Argentiniens Weg in die größte Pleite des Kapitalismus.

(Argentinien-Berichte des Economist seit Juni 2001 -
 mit deutscher Zusammenfassung am Schluss)

Economist, 9. Juni 2001:
“Unless the economy rapidly returns to growth, a huge bond swap will have merely postponed a dept default…
This involved exchanging some USD 29.5 billion in mainly short-term dept for newly issued bonds which expire after 2005.
The urgent thing was that, before the swap, Argentina had looked unable to refinance the heavy burden of dept due to expire in the next five years and would, perhaps sooner rather than later, have defaulted…
After three years of recession, and with unemployment at 15%, depressed Argentines are desperate for a recovery. The swap aims to foster this by deferring some USD 7.7 billion in dept payments due before the end of next year…
In recent months, Argentina’s borrowing bill has surged, as investors have demanded ever-higher premiums to compensate for the risk of default. …
But Argentina’s reprieve has come at a high price. It will pay interest of about 15% on the new bonds, compared with an average of 9-12% on those traded in. The swap will be a success only if the economy returns swiftly to growth of at least 5% a year, and the government generates a fiscal surplus, thus reassuring investors that Argentina can service its postponed - and now augmented - debts in future. …
The prospects, however, do not look good. …
Last December President Fernando de la Rua’s government hoped that it had created the conditions for recovery by negotiating a USD 40 billion bundle of loans and credit guarantees, led by the IMF. But as the slump continued, in March investors and Mr. de la Rua both panicked. …
Unless there is growth soon, Argentina’s expensively acquired breathing-space may not last long.”

Economist, 23. Juni 2001:
”Introduced in 1991, Argentina’s currency-board system, under which the local peso is tied to the dollar at bar, has been seen as the lifebelt that has kept the economy afloat. … And the lifebelt has seemed more like a millstone.”
“The obvious solution, a devaluation, is a non-starter. Less than a tenth of the government’s dept is denominated in pesos, so devaluation would bring financial ruin to it as well as to private-sector borrowers. A big refinancing early this month of USD 29 billion-worth of commercial dept, through a swap for longer-dated bonds, bought a respite. But the shadow of a potentially catastrophic default still hangs over Argentina.
So on June 15th Domingo Cavallo, the economy minister … announced a package of reforms, including a system of subsidies for exports and tariffs for imports, which will have the effect of introducing a floating exchange rate for foreign trade. …
Concern that this was a first step towards full-scale devaluation sent the price of Argentina's bonds tumbling. …
Mr. Cavallo has announced plans to pump as much as USD 5 Billion into the economy, by issuing bonds secured against overdue tax receipts. … It is a risky strategy…”
”Despite the recent dept swap, the spectre of default will soon loom once more if the economy does not grow.”

Economist, 14. Juli 2001:
”Argentina's intensifying problems are causing difficulties for its neighbours, spreading pessimism across the region.
“On July 10th … investors demanded interest rates of 14% in an auction of three-month treasury bills, up from 9% last month, and showed no appetite for longer-dated bonds.
Domingo Cavallo, the economy minister, admitted that Argentina could not go on paying such high interest rates, or its situation would ‘worsen geometrically’. Only last month he thought he had won a breathing space by swapping short-term bonds worth USD 29.5 billion for longer-term ones. …
Investors have dumped emerging-market shares, bonds and currencies in a flight to safer assets.”

Grafik: Staatsschulden als Prozent des BSP.

Economist, 21. Juli 2001:
”…on July 14th, when Mr. Cavallo escorted his daughter to her sumptuous wedding, they were pelted with eggs by angry demonstrators.
That summed up the surly mood with which Argentina greeted Mr. Cavallo’s lastditch effort to stave off a debt default and devaluation… “We will spend only what we collect in revenues and we will fight tax evasion to eliminate the deficit and our dependence on expensive loans,” said a tired-looking Mr. Cavallo, after admitting that Argentina “had no more credit”.
At first, the public reacted by queuing up to take their money out of the banks, prompting shortages of dollars. Bankers reported a brisk demand for safe-deposit boxes; Argentines have seen enough economic crisis to know that dollar accounts can be forcibly converted to devalued pesos by governments.”
”Mr. Cavallo wants to trim total government spending by USD 1.5 billion this year and USD 4.3 billion next. … Mr. Cavallo will cut central-government salaries and pensions by 13% for the next three months; … These cuts face fierce opposition: trade unions staged strikes this week.”
Argentina has two underlying problems. One is the rigidity of its exchange-rate peg, and the strength of the dollar. …The other problem is a state bloated by pork-barrel spending and hampered by a creaky tax system. Rather than tackle this, for ten years governments borrowed. Now time has run out. The choices are austerity or bust.”

