18 December, 2012
from CounterCurrents Website

 

 

 

Argentina is the latest case of bullying tactics by the world finance bosses.

 

The country, one of the fastest growing economies with unemployment falling from around 22% to 7%, faces sanctions including exclusion from G20 by the IMF as the country's inflation rate appears at odds to the international boss.

 

The country is an example to other countries, which the world masters consider as a threat to their order.

Ed Butler reported:[1]

Argentina faces the prospect of eviction from the world economic community after its apparent failure to respond to a three-month deadline set by the International Monetary Fund to produce accurate inflation and growth statistics.

Ejection from the IMF could lead to a variety of economic and political penalties, including exclusion from the G20 of industrial nations. IMF rules state that member states "must not co-operate with a non-member in practices that would be contrary to… the purposes of the Fund".

Some experts believe the IMF's managing director, Christine Lagarde, has lost patience with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's government.

 

A spokesman for the IMF has said that a report will be submitted to its board.

Official inflation statistics in Argentina show prices rising at around 10% but independent assessments have prices rising at 25% and more.

Criticism of Argentina dates back to 2007, when the inflation rate first began to rise sharply into double-figures. The trade ministry responded at the time by replacing the director of consumer pricing at the government statistics agency, Graciela Bevacqua.

As well as losing her job, Bevacqua faced prosecution on a range of charges, from damaging the Argentine economy to embezzlement and receiving bribes.

 

None of the criminal charges have been upheld in court, although she has been forced to pay fines for publishing her own unofficial inflation rate, which like most others is now about 150% higher than the government's published figure of around 10% per year.

Rising prices have been a major spur to recent mass protests against Kirchner's government in the capital Buenos Aires.

Gabriela Cerruti, an MP from the governing party, echoes the Argentine president's argument that the country must not give in to what they see as international blackmail, and the view, widely held in Argentina, that the IMF was itself the cause of many of the problems that led to the country's major default and crisis in 2001.

"All these big world organizations are trying to say what we have to do with our economy. They are saying we have no transparency just because we don't do what the big world organizations want us to do.

 

We are doing very well, so maybe it's time for other countries to see what's going on here," Cerruti said.

Argentina has recorded nearly 8% growth since 2003 although critics say that the figures are suspect.

 

Growth has now stalled, and attempts to conceal real inflation figures and suppress wage demands, they argue, have got the government into an ever-worsening mess.

Jayati Ghosh and Matías Vernengo’s article [2] provide a background of the IMF threat to Argentina.

 

They wrote:

Argentina is in the news again. The country that successfully managed an external debt restructuring after a major financial crisis in 2001-02, and eschewed the standard austerity package to benefit from a remarkable economic recovery, is being attacked by a combination of court rulings and aggressive moves in financial markets.

Elliott Capital Management, a vulture fund based in the tax haven Cayman Islands owned by conservative financier Paul Singer (a big donor to the Romney campaign), refused to accept the terms of the debt restructuring that was accepted by more than 92% of bondholders in 2005 and 2010.

 

It has demanded payment in full, and has actively pursued its case in different courts across the world. A few months ago, the Argentine frigate Libertad, which ironically means freedom in Spanish, was seized in Ghana after a local judge ruled in favor of Elliott Capital Management.

 

Judge Thomas Griesa has recently ruled in a district court in New York that the Argentinean government must pay $1.3bn to the same vulture fund - the full face value of their holdings plus accumulated interest starting in late 2001 - on the basis of an unusual interpretation of the pari passu clause in debt contracts.

Elliott and other "vulture funds" are not conventional investors.

 

They buy bonds at discount rates during a crisis with the explicit intention of taking the distressed countries to court in foreign jurisdictions, while also holding out for payment in full with no renegotiation of the debt.

 

Obviously vulture funds are not concerned with niceties such as,

  • how the debt was accumulated

  • the principle that debts should be served according to the debtor's capacity to pay

  • how the enforced payments will affect the wellbeing of the most vulnerable

They represent global finance in its most nakedly aggressive and exploitative form.

The Griesa ruling also contained an injunction that prohibited third parties from "aiding and abetting" any violation of his order, thereby preventing Argentina from being able to continue payments to the creditors that had accepted the restructuring.

 

This has far-reaching implications beyond this case, because it calls into question all debt restructuring deals that are not just likely, but also necessary to preserve international finance.

 

Why would those holding Greek bonds, for example, accept a debt restructuring plan that might be necessary for a solution and beneficial to all, if they know that vulture funds can hold out and receive judicial support in international courts?

The ruling also contradicts US internal bankruptcy laws, which force minority creditors to confirm to deals accepted by 70% of creditors. If this ruling is supported in the higher courts (both Argentina and other creditors have already appealed) it will create an unviable situation for global bond markets.

 

Creditors will only be making one-way bets if no possibility of restructuring is accepted, making the only options all (full payment) or nothing (complete default).

But that is not the only onslaught Argentina is facing. This week the rating agency Fitch, which earlier gave US sub-prime bonds Triple A ratings, lowered Argentinean bonds to slightly above junk status. Many financial analysts are now predicting another Argentinean default.

But there is no reason to believe that the country is close to a default.

 

The current account is in balance, international reserves are above $46bn and the ratio of debt service payments to exports is less than 20%. In the recent past, Argentina has been one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with unemployment falling from around 22% to close to 7%.

 

So what explains all the downgrading and undermining of the country in financial markets and the media?

The real reason may lie in the very success of the country's economy after its default and forced debt restructuring process.

 

After 2002, Argentina,

  • reversed the austerity measures promoted by the IMF

  • renationalized key productive sectors like aviation, pensions and most recently oil

  • increased social protection and income transfers to the poor

  • reduced poverty substantially

Real wages have increased, and wage inequalities have been reduced.

This is a dangerously successful story. It shows that there is life after a default, and that austerity is not the best way out of a crisis. These are two lessons that clearly frighten financial markets and their allies within the judicial system, and obviously there is concern that other countries in financial distress could seek to emulate this example.

 

Hence the eagerness to show that this is not a success story after all, and to keep the pressure on Argentina through court rulings, downgrades and similar measures.

Ironically, this may turn out to be counterproductive. It is not just that these recent moves are deeply unjust and anti-democratic - it is also that they threaten the global financial system itself.

 

Allowing vulture funds to get precedence over other bondholders that accept restructuring undermines any possibility of renegotiating debts, without which no credit system can function.

 

The "level of rancor" in Griesa's decision shows how important it is to have judicial systems that are not loaded in favor of purely profit-motivated private investors. Allowing rating agencies with extensive conflicts of interest to function without regulating them and setting up public alternatives creates misinformation without accountability.

Even a blatantly unjust capitalist system cannot survive this way for very long.

 

So once again, international finance and its partners may be biting the hands that have fed it, with potentially disastrous consequences even for finance.
 

 

 


Source

[1] The Guardian, “Argentina faces IMF penalties over failure to meet inflation deadline”, Dec. 16, 2012

[2] guardian.co.uk, “Why Argentina is now paying for its dangerously successful economic story”, Dec. 3, 2012