I have read this article in the newspaper and it has made me very sad, because it is real, Argentina is an UNFAIR country, not poor, in fact it is a RICH country in all its resources, so how bad did its rulers do things? The cost of living has increased as well as the number of poor people.
Argentina is not a poor country, it is an unjust country. Endowed with natural riches, with the third reserve of drinking water on the planet with the increasing importance that this has, a large producer of food and fodder, it is self-sufficient in energy and becomes an exporter, it has lithium and rare minerals, etc., etc. . The port of Rosario, with its 31 terminals in 70 kilometers that go from Arroyo Seco, to the south, and Timbúes, to the north of the city, is the main port for agricultural and agro-industrial exports in the world with more than 120 million tons of declared sales. At the same time, the Argentine population generally has an acceptable level of education and the ability to acquire knowledge.
However, more than 50% of our people are poor, whether we measure poverty by any indicator. Officially, INDEC presents the Total Basic Basket needed, for example, by a family composed of four members that, as of December 2023, required net income of 495,798 pesos . The inflation of January 2024 and that expected for the rest of the year, and the feedback of the devaluation of our currency with the inflationary process and, therefore, with new deteriorations in the purchasing power of the population, allow us to foresee new layers of poor.
It is heartbreaking, but there is 30-35% of the population that is structurally poor, they are chronically poor, that is, from several generations, they are in informality or in social programs, in urban spaces of great marginality and exclusion, but you have On the other hand, they are between 15 and 20% of the new poor, and they are poor not so much because of their conditions of residential infrastructure or educational human capital, but basically because what they receive from their work is not enough for them to live and pay the rent of their apartments. housing (they run the risk of going from an apartment to a room, and from the room to the street).
The production of food and energy that Argentina has could be used to develop a strong internal market and generate sources of labor-intensive work, such as construction and especially in housing in the face of the prevailing housing deficit, an activity in that nothing should be imported because all the inputs are produced in the country [2] .
The financial means exists and are remunerated reserves (now fundamentally made up of “passive repos”, which are deposits captured by banks that lend to the BCRA at a nominal annual rate of 100% and within a period of one to six days) and which total 27.9 trillion pesos in February 2024 (it is in pesos, but equivalent to 30,000 million dollars), and that work and production are not done, in order to increase exports of food, energy and inputs.
Our people are deprived of work, of a decent life for their families (for their children, who are the men of tomorrow), so that they consume as little as possible in order to increase exports. Javier Milei says it clearly: it is prohibited not to export and if you want to consume in the Argentine market, you must pay at the international price (when salaries are among the lowest in Latin America).
The Cambiemos government implemented a model of indebtedness and sale of resources at any cost, a model that the Frente de Todos government continued and that exacerbates the current one with manifest evil.
How is it possible that in our country four and a half million people must go to community soup kitchens or picnic areas, most of them children and the elderly, to receive some type of food assistance.
In this situation, the government of Alberto Fernández had managed to form a census and a registry (RENACOM: National Registry of community dining rooms and picnic areas) and with it a containment network, financed by the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) under the plan “ Argentina Against Hunger” which began on September 28, 2021, for an amount of 200 million dollars .
The plan was distributed in 34,782 soup kitchens and picnic areas throughout the country, assisted by 134,449 people (most of them cooks), who receive the Empower Work plan for their work, whose monthly remuneration as of February 2024 is 78,000 pesos (half of the minimum, vital and mobile wage, which has been 156,000 pesos per month since December 2023) who, with social sensitivity, dedication and care, distributed 10,000,000 food rations per day.
However, as soon as he came to government, Javier Milei began to delay the delivery of food, with the pretext that “there is no money” (without saying that it is a loan from the IDB), but it is not that there are no resources, but that the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello, and the national secretary of Children, Adolescents and Family, Pablo de la Torre, prefer to dismantle what had been formed, which is really valuable, by institutional agreements with the Organization of Evangelical Churches, to the that on February 5, 2024 they gave them 177,500,000 pesos to carry out this work. As well as the Child Nutrition Cooperating Foundation (CONIN), chaired by Abel Albino , with the pretext that there was political affiliation in the community dining rooms and picnic areas.
On Wednesday, February 7, 2024, hundreds of coordinators and cooks of soup kitchens who have had to reduce to a minimum or interrupt their activity due to lack of food deliveries gathered in front of the building where the Ministry of Social Development operated, in the middle of 9 de Julio Avenue (seven blocks from the Obelisk of Buenos Aires) in CABA, in demand for the delivery of food.
For every soup kitchen that closes, entire families stop receiving a plate of food. Boys and girls are left without snacks .