Economist, 4. August 2001:
“This week the country’s Senate approved Mr. de la Rua’s austerity plan, and the government bought back short-term debt coming due this year. Even so, recent falls in bank deposits and tax revenues have spooked investors, who worry that Argentina is heading for a debt default. Overnight interest rates soared to 35%, and Argentine securities plunged.”

Economist, 11. August 2001:
“Since it came together, George Bush’s team has had a confused approach towards emerging-market crisis. In principle, the administration is sceptical of bailing out economies in trouble. …
After all, it did not decry a USD 40 billion rescue programme for Argentina organised by the International Monetary Fund last December, and it strongly backed an IMF bail-out of Turkey this spring.
With Argentina's deepening crisis, though, the Bush team has been sending conflicting signals. … Taken together, the message seemed clear: no more bail-outs, and certainly no money from America. Las week the message appeared to shift. …
Horst Köhler, the IMF’s head, was effusive about Brazil’s ‘strong track record’ and praised its efforts to deal with ‘a difficult external environment’ - for which, read Argentina. …
Wall Street took these two announcements to mean one thing: that the IMF had largely given up on Argentina and was now trying its best to protect Brazil from contagion. …
Only days later, however, the mood changed yet again.”

Economist, 18. August 2001:
“After a week of tough negotiations in Washington, Argentina's economic team seemed close to persuading the IMF that they deserved more support. …
It appeared that agreement had been reached on a new IMF loan worth around USD 8 billion, in addition to bringing forward USD 1.2 billion under a previous loan agreement. …
But it was still far from clear whether the new money would in fact alleviate Argentina's agony. It might simply prolong it. …”
“The IMF loans may just about tide the government over until the election.”
“Bank deposits and international reserves have fallen sharply.”

Grafik: Argentiniens Bankguthaben

“Argentina faces large dept repayments to the Fund in 2002 and 2003. The new loan would increase the load, making repayment hard unless the economy is growing fast. …
This week, protesters threw up barricades on 33 roads across the country. Last week around 25,000 demonstrators in Buenos Aires called for an end to the cuts and cheered speakers who advocated a default.”

Economist, 25. August 2001:
“The sharp slowdown in America has already caused a recession, maybe not at home, but in Mexico, Singapore, Taiwan and elsewhere. In more and more countries around the world output is now stalling, if not falling. Total world output probably fell in the second quarter for the first time in two decades. …
The current global slowdown differs from others in the past half-century in three ways that may determine its outcome. The most striking is that economic weakness is more widespread than in previous downturns. … So far this downturn is not deep, but it could be the most synchronised since the 1930s.
Therein lies the biggest risk. Economies have become increasingly integrated through trade and investment in recent years, to their great benefit. But the downside to this globalisation is that the economic slowdown around the world is now proving self-reinforcing, magnifying the initial fall in demand.
As investment has collapsed in America and Japan, those countries have slashed their imports from East Asian producers. But weaker demand in Asian countries is causing them in turn to trim their imports, not just from America and Japan, but also from Europe. The chances of a prolonged American (and global) downturn have thereby increased considerably. …
It is an investment-led downturn. America’s long expansion in the 1990s encouraged rosy expectations about future growth and profits, encouraging over-investment financed by heavy borrowing. … No investment bubble has ever burst without causing a serious economic downturn.”
“Paul O’Neill, America’s folksy treasury secretary, explained why the talks between Argentina and the IMF over a new loan dragged on into a second week. …The loan is needed because of fears that Argentina might be pushed to default on its debt or devalue its currency. …
So will the new loan achieve its goals? Certainly, it should buy Argentina's government some time: USD 5 billion of the new money can be used straightaway. …
While a large-scale debt restructuring is necessary, it will be complicated. The details remain sketchy. But the money involved looks to be too little to help Argentina to meet some USD 17 billion in debt-service payments due next year…
It is true that the currency board makes a devaluation especially difficult and costly (around 70% of bank deposits and private-sector debt is in foreign currency).”

