The 20 most interesting sentences of Emmanuel Álvarez Agis in "Pure Journalism"

The economist and former Deputy Minister of Economy Kirchner, Emmanuel Álvarez Agis, gave a long interview to Jorge Fontevecchia as part of his "Pure Journalism" program, in which he brilliantly badyzed the economic crisis that is going through Argentina in the light of kirchnerism and its predictions for the next government . He acknowledged the mistakes of Cristina Kirchner's government, such as the dollar trap and corruption, and it is certain that Mauricio Macri's financial strategy has resulted in the failure of his government.

Then, a selection of the 20 most interesting phrases of the dialogue:

1. "The risk is not that Cristina comes. The risk is that the fund goes. Two or three weeks ago, when the US dollar reached 46 pesos, rumors began that I was in New York saying that Cristina had a plan for non-payment of debt. The sad thing is that I'm not saying you have to pay off your default debt, I think it's a good idea. And I do not think Cristina wants to give up because what Kirchnerism did for 12 years was tired of paying its debts.

2. "The market can be unpleasant Cristina because his government, in many ways, has not been promoted. But at the same time, we pay the Paris Club, we pay the commitments with ICSID to open the international capital market. We could not because the vultures had fallen, but we had steered the boat to open the market and not to close. Seeing a Cristina who has paid off debts, even at the cost of enormous economic constraints, it seems to me that these fears are absolutely unfounded. The government says that there is a cuckoo. "

3. "When you go to the Monetary Fund, it's because you have a crisis and the size of the credit they give you is proportional to what the fund says is the scale of the crisis. For you, putting $ 57 billion, it is that the buraco you see is huge. If you also start throwing naphtha … "

4. "Argentina behaves like children of a divorced father. Look at the United States and say, "China gave me $ 11,000, you give me $ 10,000." And when 10,000 US comes, let's say to the Chinese, "Trump m given 10,000 ". But the problem is that in this economy, you throw away dollars and they are consumed. "

5. "In 2014, we devalued ourselves. In 2015, the economy rebounded. In 2016, Macri devalues. In 2017, the economy rebounds. Why is not it bouncing now? For two factors. One because we have more prices indexed to the dollar. And a lot of your debt is in dollars. So when you go down, the market tells you "it's not going to pay the debt".

6. "The dollar is the Achilles heel of the model and Argentina. Basically, this is the most disturbing factor, because if you get shot at, you are not configured for two very important things. First, the relationship between the debt and the product: you have a lot of debt in dollars and the product is in pesos; you pull on the dollar, the level of debt will quickly exceed 100% "

7. "What to do with the dollar? Neither populism on the left nor populism on the right. Neither banks cover a dollar with debts, nor delay the dollar and close the economy because it makes you grow. The dollar must go, ideally, a little above inflation. We can not think that by raising ourselves we will save ourselves, but we can not think that when we return, we will generate a summer. As all governments have done over the last 15 years: a little delay the dollar in an election year.

8. "They ask me if Cristina comes back, does the trap come back? In management, I have suffered a lot of the consequences of the regulations on the purchase / sale of dollars. Everyone made you count the number of dollars you did not sell, but no one counted the number of dollars he stopped coming in. In the end, the balance was negative. We try to start opening the trap gradually. Nobody remembers it, but in 2015, they sold $ 10 billion in savings. You tell me, do you like the capital account of Argentina today? No "

9. "The pension system is a source of expenditurebut it is also a source of growth, and not reporting it is a mistake. If you redistribute gradually into the pension system, I badure you that the economy will grow because what a pensioner consumes with a pension of 80,000 pesos is well below that that a retiree will charge 10,000 and will to collect 15,000 with a reform of this type ".