The same Catholic Church, beyond the agreement signed on February 7, 2024 between Cáritas and the Ministry of Human Capital, published the following day: “Today no one can assume the quantity and complexity of social work individually, and that is why "We insist on integrating all those who with enormous sensitivity care for the poorest and that they also be given the necessary help so that they can continue doing so."
The adjustment on the provinces
The provinces were established before the Argentine nation, we were United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. When the national Constitution was enacted in 1853, the name Argentine Republic was included among the official names used to designate the government and territory of the nation. And said Constitution in its art. 1st says: “The Argentine Nation adopts for its government the federal republican representative form, as established by this Constitution.”
And in its Preamble it states: “…gathered in the General Constituent Congress by the will and election of the provinces that compose it, in compliance with pre-existing agreements, with the aim of constituting the national union, strengthening justice, consolidating internal peace, providing for the common defense, promote the general well-being, and ensure the benefits of freedom, for ourselves, for our posterity, and for all men in the world who want to live on Argentine soil.”
However, the current government not only does not respect the republic and its federal character, but, by placing itself above the governors, who were also elected by their people, it limits, suspends and even eliminates the rights of the population.
The provinces had not finished resolving with the previous government the decrease in their income when the non-taxable minimum of the IV category (remunerations for work) of the Income Tax was raised in October 2023 (which is shared in its entirety), but With this government the situation got out of control:
In summary
All the measures taken by the government of Javier Milei, such as the two mammoths of DNU 70/23 and the ill-fated “Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines” bill, seriously and irreversibly harm the population, which an important part voted for him, without knowing what he was doing. Now it is mainly up to the representatives of the provinces and the different social, union and political organizations to put a stop to an administration whose sole purpose is to guarantee high rates of profit to the economic power (whether local or foreign), without caring about the environmental and social costs. , cultural and rights of our people.
Argentina, an unjust country: poverty and the cost of living, on the rise
Horacio Rovelli*Argentina is not a poor country, it is an unjust country. Endowed with natural riches, with the third reserve of drinking water on the planet with the increasing importance that this has, a large producer of food and fodder, it is self-sufficient in energy and becomes an exporter, it has lithium and rare minerals, etc., etc. . The port of Rosario, with its 31 terminals in 70 kilometers that go from Arroyo Seco, to the south, and Timbúes, to the north of the city, is the main port for agricultural and agro-industrial exports in the world with more than 120 million tons of declared sales. At the same time, the Argentine population generally has an acceptable level of education and the ability to acquire knowledge.
However, more than 50% of our people are poor, whether we measure poverty by any indicator. Officially, INDEC presents the Total Basic Basket needed, for example, by a family composed of four members that, as of December 2023, required net income of 495,798 pesos . The inflation of January 2024 and that expected for the rest of the year, and the feedback of the devaluation of our currency with the inflationary process and, therefore, with new deteriorations in the purchasing power of the population, allow us to foresee new layers of poor.
It is heartbreaking, but there is 30-35% of the population that is structurally poor, they are chronically poor, that is, from several generations, they are in informality or in social programs, in urban spaces of great marginality and exclusion, but you have On the other hand, they are between 15 and 20% of the new poor, and they are poor not so much because of their conditions of residential infrastructure or educational human capital, but basically because what they receive from their work is not enough for them to live and pay the rent of their apartments. housing (they run the risk of going from an apartment to a room, and from the room to the street).
The production of food and energy that Argentina has could be used to develop a strong internal market and generate sources of labor-intensive work, such as construction and especially in housing in the face of the prevailing housing deficit, an activity in that nothing should be imported because all the inputs are produced in the country [2] .
The financial means exists and are remunerated reserves (now fundamentally made up of “passive repos”, which are deposits captured by banks that lend to the BCRA at a nominal annual rate of 100% and within a period of one to six days) and which total 27.9 trillion pesos in February 2024 (it is in pesos, but equivalent to 30,000 million dollars), and that work and production are not done, in order to increase exports of food, energy and inputs.
Our people are deprived of work, of a decent life for their families (for their children, who are the men of tomorrow), so that they consume as little as possible in order to increase exports. Javier Milei says it clearly: it is prohibited not to export and if you want to consume in the Argentine market, you must pay at the international price (when salaries are among the lowest in Latin America).
The Cambiemos government implemented a model of indebtedness and sale of resources at any cost, a model that the Frente de Todos government continued and that exacerbates the current one with manifest evil.
How is it possible that in our country four and a half million people must go to community soup kitchens or picnic areas, most of them children and the elderly, to receive some type of food assistance.
In this situation, the government of Alberto Fernández had managed to form a census and a registry (RENACOM: National Registry of community dining rooms and picnic areas) and with it a containment network, financed by the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) under the plan “ Argentina Against Hunger” which began on September 28, 2021, for an amount of 200 million dollars .