Economist, 25. August 2001:
”A week later than advertised, Argentina's government got the help it had been seeking from the IMF, in the form of the promise of a new USD 8 billion loan. Added to USD 14 billion still left over from a previous agreement struck last December, officials hope that this money will restore confidence in their country’s economy and in their ability to service the USD 127 billion public dept.”

Economist, 22. September 2001:
”In July … Argentina discovered it had exhausted investors’ confidence and thus its access to credit….
Interest payments on debt (are) down by USD 2.7 billion on this year. … Since interest payments now account for a fifth of total federal spending ….”

Grafik: argentin_zinszahlung
“But even if it succeeds, it will merely postpone, not end, the risk of a debt default - unless and until the economy starts growing again.”

Economist, 13. Oktober 2001:
“After external credit had dried up, the government in July declared that it would at once eliminate its fiscal deficit. But the ensuing spending cuts have further slowed activity, hitting tax revenues, which slumped 14% last month. Since there seems to be little alternative other than full-scale disaster…”

Economist, 20. Oktober 2001:
”Nearly half the electorate did not vote for any candidate in the congressional elections of October 14th…. 19% of the electorate cast blanc or spoilt ballots, or, though voting is required by law, simply stayed at home. …
Argentina has USD 128 billion of public foreign debt….”
Recession and deflation have bitten hard: private-sector wages have fallen some 20% in the past three years, and overt unemployment now stands at about 17%.”

Economist, 3. November 2001:
“The … question is what went wrong in Argentina, for so long seen as a model reformer. ….
“Many say they have had no jobs for years. In (Buenos Aires) what was long the richest city in Latin America, ‘each year, there’s more and more hunger and less and less hope’ …
Income per head in Argentina was similar to that of France, Germany and Canada in the 1930…
An economic recession is now well into its fourth year. … Open unemployment stands at over 16%; another 15% are ‘underemployed’. Wages in manufacturing have fallen by up to a fifth (in nominal terms) in three years…
’Privatised services and foreign bank branches have been fantastically profitable. The Argentina that has to compete with the world has done very badly’…
A run on the banks saw USD 8 billion leave in July and August. …
Neither has the government persuaded local banks and pension funds (in all, locals hold perhaps half of the USD 132 billion public dept) to accept bonds paying less interest and with a three-year grace period in a ‘voluntary’ dept swap. …
The government’s immediate problem is that its faces interest payments of USD 1.4 billion this month. …”

Economist, 17. November 2001:
“Any dept swap with foreign creditors would require guarantees from outsiders, such as the IMF or the United States Treasury. But Mr de la Rua received only polite praise form American officials. … Others believe the delay has come too late to salvage Argentina's creditability. …
But the government has let Buenos Aires province play wages in bonds called Patacones; Mr. Cavallo intends to pay the government’s arrears to the provinces (totalling USD 850 m) with similar funny money. …

