No meat in Argentina? No pork, no beef, not even chicken in my Disco a few moments ago.The TV, radio and the wire services are hopping all over the story.
There is a full blown cacerolazo here in downtown Retiro (video).
Governments fall when things like this happen in Buenos Aires Argentina.
I could see it coming and mentioned it here in the comments of a previous post. There are also fewer vegetables in the supermercados, as well, due to the growing strike in the countryside.
What touched it off tonight was President Cristina Kirchner's disparaging response to the farm producers that were recently hit with big hikes in export taxes right at a big harvest time.
President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on agricultural exports Tuesday, facing down angry farmers embroiled a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world's biggest beef-eating and beef-exporting nations.
Just a little error on the IHT's part: Argentina is THE biggest beef eating country on earth. Australians eat more meat of all kinds... but in Argentina, they don't even call it beef ...they call it carne. Meat.
The beef producers have had it tough under the previous K. No one really came to their defense as the price restrictions and export restrictions toughened. Many beef producers turned to crops as worldwide grain prices began to beggar the term "skyrocket".
Then, this year, as Argentine farmers (and former ranchers) began to prepare for a great harvest with a great price to boot (both of those things rarely happen in the same year) the government announced tough new increases in export duties with one of the explanations being that they were preventing a "monoculture" of soy.
Farmers didn't go for it. They responded that if the government wanted to prevent too much of any one crop they could have told them at planting time instead of suddenly seizing their windfall prices after their hard work and investment and just as they prepared to harvest.
Heavy export taxes on commodities are an Argentine tradition and government controls on what happens to the food supply have given this country some of the lowest food prices in the world.
But the surprise tax was too much for the agriculture types. They started to withhold their meat and grains and vegetables from the market. Then they took to the roads and blocked them with their dumped produce and equipment.
Violence loomed and there have been several hospitalized over the last few days as a result of clashes with the truck drivers' union that was enraged that they could not get in and out of the countryside. The government has been very tolerant of the drivers and it appeared that the union would lead the way out of the crisis by getting the roads open again.
But the drivers are breaking with their union and showing sympathy for the farmers and ranchers. Tonight, there are chants of "¡Moyano vení!" at the corner of Santa Fé and Callao, of all places! (Moyano is the head of the truckdrivers' union.)Where this will go is anybody's guess. The producers seem determined to continue and are most likely buoyed by the big response in Capital tonight. Cristina Kirchner is, however, not in a position to show weakness in her new presidency. What's for sure is that the "pipeline" of foodstuffs is emptying ...and even if the farmers and ranchers begin to relent, it could take weeks more to get steak and potatoes to your table.
16 comments:
Just a thought Mike, the lack of food is caused by the government, or by the ARMED PICKETS not letting the trucks pass through?. This is a coup d´etat attempt by the same wealthy landowners that in past decades supported the military.
If you or any serious economist looks at the figures, "el campo" is more profitable here than in Brazil.
I´m afraid that you, being a foreigner, don´t understand all the forces at play here even after taxes.
Today´s news story
http://www.infobae.com/contenidos/371293-101092-0-El-campo-argentino-es-mucho-m%C3%A1s-rentable-que-el-Brasil
and here automatic translation...
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=/language_tools&u=http://www.infobae.com/contenidos/371293-101092-0-El-campo-argentino-es-mucho-m%25C3%25A1s-rentable-que-el-Brasil
We´re calling a gathering for Thursday and Friday in front of the Sociedad Rural Argentina, Florida 460, to protest the armed pickets in argentinian routes and the fact that big cities are being held hostage.
FC
Sorry just a clarification... I meant
f you or any serious economist looks at the figures, "el campo" is more profitable here than in Brazil, EVEN AFTER TAXES.
I´m afraid that you, being a foreigner, don´t understand all the forces at play here.
(somehow the paragraphs got mixed up).
