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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Argentina: Pence visits. Cristina comes in second

Vice-president Mike Pence arrived in Buenos Aires last night, after visiting Colombia. His next stops are Santiago, Chile, and Panama City, Panama.

While in Colombia,

Colombia is one of the United States’ closest allies in the Western Hemisphere, yet, as he stood next to Pence, Santos denounced Trump’s threat of military action, and told the visiting vice president that such a possibility “shouldn’t even be considered” and would be “unacceptable.”

To which,

Mr. Pence replied that the U.S. was confident that peaceful solutions could be found, and that Mr. Trump’s remarks on Friday had merely reflected his resolve to address the situation.

Mr. Pence arrived in Buenos Aires the day after the primary:

The nationwide primary, where voters cast a single ballot for their choice among a raft of candidates from each party, determines which parties are eligible to run for midterm congressional elections in October, providing an indication of voter preference ahead of the midterms.

With more than 97% of votes counted early Monday, Mr. Macri’s Let’s Change coalition beat opponents in half of Argentina’s provinces, dealing a setback to former President Cristina Kirchner’s plans for a political comeback.

Cristina came in second, but 

Although Kirchner lost Sunday’s vote, she can still win a seat in October. In Argentina’s Buenos Aires province, the party of the first-place finisher wins two seats and the second-place finisher gets one.

This may be unlikely; Macri’s Cambiemos coalition beat opponents in half of Argentina’s provinces,

not only in Buenos Aires but also in Argentina’s four other most-populated provinces, including Cordoba, Mendoza and Santa Fe. They also won in San Luis, which has for decades been dominated by the Peronist Saa family.

Markets reacted favorably,

Argentina’s peso rallied 3.2% Monday morning, its best gain of the year. Its stock market, the MERVAL, gained 3.6% after opening, one of its best rallies of the year.

Pence arrived at the right time.

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Argentina: Cristina runs for Senate

Anything to get immunity:

Cristina Kirchner Files Candidacy Papers for Argentina’s Senate. Senate race would be seen as a referendum on ex-president’s populist legacy and her successor’s market-friendly policies

Former President Cristina Kirchner filed papers on Saturday to run for Argentina’s Senate, launching a campaign that could, if elected, give her congressional immunity from federal prosecution for alleged money laundering and racketeering during her presidency.

About those three separate federal cases that she’s already been indicted,

In one case, a judge ruled that Mrs. Kirchner ran a criminal “gang” aimed at profiting from the illegal disbursal of government funds for infrastructure projects. In another case, she was indicted over accusations she ordered Argentina’s central bank to illegally trade derivatives, costing the country about $5.5 billion.

But wait! There’s more:

If Mrs. Kirchner wins in October, she would be eligible to run for the presidency again in 2019, when Mr. Macri finishes his first four-year term.

One can only hope there are not enough stupid people to vote for her. She only needs 25% or so to get a Senate seat, according to the above article.

UPDATE
Trending at Bad Blue.

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Argentina’s baffling 100-yr bond sale

Today’s “what the hey?” story:

Argentina sold $2.75 billion of a 100-year bond on Monday, just a year after emerging from its latest-default. You read it right: from its latest. Last year’s was the seventh time, since the country has defaulted on its bonds from the get-go:

ARGENTINA’S first bond, issued in 1824, was supposed to have a lifespan of 46 years. Less than four years later, the government defaulted.

The 100 yr bond??

“As a matter of record, Argentina has defaulted on its foreign currency debt seven times since independence 200 years ago, and five times on local debt, its longest stretch without default was ca. 50 years…. as they say somewhere ‘you do the math’!”

Argentina lacks an investment-grade rating (emphasis added)

The Argentinian economy recently failed to win back its status as an emerging market in the influential MSCI benchmark equity index posing a contrast to the success of the launch of its 100-year bond. The failure is a setback for President Maurico Macri who has implemented several market-friendly reforms to deliver on his promise of reforming the country’s economy after years of heavy intervention and non-payment of of international debt obligations under the previous government.

He ended a decade-long dispute with creditors that allowed it to re-enter global credit markets, but Argentina lacks an investment grade rating. S&P and Fitch rate the sovereign a B with a stable outlook, while Moody’s has the debt at B3, according to Reuters.

In other words, junk bonds.