Economist, 8. Dezember 2001:
”Argentines are hardly neophytes when it comes to living through economic crises. So, after government last weekend imposed exchange controls and restrictions on cash withdrawals from bank accounts, the reaction was one of resignation and quiet anger rather than disorder. ..
The controls mean that Argentines can withdraw only USD 1,000 per month in cash from their bank accounts. All other payments must be made be cheque, credit or debit cards….
The government decided to act when it saw the outflow of money that has reduced bank deposits by around a fifth since January turn into a full-scale run….”
“At present, only one Argentine in four has a bank account.” …
“The controls have prevented the collapse of the financial system … in a dogged effort … to avoid the inevitable: default on the country’s USD 135 billion public dept…”
Last, and most important, it became apparent that Mr Cavallo could not longer count an the support of the IMF, which has helped Argentina with loan arrangements amounting to USD 48 billion in the past year. …
On December 5th, the Fund said that it was ‘unable at this stage to recommend completion’ of its review of Argentina's loan programme. Translation: it will not release the last tranche of its latest loan, worth USD 1.3 billion, unless the government either adopts the dollar, or devalues.
Without the IMF money, the government would have to dig further into its reserves. Even so, it could meet its obligations only until ‘the middle of the first quarter’, according to a report by Credit Suisse First Boston, an investment bank. …”
Local banks and pension funds have agreed to swap some USD 50 billion of bonds for more generous loans, saving the government USD 4.5 billion in interest payments next year. …
Recession has turned to slump. Since July, the economy has shrunk at an annual rate of around 10% …
The provinces and the national government have resorted to printing exchangeable bonds - funny money. …
A debt default is inevitable and will be legally messy.”

Economist, 15. Dezember 2001:
“Most Washington officials privately reckon that he (Mr. Cavallo) will also have to extract much bigger debt write-downs from bondholders than the current restructuring plans envisage.”

Economist, 22. Dezember 2001:
”A one-day general strike on December 13th attracted more support than had seven previous stoppages during Mr de la Rua’s term. After 42 months of recession, the patience of some Argentines has snapped. …
The latest official survey says that in October unemployment exceeded 18% (it is now probably 20%). …
Meanwhile, the government is scrambling to meet debt payments by hook or by crook: to do so this month, it delayed the payment of state pensions and forced private pension funds to hand over bank deposits for government paper. …
Most investors already view outright dept default as inevitable.”

Economist, 5. Januar 2001:
“Argentina's foreign creditors, back from holiday, are bracing themselves for a long wrangle for their money, amid uncertainty about whom they will wrangle with.
The moratorium on the country’s USD 155 billion of public foreign-currency dept, declared on December 23rd by President Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, who promptly resigned, had least cleared up doubts about how bad things could get.
Yet financiers, so far, have been surprisingly sanguine about the biggest default in history - one, they say, which had looked inevitable for about a year. …
The Argentine bondholders committee, a group formed in November to put some big investors’ views to the Argentine government, had difficulty this week finding officials in Buenos Aires to talk to. …
The mere announcement of a moratorium means that any bondholder can now ‘accelerate’ his claim, demanding from the debtor immediate und full payment of principal and interest. Still, acceleration in this case is not likely to lead to prompt payment. …
Most creditors calculate that they will preserve most value by negotiation. Veterans of sovereign workouts recognise that negotiations will take at least two years, and that it may bi six month before they even start….
The IMF’s refusal to bail out Russia in 1998, and Argentina too, for now, are exceptions rather than a refreshing new trend. By contrast, strategic factors have governed rich-country aid for Turkey and Pakistan. Both countries are seen as important allies in the battle against global terrorism. Argentina may not have the strategic importance, in America eyes, to qualify for a further bail-out.”
“’Argentina is bust. It’s bankrupt. Business is halted, the chain of payments is broken… and we don’t have a peso to pay Christmas bonuses, wages or pensions.’ Thus Eduardo Duhalde, in his speech to Congress after it had chosen him as Argentina's president on January 1st. …
Looting and mass demonstrations drove Fernando de la Rua from the presidency on December 20th, after just two years of a government that hat frittered away all of its initially considerable political support. …
The government has not had access to international credit (except from the IMF) since July. It had already repatriated nearly all of its liquid foreign assets to avoid their seizure by creditors. …
The bank controls have enraged the middle class. …
Some 14 million Argentines, or more than two in five, now live in poverty ….The country’s proud middle class, unusually large for a Latin American country, is shrinking fast. Meanwhile, cuts in welfare spending mean that in the past two years the numbers without enough income to cover basic food needs have doubled to 5.5 million….
So discredited are politicians that in October’s congressional elections more than 25% of the electorate failed to carry out their legal duty to vote. Of those who did, 21% cast blank or spoiled ballots. …
Since 1958, only three of Argentina's 18 presidents have completed their allotted terms.”