FC
Oh an another thing... as early as last THURSDAY, I saw commenters on centre-right paper LA NACION calling for "countryside patriots" to SABOTAGE THE ELECTRIC GRID, how about that?.
I continuously reported those messages as "inciting violence" but those were REPOSTED OVER AND OVER, for a period of SIX HOURS, from 1:00am to 7:00, by four different people.
COINCIDENCE?. If this wasn´t staged, I don´t know what was.
And how about the 2,000 people showing up with banners in Plaza de Mayo? Did they make the HUGE banners "supporting the countryside" on short notice? Or did they have those already prepared for the "event"?.
Argentina has a long tradition of infighting. And a friend says that Argentina is not a democracy, it´s a country in perpetual civil war, only that "it´s frozen from time to time, then the war is revived".
FC
PS: Today´s event also confimed me one of my thoughts: This government has a good economic policy (for the country´s development) that is favouring industry of all kinds and a development of the food production (favoring added value, not raw grains), but it SUCKS AT COMMUNICATION. Today´s presidential message (why no English transcript Mike? Don´t worry, I´ll try to do it myself), should have been at 9:00pm to get live coverage by all media. Instead it was done at 6:00pm when everybody was busy at work, so they only got the few excerpts that newscasts did.
I am not a foreigner, I know the forces at play here.
I have worked in the industrial end and I have now been working the land for years, like my parents and my grand parents. I do it with full respect and responsibility of animal and social welfare. I love the land and worship its fruits and the gaucho lifestyle.
I am way far from being anything close to the Sociedad Rural or La Nación type. I work, I earn my living and I have real scars to prove it. I invest, I study, I pray for rain in summer and for sun in winter. At my workplace I have no electricity, no hot water and no 4x4.
I am a small business person struggling with all the imaginable and non imaginable variables of a market over which I have no influence due to my scale. And I am just one of many other producers.
I have had all my life a strong commitment to social justice. When the president I trusted calls me oligarca I wonder who the hell she´s talking to or for, or who are the geniuses that describe countryside reality to her. Specially when nobody volunteers to "redistribute" my work and costs.
Sad, too sad.
I wish I had a truck.
99, vos tenes soja? te afectan las retenciones a la soja en que porcentaje?
O adheris al piquete violento, el cacerolazo para tumbar un gobierno, y el desabastecimiento de las ciudades como forma de "peer pressure" por solidaridad con tus pares?.
Sostengo y sigo sosteniendo: ESTE PARO ES GOLPISTA. No se puede llevar a las ciudades al caos y la anarquia por falta de alimentos generando una posible guerra civil por un aumento de retenciones a la soja.
Si el paro era sincero o genuino, porque el JUEVES PASADO ya habia pancartas con la leyenda "CRISTINA HACENOS UN FAVOR: ANDATE" ?
-----------------------------------
99, do you produce soy ? does the soy taxes affect you, in which percentage?.
Or do you approve the current VIOLENT BLOCKADES, the pan-pounding in cities trying to overthrow a government, and restricting food supplies from Feedlots and milk producers WHO WANT TO SELL but cannot supply the cities due to the road blockades?
I sustain and maintain it: THIS IS A MOVEMENT TRYING TO WEAKEN AND OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT.
The rural sector cannot lead the country into a civil war just because of an increase on soy export tax.
I and several others will defend this government we voted for, and the current model of development, a country with an industry and full emplyment and where the landowners are not the only ones who benefit.
99, there is no doubt that *some* producers are havign a bad time. But focus on the big picture: the great soja producers are big enough to have access to a TV channel, rather than leaving comments in a blog, get it? The problem is them.
They have supported dictatorships, they have killed every effort of industrialization. Argentina needs a balance between the campo and the industry, and the biggest rich landowner families have done anything in their power to keep the country in a medieval state. I fully support Fernando's point of view here.
Read a bit of Nicolas Shumway, even Hobsbawm, to get a picture of how some families have lobbied to have a poor country since the 1880s.