The question is,

What can anyone owning their brand new 100-year Argentinean bond expect? A couple of defaults, at least one war, and probably a revolution as well. The chances of collecting your 8% every year through all that? Perhaps not quite zero — but surely something very close to it.

Quite frankly, I am baffled; there is no way the country can remain solvent for the next century.

Matthew Lyn calls is “a sure sign of a market gone crazy.”

It sure is.

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Argentina: #Nisman was murdered

Alberto Nisman was found dead from a shot in the head in his Buenos Aires apartment on January 18, 2015.

His death has now been declared a murder:

Nisman was found dead one day before he was due to present a complaint to the Argentine Congress accusing leading politicians, including former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, of colluding with Tehran to cover up Iranian culpability for the atrocity. A team of investigators appointed by the Kirchner government concluded — following a controversial investigation that was heavily criticized by Nisman’s family — that the special prosecutor committed suicide using a gun supplied to him by Diego Lagomarsino, a computer specialist employed by Nisman.

But a new report from the Gendarmeria, a federal security force, will put the suicide theory to bed once and for all and show that Nisman was murdered, according to Argentine news outlets. The report’s publication is expected within the next thirty days, the Clarin newspaper said.

Eamonn MacDonagh asserts that this is a major development; long-time readers of this blog know that the case was being investigated as a suicide.

Much as Nisman himself experienced when he began investigating the accusations that President Kirchner had engaged in a cover-up of Iran and its Hezbollah proxy’s responsibility for the AMIA bombing, [prosecutor Eduardo] Taiano has also received threats and warnings not to pursue his inquiries. One text message he received in December last year told him to “stop f__g about with that son of a b__ Jew,” a reference to Nisman, and added, “your days are numbered.”

The complaint Nisman had been due to announce would have implicated Kirchner, former Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and other officials in negotiating a secret pact with the Iranians to absolve Tehran of the AMIA bombing. Nisman’s tenacious investigation — including a log of more than 4,000 monitored phone calls — strongly suggested that in doing so, Kirchner and her colleagues were trying to cover their tracks.

The article points out that “MacDonagh cautioned that numerous “legal roadblocks” could still be placed in front of the Nisman investigation.”

On her part, Cristina Kirchner announced that she’s willing to run for senator. It’s not clear whether, if elected, the post would grant her immunity from prosecution on any charges related to the Nisman murder case itself, or from charges arising from Nisman’s investigations.

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Pope Francis is against populists, after he was for them

Pope Francis’s socialist slip continues to show,
On the ‘Invasion’ of ‘Libertarianism,’ Pope Francis’ Ignorance Is Showing. Stephanie Slade writes,

My main critique, which I published here at Reason on the eve of his 2015 visit to the United States, was that the pontiff’s ignorance of basic economics has led him to a bad conclusion about which public policies are best able to reduce the crushing yoke of poverty in the world. I went on to encourage him to consider that, as a matter of empirical fact, markets are the single greatest engine for growth and enrichment that humanity has yet stumbled upon.

Francis believes that “the libertarian individual denies the value of the common good,” and that populism is “the fruit of an egotism that hems people in and prevents them from overcoming and ‘looking beyond’ their own narrow vision.”

Odd words from the guy who entertained in the Vatican iconic left-wing populist Cristina Fernández de Kirchner five times during her tenure as populist president of Argentina.

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The obligatory Argentinian with a stroller scuffle video

WATCH: Video Shows American Airlines Flight Attendant & Passenger Confrontation

I’m with Ben Shapiro on this: Another Day, Another Lawsuit Against A Major Airline For Bad Passenger Behavior. Enough.

I have two children under the age of four. We always travel with a double stroller. We have never attempted to put it on the plane itself, and if we did so and were asked to check the stroller instead, we would obey the command. But this woman apparently did not, then allegedly got rowdy before being clocked with the stroller in stupid fashion by a flight attendant. How is this the sort of behavior we want to promulgate as a society? We’re now incentivizing every person on every flight to argue with every annoyance, then sue based on the reaction from the airline. Those costs will be passed on to other consumers.

Enough.

We’ve had politics dominated by hatred for particular industries for years now. We’ve already destroyed the health insurance industry because we hate it but need it. Now we’ll target the airlines. Here’s an idea: If you don’t like how an airline acts, choose a different airline. Otherwise, we’ll just ruin all of them in a fit of pique.

Indeed.

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