Economist, 12. Januar 2002:
”In the street, the peso was trading as low as 1.60 to the dollar. Having originally said that the foreign-exchange market could reopen on January 9th, the government later postponed this by two days while it worked on the new regulations. Mr Duhalde’s measures dump much of the pain from devaluation on to the banks. Most mortgages and loans were taken out in dollars, while wages are mainly in pesos. So a devaluation makes most Argentines bankrupt as their government. …
In fact, though some prices have already gone up, the economy’s deep recession may restrain inflation. …
But measures leave the banks - most of the big ones are foreign-owned - staring at huge losses. To compensate, they will receive the proceeds from a new tax of up to 20% on oil and gas exports (the main exporter, Repsol, is Spanish). … As well as having many of their loans but not their deposits devalued, the banks will lose in other ways. … The bankers claim they will lose more than $10 billion from turning loans into pesos, or more than half their total capital of $17 billion. …
Mr Remes has talked of seeking a fresh IMF loan of $15 billion-20 billion….
Sensibly, Mr Duhalde has rejected Mr Rodriguez’s scheme to print a third currency. …
Miguel Angel Broda, an independent economist, says that, at best, the new government’s measures may halt the economy’s “implosion”; he reckons that it contracted at an annual rate of 15% in the last quarter of 2001. But, he says, recovery is a very distant prospect.”
…
“Much of the cost of the devaluation will be borne by (mostly foreign-owned) banks and privatised utilities (whose charges, hitherto in dollars and indexed to American inflation, will rightly be switched to pesos).
…
The grim truth for Argentina is that things will get worse before they get better. Having defaulted on its $155 billion debt, the government faces messy talks with creditors. But a coherent economic plan could start to restore confidence, and tempt back the $20 billion or so that fled the country last year.
Since Argentina was once seen as a successful model for free-market policies in Latin America, the scale of its troubles has inevitably brought calls (some form Mr Duhalde himself) for the country, and the region, to turn their backs on such policies. In two respects, the reward from openness has indeed been disappointing. Capital flows have proved fickle, especially in recent years. And rich-world protectionism, especially for farm products, has robbed Latin America of some of the benefits of open trade.”

Economist, 19. Januar 2002:
”After a decade of parity, in the free market the peso quickly plunged, to around 1.85 to the dollar.
…
Mr Duhalde’s measures have put much of the burden on the banks and privatised utilities, several of which are Spanish-owned. …
The IMF, too, is trying to sound conciliatory. It has agreed to postpone for a year repayment of $933m owed to Argentina, …
Argentina could start to recover by the end of this year, an IMF official said this week.”

Economist, 26. Januar 2002:
”But rightly or wrongly, many Argentines blame their country’s economic collapse at least in part on free-market policies which they see as championed by America. …
The crux, of the problem is that two-thirds of bank deposits are in dollars, as are most loans. To the fury or the bankers, Mr Duhalde promised that dollar deposits would eventually be honoured in dollars, while ordering that bank loans of less than $100,000 be converted into (devalued) pesos. The government estimates the cost of this mismatch at $5 billion; …
Mr Duhalde’s measures were aimed at cushioning the impact of devaluation on the hard-pressed public, who have already suffered recession since 1998. But as Carlos Escude, a foreign-policy specialist, says, the measures have aroused “an invincible coalition o opponents”, including European governments as wall as the IMF and the banks, …”

Economist, 09. Februar 2002:
”Mr Duhalde’s team has now moved closer towards adopting the “coherent” plan urged upon them by the IMF and sundry outsiders, including the Bush administration. …
Many details have still to be worked out. … Even so, the plan has some obvious flaws. If inflation is not to take off, freeing the currency needs to be combined with tight monetary and fiscal policies. On paper, the government is committed to these. The Central Bank will print no more than 3.5 billion pesos this year. The budget maintains a 13% cut in public sector wages and pensions imposed last year, increases spending only an emergency help for the poor, …
And in the face of political pressures, the government may find that the easiest way of sticking to its budgets is to let inflation reduce the value of spending. …
Mr Duhalde has broken his original, rash, promise to repay dollar savings in dollars while turning dollar loans into pesos. … In all, reckons Pedro Lacoste, an economic consultant, propping up the financial system may require the government to issue new debt of $20 billion.
…
The immediate test for Mr Reme’s plan is how far and fast the peso depreciates. … Because of the corralito, Argentines have little cash to buy dollars. The Central Bank still has $14 billion of reserves.
…,  and unemployment may have reached 25%.”