Personally, I do not live in Buenos Aires anymore, but I was there last winter, and there wasn't any food already in some neighborhoods of the city like la Paternal.
Adrian, there are hidden forces at play here... first very few people who were in the streets listened to the president´s speech in its full extention, the newscasts only showed small clips as usually happens.
Second, the disinformation campaign is rampant... I´ve heard things like "we pay taxes and no investment comes back to the provinces" which is an outright LIE.
Third, I´ve witnessed people posting for SIX STRAIGHT HOURS on the LA NACION comments sections (four different users, I have screenshots and I even contacted the Interior Ministry about it), advocating the CUTTING OF THE POWER LINES to BLACK OUT THE CITIES.
I think Argentina is facing the first staged MEDIA COUP D´ETAT.
It wouldn´t surprise me if the Soy Piqueteros increased the blockades and this would led to a big civil war in big cities.
Of course, some people at the State Department would rejoice for having the first Chavez-friendly government toppled.
Think this is fantasy and thinfoil hat thinking? Read this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
FC
PD: Unfortunately for the right wing soy blockaders, all communications are centralised here in Buenos Aires, so they better learn to do smoke signals if things get really ugly.
thinfoil = tinfoil hat, sorry.
I am fully aware (first hand aware) of what militars and some families and corporations did to my country.
But sorry guys, I don´t pick up fights in somebody else's blog/home. (You know that about me Fernando and BTW, I do plant soy)
Sorry that you consider my comment "picking up fights".
This is picking up fights, in my opinion...
INFOBAE: Salvaje agresion de ruralistas en un piquete en Cordoba
http://www.tinyurl.com/35krxo
BALEARON A UN MICRO EN UN PIQUETE DE RURALISTAS - La Voz del Interior
http://www.lavoz901.com.ar/despachos.asp?cod_des=52378&ID_Seccion=12
"Un hombre, que evitó un corte de ruta en San Francisco, Cordoba fue perseguido por seis personas, que lo atacaron a golpes y patadas. La víctima terminó en el hospital. Es el segundo caso similar. En La Pampa, detuvieron un tren"
PEDIDO DE CAPTURA PARA DOS RURALISTAS POR SALVAJE ATAQUE A UNA FAMILIA EN PIQUETE
DE SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO
http://www.tucumanoticias.com.ar/noticia.asp?ed=245&id=9691
Sorry, I thought I lived in a democracy where votes counted. Now I realize we live in a soy producer dictatorship.
Over and out for now...
FC
ACLARACION PARA la 99:
Ante tu reclamo por mail de "quien te crees que sos? etc" ACLARO:
yo no tilde de ignorante a nadie. solo dije lo que dije, que pensaba que Mike por ahi no conocia la tradicion enroscada de la politica argentina, donde son capaces de incendiar el pais para llegar al poder, y la gente les importa un pito. Creo que hay un MAYBE en mi texto. MAYBE MIKE....
Y dije "bye for now" porque me puse a hacer otra cosa!
Donde estaba yo durante la dictadura, en Belgica, para tu info, despues en Brasil, y finalmente volvimos a la Argentina..
NO TE LO TOMES COMO AGRESION, MUJER !! . Ahora me voy a dormir
Why does everyone divide up into INSANE extremes in this country. Why are their no sane centrist?
Let's punish one sector of this society for the "redistribution of wealth"? With 44% taxes and then say they deserve 60%?
No matter what your political stripes.. anything above 38% tax on ANYBODY is considered onerous. Anything more you are asking for political unrest. Why? Why? Shoot such a great country in the foot and pit one group against the other?
"Why does everyone divide up into INSANE extremes in this country."
Insane extremes? I don´t think so. The news about the higher tax rate for soybean was known as coming for months.
Plus, the sliding scale retention (sorry if that´s not a word :) means that if the PRICE GOES DOWN the tax goes down as well, if the price goes up, the tax increases.
