When incentives exist, creole liveliness has no limits. He
Central Bank (BCRA)
he verified it again a few days ago, when he discovered that, in the
pandemic
and with him
mandatory isolation
in force, e
he dollar “collectors” business
I was back. Although no longer in the rows in the branches of the banks -that there are, but for other reasons-, but they returned in the form of
“digital collectors”.
The entity that presides
Michelangelo Pesce
He discovered hundreds of thousands of identical operations: people who open accounts in digital banks, buy the official $ 200 allowed for the month, and then transfer them to a few accounts in front-line banks. This way alone, according to estimates at the Central, about US $ 40 million in one month. A not insignificant figure considering that the entity reported that 2.4 million people used the quota of US $ 200 in May and totaled about US $ 451 million.
The BCRA has already warned banks that, according to the “know your customer” law and regulation, which prevents money laundering operations, they must disable the recipient accounts of dollars from the
“digital collectors”.
Obedient, many of them have started calling customers to ask them to justify receiving multiple dollar transfers.
But it seems a matter of time until the cunning gets its way again. There are few investments that today offer an immediate profit of 35% in pesos, as arises from the gap between the official exchange rate (of $ 94.9 if the 30% tax is considered) and the illegal or parallel one (of $ 129). The problem is not the coleros, but the macro imbalance that today causes that, despite the
supercepo,
there is a
exchange gap
that seems unmanageable. Economist Amílcar Collante warns that, under current conditions, the BCRA’s firepower is limited, with net liquid reserves estimated at just over US $ 8.7 billion.
The BCRA and the
Securities Commission (CNV)
they plan to advance new regulations to contain the price of the call
dollar bag
or the
counted with liquidation.
There were meetings with the
Chamber of Mutual Investment Funds
and there is constant contact with BYMA for the operation of these currency variants. Both Pesce and the head of the CNV, Adrián Cosentino, have the best manners, but for the market they are still patches. The difference between the official and free dollars is comparable to the one that existed in December 2015, at the end of Cristina Kirchner’s government. In the current circumstances, and without a known economic plan that allows one to think otherwise, for the market an exchange rate adjustment begins to be seen as inevitable.
It is not enough for the government to try to patch up the leaks. It could have contained the demand of importers a few weeks ago after detecting that they were advancing purchases of dollars for goods that were not entering, but, like water, macroeconomic imbalances are constantly finding holes to filter through.
Another example can be found in the Work and Production Assistance Program (ATP). To secure profit, some companies encouraged blackout to force a fictitious substantial drop in sales. The incentive to have someone subsidize up to 50% of employees’ wages is too great.
The economic team faces a major challenge. Probably today he will have to deal with a much more complex situation than the one received – and failed to dominate – Mauricio Macri, or even the one that President Eduardo Duhalde had to weather in 2002. Alberto Fernández must not only attack the problems that Argentina is dragging For decades, it must also deal with a pandemic that raises uncertainty to unusual levels and drags the entire world into unfamiliar terrain. The world is no longer pulling as it happened in the first years of the management of Néstor Kirchner, who Fernández knew well, but, on the contrary, all countries are trying a way out of the crisis that caused the coronavirus without the guarantee that it will to be successful. What is more unusual? That the IMF estimates that the United States GDP will fall 8% in 2020 or that that of Argentina will fall 9.9%?
Bounded margin
The economic team has a very limited margin of action. There is no movement that does not imply putting any other variable at risk. You are aware of the risks you take. Few measures were as fiscal as Martín Guzmán’s decision to step on spending on retirement hardly took effect. The minister also flirted a few days ago with the idea of putting a brake on many of the assistance plans that were born with the Covid-19, although he had to back down when defining a tightening of the quarantine. Even in the government, some officials slipped in to bankers who were not so interested in boosting aid through subsidized loans, given that many of these funds ended up being used to buy dollars on the stock market or in the illegal market (yet another leak from the stocks) .
For his part, Pesce is pursuing a policy of absorption of pesos almost as conservative as the one that Federico Sturzenegger applied at some point. So far in 2020, $ 1.25 trillion poured into the circuit, but then aspired via passes or Leliq (BCRA securities) almost 92%: $ 1.16 trillion. The risk is that those titles, as happened to Sturzenegger, can return to the circuit – and in a disorderly way – at any time.
The market knows the limitations that the government must deal with, and even understands them. No more is enough to see the passivity with which the CGT is now accepting suspensions and dismissals -covered- in a large number of SMEs. There is no government more difficult for a unionist than a Peronist.
But the Government still does not show what will be the path it will take to attack the problems, many of which were already urgent as soon as Fernández took office and before the coronavirus struck. Since last March, the Government has stalled. All the measures seem aimed only at buying time, and in many cases they do little to improve the business climate in the country.
The stocks were hardened to contain the demand for dollars; public service rates were frozen until December, as was double compensation; layoffs were prohibited until August; gasoline increases were postponed until October, and the maximum price policy, which expires tomorrow, has a good chance of being extended, even if not with slight tweaks. Although companies have already announced in private that they will simply discontinue products that are not profitable.
Also, despite the fact that the PAMI has stopped the payments committed to pay off the $ 12,000 million debt that it has with the industry, the foreign laboratories grouped in Caeme decided that they will extend the agreement with the largest social work for 30 more days without demanding increases ( expired tomorrow). The Cilfa nationals still hope to advance in some negotiation.
The few measures that were available are short-term and aim to sustain consumption. The Ministry of Productive Development has the idea of launching a new credit card refinancing plan, as it was proposed at the beginning of the compulsory isolation. Also, Minister Matías Kulfas anticipated, there will be an extension of the Now 12 plan until September 30. Both measures have not yet been completed with the banks, which requested a meeting with Kulfas this week to suggest, among other things, that for example the benefit for the cards is only for balances of up to 10,000 pesos. There will be a new ATP payment – the fourth – in July and it will continue in parallel with the
Emergency Family Income (IFE).
The problem is that the longer the government delays macroeconomic definitions and lingers on the patches, the less impact they can end up having measures that would have been syndicated as positive. This is what happens with the debt swap. Although it seems to be much closer to a definition, it would no longer be enough to reverse the dollar problem. Meanwhile, it will be difficult to contain the moves of a market that is simply governed by incentives.
ALSO
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