The plan was distributed in 34,782 soup kitchens and picnic areas throughout the country, assisted by 134,449 people (most of them cooks), who receive the Empower Work plan for their work, whose monthly remuneration as of February 2024 is 78,000 pesos (half of the minimum, vital and mobile wage, which has been 156,000 pesos per month since December 2023) who, with social sensitivity, dedication and care, distributed 10,000,000 food rations per day.
However, as soon as he came to government, Javier Milei began to delay the delivery of food, with the pretext that “there is no money” (without saying that it is a loan from the IDB), but it is not that there are no resources, but that the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello, and the national secretary of Children, Adolescents and Family, Pablo de la Torre, prefer to dismantle what had been formed, which is really valuable, by institutional agreements with the Organization of Evangelical Churches, to the that on February 5, 2024 they gave them 177,500,000 pesos to carry out this work. As well as the Child Nutrition Cooperating Foundation (CONIN), chaired by Abel Albino , with the pretext that there was political affiliation in the community dining rooms and picnic areas.
On Wednesday, February 7, 2024, hundreds of coordinators and cooks of soup kitchens who have had to reduce to a minimum or interrupt their activity due to lack of food deliveries gathered in front of the building where the Ministry of Social Development operated, in the middle of 9 de Julio Avenue (seven blocks from the Obelisk of Buenos Aires) in CABA, in demand for the delivery of food.
For every soup kitchen that closes, entire families stop receiving a plate of food. Boys and girls are left without snacks .
The same Catholic Church, beyond the agreement signed on February 7, 2024 between Cáritas and the Ministry of Human Capital, published the following day: “Today no one can assume the quantity and complexity of social work individually, and that is why "We insist on integrating all those who with enormous sensitivity care for the poorest and that they also be given the necessary help so that they can continue doing so."
The adjustment on the provinces
The provinces were established before the Argentine nation, we were United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. When the national Constitution was enacted in 1853, the name Argentine Republic was included among the official names used to designate the government and territory of the nation. And said Constitution in its art. 1st says: “The Argentine Nation adopts for its government the federal republican representative form, as established by this Constitution.”
And in its Preamble it states: “…gathered in the General Constituent Congress by the will and election of the provinces that compose it, in compliance with pre-existing agreements, with the aim of constituting the national union, strengthening justice, consolidating internal peace, providing for the common defense, promote the general well-being, and ensure the benefits of freedom, for ourselves, for our posterity, and for all men in the world who want to live on Argentine soil.”
However, the current government not only does not respect the republic and its federal character, but, by placing itself above the governors, who were also elected by their people, it limits, suspends and even eliminates the rights of the population.
The provinces had not finished resolving with the previous government the decrease in their income when the non-taxable minimum of the IV category (remunerations for work) of the Income Tax was raised in October 2023 (which is shared in its entirety), but With this government the situation got out of control:
- The provinces lose income because tax collection grows less than inflation, which was unleashed by devaluing by 100% and freeing prices.
- The national administration sharply reduces non-automatic transfers. Thus, in the month of January 2024, according to the OPC (Budget Office of the National Congress) at constant values, the items received by the national sub-jurisdictions decreased by 56% (from 115,804 million pesos in January from 2023 to 50,795 million pesos in January 2024).
- Through the Com. By 7674 of the BCRA of 01/24/24, financing by provincial banks to the Treasury (local and national) is deregulated, resources that they had to pay in a timely manner the salaries of public employees, which were later amortized to the bank. as the own resources (essentially the Gross Income Tax) entered.
- The central government conditions the creation of bonds to cancel the debt of the provinces (misnamed provincial currencies) by not accepting that national taxes be paid with them.
- In 2023, the Interior Compensation Fund distributed to companies providing transportation services in towns in the interior of the country (there are about 14,000 units) the sum of 102,000 million pesos, intended to cover part of the price of the passenger ticket (the total annual sum was approximately 0.4% of GDP), another part of the subsidy is provided by the same province and/or municipality. The problem is that since the new authorities took office, on December 10, 2023, they delayed the transfer, which is why on February 8, 2024, the workers grouped in the UTA (Automotive Tram Union) decided on a general strike because the Companies did not pay him his salaries in a timely manner. The provinces asked the Ministry of Labor for mandatory conciliation and the force measure was lifted, working that day with infrequent collective work, as happens in all provinces. Now it is worse, because the subsidy is eliminated.
In summary
All the measures taken by the government of Javier Milei, such as the two mammoths of DNU 70/23 and the ill-fated “Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines” bill, seriously and irreversibly harm the population, which an important part voted for him, without knowing what he was doing. Now it is mainly up to the representatives of the provinces and the different social, union and political organizations to put a stop to an administration whose sole purpose is to guarantee high rates of profit to the economic power (whether local or foreign), without caring about the environmental and social costs. , cultural and rights of our people.