Do you want a country with nothing but soy? I don´t. Specially since it´s not something we eat down here.
So the government wants to make that activity, which is eating away land formerly used for cows or corn, by making the activity less attractive, and this is unreasonable?. If we leave ¨up to the market¨ to decide, they´ll predictable decide on what is more profitable, then the whole country will be one giant soy plantation, the population and food needs be damned...
And this is unreasonable?. Unreasonable are people HOLDING HOSTAGE THE REST OF THE POPULATION in big cities, by saying ¨MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY".
"Either you agree to what we say, or you´ll starve to death in big cities". Like I said, NICE DEMOCRACY!: I thought my votes conted for something. I wasn´t aware the country was turned overnight into a soybean producers´ dictatorship.
If the agricultural producers thought that by starving us in big cities they´d win the favour of the population, they´re dead wrong.
And the small agriculture operators are being used as guinea pigs by the big soybean producers. Take for isntance the small milk producer, it has a fixed daily production that he must SHIP or THROW AWAY. He´s throwing it away now. FOR WHAT? For helping the soybean producers? If soybean export taxes don´t affect them the slightest to begin with?.
This can only lead to violence. The ogvernment already offered them talks, but asked first to remove the blockades, they refuse. So the ball is in the countryside´s court.
I have food for one month and a half. Let´s see whose´s shoulders are biggest.
FC
Fernando "nerd gaucho" is an astute observer of this and many other things. Anyone who dismisses his opinion does so at his own risk.
But keep in mind that my leftist, dare I say "wobblie" credentials, are unassailable ...at least until I became an actual employer.
The right of any man to withhold the fruits of his labor (you may say "his capital", in my case, but you would not be precisely correct)is a fundamental human right.
I would like FC to view the current crisis through that lens, at least for a moment.
Neither FC nor I would ever say that any entity has a right to my labor above and beyond my voluntud.
This is a great conversation and I do agree with Mike that FC´s observations should not be dismissed lightly.
It is true that an increase was on its way. I think that no one expected it to come at harvest time. That just seems cruel even to someone who is not connected to the industry like myself.
Apparently, Cristina´s message last night did not strike a chord or maybe it did, but not the one she was hoping for. Maybe this stance, coming from a government that continously spills out lies regarding inflation figures for example, is just too much to take. On top of that, you have thugs appearing on the side of the government ready to clear out the plaza and it just looks like one huge avoidable mess that, in this case, was caused by incompetence, arrogance, distorted view of reality, whatever you want to call it.
Mind you, I am also loosing some sales since there are some clients who are not ordering due to the products not being able to run the road-blocks.
Can someone just negotiate please? How hard can that be?
I'm hopeful some sort of deal will be reached. But the government can NOT now reverse its decision on the export tax increase. It'd put them in a public weakness position, and then going forward the soybean sector could say "hey, let's do this again to obtain this or that".
I think this might be a good lesson to all expats about how argyland politics works. :)) And I agree, we tend to go to extremes and things get nasty all too quickly... I guess this has to do with the fact that we're Latin. As my Briton boss said to me once "OK, don't get all Latin on me!". *VBG*
Cristina's speech and appearance yesterday changes the image of the government from "insensitive arrogance" to "hey, I want dialogue, I'm all for dialogue". Now the ball is in the agro court.
If the campo sector thought that by cutting food supplies they'd win the favour of the general population, they're dead wrong, specially if the government offers some concessions and tax breaks to small and medium sized farmers, the strike loses its main argument. At some point people are going to say "hey, but the the government offered them breaks and incentives and they continue refusing it, how much money they want to make? please clear the roads and give me my food".
Btw: imagine how surreal things would be if every sector affected in its profitability cut services to the whole of society. The power companies shutting down electric service, the phone company wants to make more so they cut everyone out, etc.
just my $0.02
FC
PS: The media's coverage of this has been amazingly one-sided, worse than Fox news reporting on the war.
Accuracy, they've heard of it.
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