10. "In Argentina, it misses a generation of economists to discuss which industrial model we want to have. A deep self-criticism of the Kirchner period is that we never knew what industrial model we wanted. The type of industrialization 60/70, which was basically an idea of ​​autarky, first the light industry, then the heavy, then the technology … today, in this world, it does not work anymore. We will have to choose five, seven, I do not know, twelve sectors and say: "We will put forward our point of view" ".

11. "Lousteau was a minister, he could have been wrong, more, less, but there are some things you should know a lot more than the average economist, including me. I heard it recently and it seemed to me that his point of view was interesting. And I tell you more, I just understand it. What he says, it's: "I'm so worried about the state because I think it has to be the leader of development, not because I want to reduce it." Why not? Bring me for a long time a prosperous economy minister in the Argentine economy: "I know how to do it". There is not any. Because the economy has not been prosperous for decades. "

12. "Do not look for the messiah, but try to listen to everyone and the next president must have this ability to say, "Do not cancel Melconian because you have to make a budget surplus or a death". The president has the power, but the worst that can happen to us is that he does not listen to anyone. He has to listen to everyone, then he has to define. And if that defines well, we will succeed, and if that defines badly, no. "

13. "The fund gives you a pill that, instead of healing, has made you sickand tells you to take ten more pills than you got sick. We have to change the plan because Trump is coming, he is giving us $ 10 billion and we are going to smoke them in two minutes. The problem is the economic pattern we have, which makes us run and buy money. "

14. "The worst mistake of the government was the financial strategy, debt that Caputo has implemented. The last five weeks at the Central Bank did what it had to do. The Fund said: "Argentina's balance rate is 27". We are at 40. What happened? The fund wants you to repay the debt, even at the price of a reduced economy to the maximum, and you want to pay but with a stable economy. "

15. "This is a government that has no followers. Few entrepreneurs defend the Macri government. I am disturbed when employers apply for grants for their business and complain about subsidies for the poor, but it seems to me that with an economic crisis that leaves you in the fund, there is no winner. Banks fear that a madman will arrive and that the Leliq will never pay them. "

16. "I went through the civil service and I did not steal a pennyand, today, I still rent and I have a consultant because I have to pay rent every month. In collective processes, not only in politics, in companies, you do not trust people, you trust systems, institutions, which allow you to say that if people deviate, here is the correction. In our government, did it work? If José López succeeded, it did not work. "

17. "The anti-corruption office we had was not working. What surprises me is that Cambiemos had the capacity to aggravate the situation and place Laura Alonso. The next government must put a guy like Delgado prosecutor, you say, "This guy is going to have a headache." If I ask you how many people the Anti-Corruption Bureau has denounced over the 12 years of Kirchnerism, you do not know because it was out of place. And then there was a guy who was throwing bags. After what happened to Lopez, if a guy in the street recognizes me and pisses me off, I have to give him the right, I have to close my mouth. "

18. "When you have a guy who decides because he's putting money under the tableThe macroeconomic configuration you can generate can be disastrous for the country and extremely beneficial for a handful of companies. In the 90s, it happened, we already know him with first and last name. In Kirchnerism is under discussion, in Macrismo will probably be discussed at some point. There are processes in which corruption changes the course of the ship and leads to collapse.

19. "Kirchnerism, with its shadows and lightswhat gave us to those who look at the different economy was a praxis, that if you do something else, the results, I say neither better nor worse, are different. He showed you a different policy than you had observed since the coup d'etat until the end of convertibility, which was a very promarnado policy.

20. "Poverty obviously depends on the purpose of the Midas. Let's take the bar that says 30%, when Kirchnerism will leave the government. This stick in 2002 gives you 60, that is to say that Kirchnerism has dropped by half. What was the problem? That had halved in 2010. And between 2010 and 2015, the economy was stuck in all the difficult indicators: poverty, informal work, reserves. What happened? We have the external restriction. In 2012, the economy of dollars in money (…) Kirchnerism has resulted in many problems because it has not solved the structural problem of the Argentine economy, namely the lack of dollars. "

Read the full interview here