ARGENTINA:The character of daily life for a lot of people is fundamentally changed, writes Monte Reelin Buenos Aires
TODAY'S ARGENTINA is not gripped by crisis, but by the fear of crisis.
Strikes by farmers, furious over government policies, have sparked concerns about lasting damage to the economy. Many Argentines have been exchanging their pesos for dollars, forcing the government to dip into its surplus to keep the currency stable. Consumers, told that their government faces a shortage of natural gas, are bracing for blackouts.
It's enough to fundamentally change the character of daily life for a lot of people here.
Driving through the streets, taxi driver Jose Luis Baldini (60) voices a bleak notion that has become conventional wisdom: Good times never seem to last.
"Argentina is like a kid who makes a really good sand castle at the beach, takes a lot of care in building it just right, then steps on it himself," Baldini said. "Things have been good recently. Now we have to put a question mark on everything."
Argentines have seen much worse. In late 2001, the economy collapsed, plunging millions into poverty.
Many also remember social turmoil that boiled over into military coups at least once each decade from the 1930s to the 1970s. Such memories are fuelling the current anxieties.
In a top-floor office in this city's priciest district, Issel Kiperszmid can look out his window and see construction cranes sitting atop another skyscraper rising on the banks of the Rio de la Plata.
With international investors eager to capitalise on Argentina's low prices, business has boomed in the neighbourhood. But Kiperszmid, president of one of the country's top development firms, Dypsa International, says things have changed. Foreign investors are now playing wait-and-see.
"I think people are shocked, because three months ago there was absolutely no reason why anyone would predict this tragicomedy," he said. "It could have been avoided so easily."
For a few years now, some economists have been warning that Argentina's bubble might burst.
When inflation began to rise faster than the government wanted to admit, it shook the faith of many who had supported president Nestor Kirchner and his wife and successor, president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
In March, Fernandez de Kirchner levied a sharp tax increase on soybean and sunflower exports to generate more revenue and help curb inflation. The farmers protested angrily.
The issue now is about much more - it's a symbolic battle over the direction of the country. For the Kirchners and their allies, the tax is an emblem of their spread-the-wealth populist approach to governance, while their opponents view their reluctance to repeal the tax as a distillation of an increasingly authoritarian government.
Last week, Kiperszmid unfolded La Nación and read a front-page article lamenting how customers have stopped dining out in the restaurants in Puerto Madero, the high-end neighbourhood where his office is located, and how taxi drivers are hurting for customers.
"It's such a crazy situation, which is why I keep thinking it simply can't continue for much longer," he said. "There are simple solutions - it just requires a change in attitude."
In February, the government had been buying up vast quantities of dollars to keep the peso's value down - a strategy to boost exports and domestic investment. But after the farm conflict began, Argentines traded millions of pesos for dollars and forced the government to U-turn: it's now dipping into its $50 billion reserves to prop up the peso.
Having faith in the peso burned a lot of people in 2001, and Carlos Benitez (47) says the memory drove him to the exchange shop last week. "The dollar seems safer," he says.
After a warm South American autumn, temperatures finally dropped to wintry levels this week. Argentines instantly braced for an energy shortage.
The government last week cut the amount of compressed natural gas - a fuel commonly used by taxis - that could be sold at Buenos Aires garages, and cut all gas exports to neighbouring Chile. Major industries reported that their energy use was being restricted to ensure adequate supplies for the public.
"There are always shortages here - shortages of everything except complaining," says Antonio Fernandez (47), as he grabs a quick lunch with fellow taxi drivers at a mini-market.
Blackouts have been frequent in the past few years during periods of heavy use. And each time the lights go out, there are fresh complaints that the energy industry is scared to invest in Argentina because the government meddles in private enterprise.
"Argentina doesn't have a long-term strategy for anything - it's the politics of improvisation," says taxi driver Baldini.
That sort of mistrust earned Argentina 124th place on a list of 127 countries in a World Economic Forum survey measuring business confidence in their government's respect for private property. If that seems pessimistic, it's nothing compared with the prevailing gloom that surrounded the taxi drivers at the mini-market.
"It doesn't matter what government is in office - they're all mafias," said Javier de la Lama (31). "And every seven or eight years there has to be a crisis. It's a regular part of life."
As several hundred anti-poverty protesters marched downtown last week, their drumbeats were drowned out by the groaning sound of motorised shutters being lowered in front of store windows.
During the financial crisis of late 2001, these streets were the epicentre of violent protests. Angry demonstrators smashed plate-glass windows of banks and corporations. Many of the businesses installed the metal shutters in front of their windows in case it happened again.
But after a few uneventful minutes yesterday, the protesters passed through the avenue without incident. The metal shutters rolled up again.
It was just another protest - like hundreds of others here over the past few years, even during the best of times. - ( LA Times-Washington Post)