{"id":14122,"date":"2015-11-03T21:12:32","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T02:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14122"},"modified":"2015-11-03T21:12:32","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T02:12:32","slug":"currency-controls-strangle-argentina-but-hey-take-it-up-with-the-next-government-were-on-our-way-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14122","title":{"rendered":"Currency Controls Strangle Argentina, But Hey, \u201cTake it up with the Next Government, We\u2019re on Our Way Out\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2015\/11\/03\/new-currency-controls-strangle-business-in-argentina-take-it-up-with-the-next-government-were-on-our-way-out\/\" target=\"_blank\">Currency Controls Strangle Argentina, But Hey, \u201cTake it up with the Next Government, We\u2019re on Our Way Out\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Running out of money doesn\u2019t care if you\u2019re a socialist or neoliberal.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last week wasn\u2019t easy for President-on-her-way-out Cristina Fern\u00e1ndez de Kirchner. On the political front, she treated us with deafening silence following her candidates\u2019 poor performances in the general election. But on the economic front her government was not\u00a0so quiet.<\/p>\n<p>Remember how Argentina\u2019s reserves, or how much foreign currency the Central Bank holds, has been creeping lower\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bubblear.com\/did-argentinas-cnv-pass-a-law-to-avoid-a-bond-payment\/\" target=\"_blank\"><u>despite foreign currency controls<\/u><\/a>? Last\u00a0week the Central Bank (BCRA) and National Insurance Regulator\u00a0jumped back in to keep the country from running out of money for just a little while longer.<\/p>\n<p>First, the BCRA raised interest rates by three percent, the highest in 18 months, to try to make holding pesos more attractive. Shockingly, not many people rushed to buy peso notes. The government sold ARS $11.3 billion, five percent less than the previous week, despite the higher rate.<\/p>\n<p>Next, the Insurance Regulator passed a new law\u00a0forbidding\u00a0insurance companies from holding dollar assets in excess of their dollar contracts. English translation: Insurance companies whose\u00a0clients are in Argentina and thus likely have peso-denominated policies cannot hold dollars\u00a0even though the peso is likely to depreciate before these policies are paid. Not good news for the peso policy holder.<\/p>\n<p>Importers received informal calls from their banks informing them that the automatically-approved amount they are permitted to pay providers was cut in half, from US $150,000 to US $75,000. While that might seem like a reasonable number please be advised that you can\u2019t buy very many car parts, air conditioner blades, or other industrial input with US $75,000. This adds to the US $9.5 billion (that\u2019s right, billion) that the Central Bank\u00a0is already in debt to importers. Commerce Ministry Sub-Secretary\u00a0Paula Espa\u00f1ol\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.infobae.com\/2015\/10\/29\/1765911-el-gobierno-delega-el-proximo-la-solucion-las-deudas-importadores\" target=\"_blank\"><u>reportedly told importers<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to, \u201ctake it up with the next government \u2013 we\u2019re on our way out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Currency Controls Strangle Argentina, But Hey, \u201cTake it up with the Next Government, We\u2019re on Our Way Out\u201d Running out of money doesn\u2019t care if you\u2019re a socialist or neoliberal. Last week wasn\u2019t easy for President-on-her-way-out Cristina Fern\u00e1ndez de Kirchner. On the political front, she treated us with deafening silence following her candidates\u2019 poor performances [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2251,9537,122,8393,8600,431,4255],"class_list":["post-14122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-argentina","tag-argentine-peso","tag-central-bank","tag-cristina-fernandez-de-kirchner","tag-currency-controls","tag-interest-rates","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14123,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14122\/revisions\/14123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}