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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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072489
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07248900.015
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1990-09-17
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BUSINESS, Page 39"Get Up and Walk!"Argentina's new leader imposes a drastic recovery plan
The situation demanded strong words, and President Carlos Saul
Menem did not shrink from using them. In his July 8 inaugural
address, Menem urged his citizens to "Get up and walk!" Argentina,
he declared, "is broken, devastated, razed. Inflation has reached
chilling levels, but we aren't going to administer the decline. We
will pulverize the crisis."
Just 36 hours after Menem's address, his administration
announced the first steps of "unusually severe, exceptional and
emergency" measures designed to break the nation's hyperinflation
(114% for June alone) and to restore confidence in its virtually
insolvent government. Among them: a 90-day wage-and-price freeze,
a 116% devaluation of the austral to 650 vs. the U.S. dollar and
an aggressive privatization of most state-run companies. Because
the end of many government subsidies will bring unavoidable price
increases for some goods and services, all workers will be given
a bonus of 8,000 australes ($12.30 at the new rate).
By early last week, Menem's economic medicine was already
showing some positive effects. On Monday the black-market rate for
dollars dipped below the official exchange rate for the first time
since the austral plan was implemented by former President Raul
Alfonsin in 1985, demonstrating credibility in the currency's new
valuation. Investors and bankers were favorably impressed by the
seriousness of the Peronist leader's austerity plan, which prompted
the Buenos Aires stock exchange to rise 6.5% in a single day and
sent monthly interest rates down 44 points, to 10%.
But the government's new pricing policy got off to a chaotic
start. While the plan calls for prices to be rolled back to July
3 levels, prices in many stores kept on rising. The announced end
of government subsidies for gasoline pushed prices up 670%, to the
equivalent of $1.60 per gal. In anticipation of a 350% rise in
subway and train fares, commuters flocked to stations to stock up
on tokens.
Most foreign bankers have greeted Menem's plan with hedged
optimism. But since Argentina has failed to keep up its payments
to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, neither
agency is eager to issue fresh credits without some proof of
economic progress. "What's announced on paper can be very different
from the results," said a U.S. credit analyst.
To stem the government's deficit spending, which reached $9.7
billion last year, Menem plans to increase revenues by simplifying
the tax-collection system and increasing levies on exported goods.
But most economists believe that Menem's most important task will
be to privatize Argentina's inefficient state-owned monopolies,
which are losing $4 billion annually. Menem may get the power to
do so if the Argentine Congress approves a new emergency law that
would give him almost unlimited control over the nationalized
companies. But Menem has so far offered no details about his
privatization drive. Those particulars are not likely to come soon.
On Friday, only six days after joining Menem's Cabinet, Economic
Minister Miguel Roig died of a heart attack. His replacement,
businessman Nestor Rapanelli, will be the fourth Economic Minister
since March 31, when Juan Sourrouille resigned because of his
inability to stabilize the economy.