Lagarde's congratulations to Dujovne are obscene and consistent

Congratulations it is obscene because this result of the program of adjustment Engaging with the International Monetary Fund involves neither more nor less than a lot of people suffer not only badly, but they are worse than what they have already endured.

But at the same time, congratulations it is consistent and understandable because the acute recession in which the economy has collapsed is not a collateral damage to the current program, but an indispensable condition so that he achieves his goals. Goals that, at least in the short term, do not include improving the standard of living of the majority of the population, but the opposite.

In the menu of objectives they intended to achieve with the agreement, the most important feature is the drag on the exchange rate and a downward trend in inflation. And there is no doubt that both goals have been achieved since the signing of the second reserve for $ 57 billion.

For the type of stability sought, the tuning mechanism functions as a tuned violin, even if the melody is not to the taste of the rostrum, or that of the audience and the boxes.

This stability necessarily implied that the downturn that the economy had begun to experience from the second quarter of the year was prolonged. And what's going on? Figures released yesterday show that the recession has already lasted eight months and affects almost the entire economy.

Severe adjustment, by magnitude and generalization

This productive cold and consumption begun in autumn, prolonged in winter and spring and destined to last at least during this summer, correspond to the two priorities of the current policy.

On the one hand, they are key factors to decompress the foreign exchange market via foreign trade: the drop in demand and the impact of the devaluation led to a sharp fall in imports (they fell by 27.1% in December), which complements the rise in exports resulting from the rising dollar and the greater availability of leftovers in the domestic market.

This set of mechanisms has not only slowed down the race, but has created a transitory surplus of dollars absorbed by the Central Bank to end the appreciation of the peso.

Less trust among consumers

As examples, and from unsuspected investigations into the desire to distort information against the ruling party, the consulting firm Elypsis recorded an 8-point drop in Mauricio Macri's positive image, up to 24%, 12 points less than Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and 11 less than María Eugenia Vidal.

For its part, Torcuato Di Tella University's public school found that confidence in the executive branch fell by 15% in January from the previous month and was at its lowest level since taking office, so that yesterday's survey, the Finance Research Center of the same institution showed that the consumer confidence index had decreased by 8% in January compared to December and 26.7% compared to January 2018 .

In the government, they are convinced that some macroeconomic variables could begin to reverse the negative sign of the second quarter, but they exclude that the improvement is sufficient to serve as a central tool in the election campaign. This belief is what explains that the strategy that has already been activated in the perspective of the election is the axis for insecurity and the fight against corruption.

Among other things, with initiatives so improvised and in contradiction with basic criteria of constitutionality such as the Decree of necessity and urgency on the extinction of domination over property ill-gotten in acts of corruption. Criticism comes from the opposition, but also from some pro-government lawyers and lawyers who do not dare to make public their differences.

Some of them are prominent members of the Union Cívica Radical, a party that has always had the discourse of institutional discourse, but with its silences, its complications and its management failures, it appears more and more more like a party in the process of extinction than a political alternative.