Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for January 2014

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Argentina: Chronicle of a default foretold, continued

As Latin America’s Leaders Hail Democracy In Havana, Cuba’s Beatings Intensify, but rather than try some networking at Davos, Cristina visited with what’s left of Fidel,

while Argentina Loses $1.25 Billion of Foreign-Currency Reserves
Kirchner’s Government Tries to Head Off Recession

Argentina’s central bank has shed $1.25 billion of its dwindling foreign-currency reserves since it devalued the peso last week, even as the currency came under renewed pressure on Thursday.
…
he devaluation has so far failed to achieve what is believed to be its main goal: to close the confidence-busting gap between the official and black-market rates. The gap has narrowed in recent weeks.

The bigger the gap between black-market and regulated rates, the more the Argentine public fears the official exchange rate is overvalued and vulnerable to another devaluation.

Another measure aimed at deflating the black market also appears to be falling flat.

Starting Monday, Argentines were allowed to buy limited amounts of dollars for savings for the first time in about 18 months. The tax agency said it had authorized purchases of more than $137 million in dollars through Thursday afternoon.

However, Argentines opted to pay a 20% tax and withdraw $125 million from the banks instead of taking advantage of attractive interest rates and tax breaks for dollar deposits, the tax agency said. Many people still remember the 2002 crisis, when the government forcibly swapped dollar savings for devalued pesos.The Kirchner administration has borrowed more than $29 billion since 2010 from the central bank to pay its creditors, while government fuel imports and falling gold prices have also dented reserves.

If that money doesn’t stay in the banks, the central bank will likely take additional measures to stem dollar outflows. The central bank could takes losses of between $8 billion and $9 billion to individuals this year under the measure, according to estimates from BNP Paribas.

The trend has some investors and Argentines wondering if the country might struggle to pay its foreign debt and buy enough imported goods to keep its economy going.

As you can tell from the title of this post, I consider it a certainty.

Prior post: Argentina: Chronicle of a default foretold


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Gladys the android

Last year my old cellphone’s charger broke and – since the phone was so old – could not be replaced, no matter where I looked, so I bought a Galaxy S3.

The S3 has more functions than I know how to use or need, and it’s been very reliable. It even gets good signals inside my house, which is a big deal since there aren’t enough cell towers in Princeton.

It’s been a year and now my service provider is sending me emails with tempting “free” phone upgrades, while the Samsung people simultaneously updated the phone.

From the moment I bought it, the phone has been whistling every time I receive a text, sometimes necessitating an explanation on my part, like the time I was in the middle of a doctor’s appointment and the nurse blushed when she heard the whistle.

But now my phone has a voice. A dry, professional, all-business, female voice. A voice that pops up at inconvenient times telling me that I have “25 new emails”. A clear, bossy voice.

I named her Gladys.

Nothing much gets past Gladys.

Not only does she pop up to announce how many new emails are there, she sometimes pipes in to make other announcements.

And heaven farfend if you don’t pay attention to her when she wakes you up. Her assertive “Alarm: It is seven o’clock AM” can not be ignored, much less if you let five minutes go by. She’ll nag you every five minutes until you do something.

I wouldn’t mind it so much if they had used a male voice. It would be much nicer to wake up to, say, the voice of Patrick Stewart or Colin Firth, even if they popped up at inconvenient times.

My Garmin (also old) gives you a choice of voices, and I changed the bossy woman voice it came with to a polite, English-accented male voice that reminded me of C-3PO.

I named him Anthony.

Blogging on more serious matters will resume shortly.

UPDATE:
Linked to by Liberty’s Torch and Dustbury. Thank you!

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Cuba: CELAC, the hypocrisy summit

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños, a.k.a. CELAC) is meeting in the island prison, richly earning the title of The hypocrisy summit:

In the shadows, meanwhile, the police-state goons, who represent the real Cuba, will be busy rounding up the usual suspects — those who clamor for genuine freedom and detest the oppression that prevails in the country of Jose Martí’s birth.

This is the customary script for events in Cuba that draw international media attention, as with papal visits. The government is so keen to create the impression that everyone lives happily under a benevolent Castro dictatorship that it takes extra measures to ensure that neither official visitors nor the press witness signs of dissent.

Dilma, Evo, and Cristina are in attendance as the Cuban Regime “Cleans up” Opposition for CELAC Summit. Cristina met with Fidel and his wee wifey,

Just in case, Dilma is saying that Argentina has not asked for help in the devaluation crisis (link in Portuguese). Not that any would be coming from her.

It’s basically a hatefest against the USA, with the blessing of the OAS’s Insulza, who so far has not met with the Ladies in White, and also of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who came up with a real doozy,

“Since [violence against women] is rooted in discrimination, impunity and complacency, we need to change attitudes and behavior – and we need to change laws and make sure they are enforced just like you are doing in Cuba.”

“Just like you are doing in Cuba”:


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Mexico: Michoacán vigilantes to join with police

and El Tio, one of the Knights Templar bosses, was arrested,
Mexico Reaches Pact With Vigilante Groups
Self-Defense Groups in Michoacán State Agree to Join Rural, Town Police as Security Forces Capture a Top Cartel Leader

Since the government intervened two weeks ago, federal forces have detained more than 100 people, but the detainees hadn’t included any of the top leaders of the Knights Templar, which takes its name from a medieval organization of crusading warrior monks. The vigilantes have demanded the government capture the Templars’ top leaders as a prerequisite for their laying down their arms.
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Aside from their drug profits, the Knights Templar made tens of millions of dollars from extorting Michoacán’s lime and avocado growers, cattlemen, hoteliers and other businessmen. Many of the state’s towns and cities were forced to give a 10% cut of their budget to the criminal organization, local officials say.

El Tío, Dionisio Loya Plancarte, is not to be confused with this other Tío,

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