Luis Caputo blames Argentines for inflation

Buenos Aires. Without turning red, the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, blamed the Argentines for the rise in prices, and was crossed in networks by economists and former supporters of Javier Milei himself, who questioned his technical capacity and his diagnosis of reality. .

In a meeting with JP Morgan bankers in the United States, which took place between meetings with the IMF, the official assured that “inflation will continue. And the only reason is because Argentines have this tendency to think that everything is going to go wrong. So what happened? Almost everyone set the price of their products in the high street store with one dollar at 2000 pesos, because that’s what all the economists in Argentina told them. were set at a very high exchange rate that did not happen.

The statement not only generated a flood of criticism online, but also goes against the theory of inflation used by the president himself, Javier Milei, which limits the phenomenon to the sole sign of monetary emission. His expressions, which were expressed within the framework of a tour where the minister received a concrete rejection from the IMF of the request for funds, triggered harsh questions from two figures once very close to the libertarian party.

Two strong crosses

The first to come out hard for blaming inflation on the people was the economist Diego Giacomini, Milei’s former partner and co-author of books with the president. “For a second let’s assume that what you say is true, Caputo… it seems that people think that everything is going to turn out badly because they are bad, not because you have no reputation or credibility, because what you do is inconsistent and contradictory, And on top of that, you communicate it poorly, you bastard,” he complained from his X account.

In turn, Carlos Maslatón, one of the founders of Libertad Avanza, wrote a strong message stating the following: “Caputo, disastrous minister of a disastrous government, now comes with this. Great eternal liar, neither he nor Milei dare to say that inflation continues because they do not stop counterfeiting currency, paying interest from the BCRA and manufacturing debt from the BCRA and the Treasury, all of which produces the same effects as the physical papering of banknotes,” he stated in his X account. Maslatón that “in addition to the fact that there will be no real demand for pesos as long as they do not allow their price to float freely against other currencies. Unlike Milei, who never understood what the market is and how it works, Caputo understands it more but does not do what what he has to do because he is governing exclusively for the enrichment of the financial sector at the expense of the misery of the people.

Cavallo neither the “V”

In this context, the government’s theory of a “V” recovery with falling inflation continued to be questioned by economists like Milei. Domingo Cavallo, the Menemista who the president describes as the best Economy Minister in history, destroyed almost the entire official idea of ​​​​economic growth.

In a talk with the brokerage house Cocos Capital, Cavallo specified that “until April 15, online prices fell from 8 to 6.5 percent, which is why I estimate that the INDEC rate will be 9.5 percent in April “, but he warned that there will be no more than that. “Now,” he declared, “it is unlikely that from May it will continue to decline as it did until April. It will no longer have a downward trend, it is not what the government expects.” As many have already warned the president, Cavallo assured that the most likely thing is a stabilization closer to 7 points, a record inflation for such a recession.

On the other hand, he expressed that, in his opinion, “until the exchange market is liberalized and reunified, I do not see there being a significant reactivation of the economy. A recessive climate will continue and even tend to be depressive, a recession prolonged”. And he added that “only after these changes and a stabilization plan is announced, the economy will stop declining.”

Finally, the former minister of the country’s worst social and economic crisis asked “what happens if the Central Bank does not correct the rate of devaluation and the inflation rate remains between 6 and 7 percent and market restrictions continue.” financial?”. And a response was given that does not stop the Milei government: “the risk greatly increases that in order to unify and liberalize the exchange market they will have to admit a strong devaluation jump,” he concluded.