Chaos in Argentina

[juju]

From indymedia.org :

<i>At least 22 people have died and several hundred have been injured in Argentina as anti-government demonstrations escalated due to an economic crisis that has crippled the nation. On Wednesday, a nationwide strike led to the resignation of the Finance Minister who oversaw the liberalization of the national economy. Argentina now faces $155 billion debt and a soaring unemployment level, in part due to its implementation of International Monetary Fund policies.

Looting was reported today in many parts of Argentina while confrontations were reported in La Plata and Cordoba. The government has declared a state of siege, thereby suspending all constitutional rights, including the right to assemble. Police forces have been called in and it is rumoured that the army might be preparing to aid in the repression of the people. Businesses are closing for fear of more looting and more actions like those seen earlier this week are planned by them. Protesters have stormed supermarkets in 'food riots' in direct action against IMF imposed austerity measures. The people in Argentina look out of their windows to see their country fall into chaos.

Argentina's President Fernando De la Rua resigned on Thursday after two years in office, fleeing from the government palace in a helicopter to escape throngs of protesters who were clashing with riot police outside.
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excerpt from a yahoo article:
<i>
Says Eduardo Duhalde, Argentina's fifth president in the last two weeks, " This is the moment of truth: Argentina is worn out. The country is broke,'' he said in a speech to Congress after swearing in. The current economic model, "destroyed our middle class, destroyed our industries and pulverized our workforce.''
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A couple other photos I liked:



<i>Police standing over a subdued protester.</i>
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<i>A demonstrator kicking a fallen police officer.</i>

[verbatim]

This looks utterly terrible. But as many people as there are in that people, I would have to permit whatever kind of action it took to subdue that guy.



But DAMN! $155million in debt? No wonder they are rioting. I would be too if one man managed to drive a country's economy into the ground. I wouldnt be suprised to find an article a few days in the future about him being dead.


Kudos to the people for not putting up with this shit.

[juju]

Actually it was $155 billion dollars in debt -- all because they adopted the U.S. dollar as their main currency.

And I especially like the one of the guy kicking the cop. Hehe..dunno why.. it's not like I would advocate that in real life. Guess just because it's taboo.

[jaguar]

Kudos to the people for not putting up with this shit.

You knwo looting and burning thier only remaining businesses might not be the best way to express thier anger and desperation for somethign new....
If they'd destored governemnt stuff i'd be jsutifyable but private businesses? Thats jsut oppotunism, or starvation.

[tw]

juju2112 quoted yahoo

Says Eduardo Duhalde, Argentina's fifth president in the last two weeks, " This is the moment of truth: Argentina is worn out. The country is broke,'' he said in a speech to Congress after swearing in. The current economic model, "destroyed our middle class, destroyed our industries and pulverized our workforce.''

At this point, if your news sources have been responsible, then you are familiar, or at least heard of, a concept called 'currency board'. It is used by many other nations, such as Hong Kong, to solve economic problems. But it assumes the economy will maintain its economic productivity. Argentina was S America's strongest economy. But things went bad. Instead of freeing their currency to compensate for their economic weaknesses, previous administrations instead played money games. They tried to fix the economy using tricks such as economic stimulus (attn George Jr) rather than address the reasons for their economic downturn.

A currency board solved many of Argentina's early financial stability problems with inflation and wide flucutations in currency value. One reason for its success was because government could not (or at least should not have) release more currency than was held in US dollars. But when an economy becomes less innovative - when productivity gains are not realized - then a currency devaluation should be the result. Instead, Argentinian leaders held their currency fixed to the dollar - much like a gold standard. Those mistakes made years ago are what resulted in these above pictures.

Once early problems were solved, then Argentina should have released currency to free market forces. Now it is too late. Argentina just defaulted on $155billion today. Worse will happen since they are now in uncharted economic waters. This has never happened to a country using a currency board.

In economics, the currency board is still a major curiousity to economists. Many countries in the world use the concept to tie their currency to the US dollar, British Pound, or German Mark.