Habla Cristina

You know me: I'm from a country whose government hasn't made any sense in its public pronouncements for quite sometime. I raise cows... and now, for the first time, soy and corn. I'm much closer to the left than the center, politically. I have praised the Peronists from Duhalde thru Kirchner I and II for tremendous advances that they have made. I pay my taxes and I'm glad to see that money redistributed ...throughout this great country that has so generously adopted me ...in the pursuit of a more just society. That's my full-disclosure again.

I just finished listening to the speech and the response from four rural groups.

My opinion: the government wants this strike and wants this fight...

...but it may now be thinking that it has bitten off a bit more than it can chew. My estimation of the Kirchners as savvy political operators may be falling a bit, as well. There seemed to be a bit of desperation in the presentation with its dependence on statistics more than political ideals. My feeling is that they are holding onto "the formula" even in light of the possibility that it's no longer working... shades of the old country.

The first speaker of the evening was the Minister of the Economy, Louisteau. Bad move, to my mind. He might be a wunderkind ...but a "kind" nonetheless. The country as a whole would have liked to have seen an "old gray-back" speak to us rather than what looked like a graduate-student.

The fact that he is young would not have been an issue if he had had something to say. As it was, he repeated the discredited reasons for the harvest-time imposition of the new tax: the "soyazation" of Argentina and the increasing lack of other crops that soy displaces and the need for diversification of produce. Maybe that will play well with people that have never planted so much as a flowerbox... but among people that plant for their living... and ours, the time to influence which crops to plant is before planting. The tax at harvest can't be interpreted as anything other than confiscatory to people that think in terms of seasons not hours and weeks.

What's more is that now farmers don't trust anything the government says about "diversification" of crops. Farmers now have reason to suspect that if they pick next year's winning crop... that crop will be taxed at harvest if someone in the Casa Rosada thinks that too much of it was planted. Even citydwellers can see through this.

Our young minister did, however, mention that the value of farmland has skyrocketed. He failed to mention, however, the hefty percentage that his government would take from that sale too. No mention either if he planned to increase that tax, as well. This was another remark aimed at dividing people ...those who own land from those that don't. The support that has come from residents of greater Buenos Aires for this strike appears to mystify the administration to the point that they feel it necessary to divide Argentino from Argentino.

Not one word about cattle nor cattle producers.

...but he closed with the phrase, "A country that includes everyone." Well, almost, I guess.

The President was in much better form than Thursday. She was composed and looking very presidential. She smiled to herself, to her supporters and to the camera. Through the first half of her speech she did not appear to be fazed by the strike at all.

Ms. Kirchner moved quickly to mention the progress she had made in the area of work and reducing hunger. This was yet another time that tonight's address seem directed at anyone other than the small farmers and ranchers that were often shown simultaneously on the television screen with her. She certainly could not have been referring to their work nor the hunger they personally prevent ...nor the hunger that they fear could come for even them.

She followed, however, with a description of herself as "a president of all the people."

"Soyazation" of Argentina was part of her speech too. There was no mention, however, that the government has passively supported soy production because it was considered non-inflationary because it is almost totally exported. The government actively supported soy as well in its opposition to laws that made the keeping of seed from one year to the next, much to the chagrin of Monsanto.

Biodiesel from soy was another thing strangely absent from this presentation.

She did, however, find time to decry deforestation in Argentina by soy farmers ...something she could halt with a stroke of a pen but has not. A very strange remark on the part of the president ...unless she meant to use it to divide urbanites from ruralists.

The presentation was followed on most networks by spokesmen for four of the leading agricultural groups. Viewers found much more substance from them. What they did not find, however, was any mention of the strike being called off.

It is clear to me that the Kirchner administration is doing everything it can to fuel the flames of this strike. Why they have chosen this particular battle at this particular time is not clear to me.