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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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John Batchelor: Ecuador & Argentina discard transparency.

Mary O’Grady was in the Batchelor show discussing how Ecuador & Argentina discard transparency.

Mr. Correa has been president since 2007. He runs the country’s largest media empire and controls the legislature, the judiciary, the top command of the army, and the national police. All members of the CNE have links to his government or his party, the PAIS Alliance. The head of the electoral appeals tribunal is the brother of Mr. Correa’s attorney general.

Mr. Moreno freely used government resources to campaign and played dirty. Fake Lasso ads in which he promised to privatize health care popped up on city buses, though Mr. Lasso had made no such proposal. With government control of more than 20 mass-media organizations, including television and radio stations, newspapers and magazines, Mr. Moreno blanketed the nation with his message. The government often interrupted programming on channels not owned by the state to run campaign spots.

The European Union observed Ecuador’s 2009 presidential election and issued a report critical of Mr. Correa’s use of government resources and power to influence the outcome. This time around the CNE blocked an EU observer mission.

Listen here:

Also don’t miss O’Grady’s column on Venezuela,

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Argentina: Cristina charged with money laundering . . . for the 4th time


Former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, along with her children, has been charged with money laundering. When the news popped up last week, I thought it was an old news item.

It is, and it isn’t: This is the fourth time she’s been charged with money laundering.

DW has the story:
Argentina ex-President Cristina Kirchner charged with money laundering

Argentina ex-President Cristina Kirchner has been criminally charged for the fourth time, and her passport has been confiscated. The latest charges stem from alleged money laundering in real estate ventures.

I guess she won’t be dropping by the Seychelles any time soon now that they took her passport (link in Spanish). DW continues,

Former Argentine President Cristina Kirchner was formally charged with money laundering and running a criminal association related to real estate dealings, the country’s Judicial Information Service said on Tuesday.

Kirchner, who served as president from 2007 to 2015, already faces trial in a separate case for alleged financial mismanagement in office.

It is the fourth set of criminal charges to beset the former president. Judge Claudio Bonadío said Kirchner was criminally responsible for being part of an illicit association, which she headed, and involved in laundering assets of illicit origin. The charges were aggravated by the fact that Kirchner was a government official and was involved in negotiations incompatible with her position as president, the judge said.

A family affair

Also charged were Kirchner’s two children, Florencia and Maximo, who is currently a member of congress. Businessmen Cristobal Lopez and Lazaro Baez were also prosecuted as head of a company set up by the Kirchners which owned several hotels in Santa Cruz province.

The latest investigation turned up fourteen houses she “never declared” to the anti-corruption or the tax authorities. (How does one manage that, I wonder?)

In addition to the money laundering cases, let’s not forget that Cristina has pending charges for allegedly ordering Argentina’s central bank to illegally trade derivatives, which cost the country $5.5 billion.

$5.50 says she doesn’t serve time.

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Argentina: Villa 31

Spain’s El País has an article on Villa 31, government-owned land in Buenos Aires, without sewers, or public utilities, occupied by squatters since the 1930s, 600 feet away from La Recoleta, Buenos Aires’ priciest area:

Buenos Aires mayor opens office in city’s most notorious slum. Horacio Rodríguez Larreta is heading a project to bring better living conditions to Villa 31

The city of Buenos Aires is undertaking a complete overhaul of the area, a project that will cost €400 million, of which €170 million are being paid by the World Bank. Authorities are even going to move the freeway route.

At least the murder rate has decreased from 30 murders in 2015 to none this year so far.

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