Inteligencia y Seguridad Frente Externo En Profundidad Economia y Finanzas Transparencia
  En Parrilla Medio Ambiente Sociedad High Tech Contacto
En Profundidad  
 
23/03/2010 | Argentina gov't confronts inflation with discount fish

Hugh Bronstein

While most countries use fiscal and monetary policies to control inflation, Argentina has rolled out a fleet of fish trucks to ease the pain of consumers whose food bills are increasing every month.

 

The government's latest bid to confront rising prices consists of about a dozen mobile fishmongers selling cheap haddock in poor neighborhoods near the capital, Buenos Aires.

Trucks decorated with blue waves and the slogan: "Now There's Fish for Everyone" are pulling up beside local parks. They have been greeted by thousands of people, who stand in long lines to take advantage of steep discounts.

Argentines are the world's biggest consumers of beef and many profess to not liking fish. But with beef prices up 30 percent over the last three months alone and the subsidized haddock selling at around half the normal price, the fish is hard to refuse.

Under cloudy skies, hundreds flock toward the trucks as they roll into Ituzaingo, on the western edge of Buenos Aires, where many families can no longer afford steak.

There are grumbles about the quality of the fish, which is presented in brick-like squares, and complaints about having to wait for hours as around 5,000 people line up over the course of the day.

"It has a weird color, but what do I know?" one woman told reporters upon receiving her portion.

LET THEM EAT FISH

President Cristina Fernandez launched the dozen or so trucks and visited one herself to buy some fish. It was the latest in a series of her administration's improvised attempts at controlling inflation, which is casting a shadow over a tentative recovery in Latin America's third largest economy.

Opponents say the haddock program will not work and call it a gimmick meant to shore up Fernandez's support in towns around the capital where she has traditionally been strong.

Her policies are geared toward stimulating economic growth, which is expected to pick up this year after being constrained in 2009 by the global economic crisis. But high inflation is taking a toll on Fernandez's popularity.

Economists expect Argentina to close 2010 with consumer prices up more than 20 percent for the year. The government, accused by analysts of manipulating economic data, will likely report much less than that.

But labor unions here are already demanding wage increases of 25 percent.

Earlier government strategies aimed at forcing prices down included export curbs on cattle ranchers and attempts at negotiating cheaper beef prices with meatpackers and supermarket chains.

As local consumer prices soar, Argentina's growth has lagged that of other major economies in the region.

The country's 2010 budget proposal forecasts gross domestic product to expand by 2.5 percent during full-year 2010. That compares to official forecasts for 6 percent growth in Brazil and 3.9 percent in Mexico.

INFLATION? WHAT INFLATION?

Rather than openly acknowledge inflation, Argentine officials refer vaguely to a "reaccommodation of prices." Fernandez rejects orthodox ways to fight inflation on grounds they would stifle growth.

Wall Street has accuses the government of playing semantic games rather than confronting the problem with measures such as reducing government spending, which Fernandez refuses to do.

"If they want less spending, let them come and govern," she said recently in a challenge to opposition politicians getting ready for the 2011 presidential election.

The fish trucks were mobilized last week and are scheduled to continue until Easter.

During the period of Lent, the weeks of repentance leading up to Easter, fish consumption rises in the mostly Roman Catholic country.

"The program is good but very slow," Alicia Carrasco, a bespectacled, middle-aged woman said as she waited for a numbered ticket to allow her to go stand in the haddock line.

"It's half price," Eduardo Baumtrog, leaving the station with two white plastic bags full of frozen fillets, said with a weary smile. "Lets see what it tastes like."

Reuters (Estados Unidos)

 


Otras Notas Relacionadas... ( Records 1 to 10 of 5721 )
fecha titulo
11/11/2022 The Ultimate Unmasking of Henry Kissinger: Ambassador Robert C. Hilland the Rewriting of History on U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Argentina’s “Dirty War”
10/11/2022 Un infierno astral se cierne sobre el Gobierno
24/04/2020 Argentina- Informe de Coyuntura semanal (versin corta) al 21 de abril sobre la situacin poltica y econmica argentina
20/04/2020 Argentina- Inflacin y emisin: qu pasar despus de la cuarentena?
14/04/2020 Coronavirus en la Argentina. Alberto Fernndez lleva al kirchnerismo a su lado ms oscuro
09/04/2020 Argentina - Coronavirus: No hay Estado presente para salvar a la economa?
06/04/2020 Argentina - Una guerra de todos?
06/04/2020 El nuevo mundo de los corona-zombies
25/03/2020 Agentina - Informe de Coyuntura semanal (versin corta) al 24 de marzo sobre la situacin poltica y econmica argentina
22/09/2018 Sin dudas, la Argentina necesita volver a tener moneda


Otras Notas del Autor
fecha
Título
15/09/2018|
08/02/2011|
21/07/2009|
21/07/2009|
31/03/2009|

ver + notas
 
Center for the Study of the Presidency
Freedom House