poses next to a legend that recommends: "Wife someone who has a weapon saved. " The person arrives: no criminal record, with a fixed residence, legal profession; mental health certificate ".

It is likely that Bolsonaro decided to speak to his most loyal audience: the 30% who represent half of his electorate and who have always seen him as a candidate able to oppose the ideological and political establishment represented in the policies of the PT. This universe includes the military to whom a pension reform that, among other things, will cancel early retirement plans will certainly be detrimental.

Macri's situation is exactly the opposite. If he is re-elected, he will remain the first person convinced to make changes, but he will have to reach the consensus of a political clbad always inclined to avoid political costs. A few weeks ago, the Ministry of Production investigated Peronist Senators Miguel Pichetto and Carlos Caserio with the aim of easing a regulation providing for fines for moonlighting since the early 1990s. reasonable, but responded that they would support the initiative. as long as the CGT adheres to it.

The mystery is again to know who is willing to face unpopular. In the field, Cardarelli's technical warnings seem long-term; after the elections, they will only be seen as the return to the challenges of 2017. A second chance.