Economist, 16. Februar 2002:
”The peso has not crashed - yet …
Despite predictions of an immediate collapse, by mid-week the peso stood fairly firm, at around 1.90 to the dollar - though that is 47% less than it was worth before Argentina’s fixed exchange rate collapsed last month.
But demand for dollars is artificially restricted. Bank savings are still frozen, …. Banks are not selling dollars, …
With these restrictions, and reserves of $14 billion, the government can choose the exchange rate it likes. The test will come when it loosens the controls. By then, it hopes to have backing form the IMF.”

Zusammenfassung:
Argentinien hatte in den 30er Jahren einen Lebensstandard wie Deutschland oder Frankreich. Buenos Aires war bis vor wenigen Jahren die reichste Stadt in Lateinamerika.
Heute leben über 14 Millionen oder zwei Fünftel der Argentinier in Armut. 5,5 Millionen Argentinier haben nicht genug zu essen.

1991
Argentinien bindet den Kurs des Peso an den US-Dollar. (Und bekommt so mehr ausländische Direktinvestitionen und billigere Kredite auf dem internationalen Geldmarkt, weil Rückzahlung bzw. Gewinntransfer in Dollars versprochen wird.)

1997
Wirtschaftswachstum von rund 8%.
1998
Das Wirtschaftswachstum geht auf 4 % zurück.
1999
Negatives Wachstum: - 3,5%.
2000
Die ausländischen Gläubiger befürchten eine baldige Zahlungsunfähigkeit Argentiniens (Economist, 2.12.2000). Der IWF sichert die privaten Kredite ab und gewährt Argentinien neue Kredite und Kreditgarantien über 40 Mrd. USD.
2001.01.
Ein drittes Jahr mit Wirtschaftskrise beginnt (Im Jahresschnitt knapp liegt das Wirtschaftswachstum unter 0 %). Die offizielle Arbeitslosigkeit liegt bei 15%. Weitere 15 % sind mit Gelegenheitsjobs „unterbeschäftigt“.
2001.03.
Das Wirtschaftswachstum für 2001 wird auf minus 3 % geschätzt (es liegt dann bei minus 10 %).
Gläubiger und Argentinische Regierung „packt Panik“ (‚Economist').
2001.06.
Die Amerikanische Regierung weigert sich, sich innerhalb des IWF an einer finanziellen Rettung Argentiniens zu beteiligen. (Das wird vom ‚Economist' erst im August berichtet: „certainly no money from America“. Die Hauptlast der Argentinischen Pleite trifft ja das europäische Kapital (Spanien), nicht das US-Kapital. Ebenso wie bei Argentinien hatten sich die USA auch 1998 bei Russland geweigert, helfend einzuspringen. Auch hier traf die Hauptlast das europäische Kapital. wb)
Die Argentinische Regierung vereinbart eine Schuldenumverteilung mit den ausländischen Gläubigern: über 7,7 Milliarden USD Schulden, die vor Ende des nächsten Jahres fällig werden,  sollen - gegen höhere Zinsen - bis 2005 verlängert werden. Neue Argentinische Bonds im Wert von 29,5 Mrd. USD werden angeboten. Die Gläubiger verlangen eine Verzinsung von 15 % statt wie im Vormonat 9 % und akzeptieren nur dreimonatige Laufzeiten.
2001.07.
Die Gesamtschulden Argentiniens betragen 127 Mrd. USD. Der Schuldendienst der Zentralregierung verschlingt 20 % ihrer Ausgaben.
Der Argentinische Wirtschaftsminister gibt zu: „Argentinien hat keinen ausländischen Kredit mehr“ (‚Economist') und wird von Demonstranten mit faulen Eiern beworfen. Es beginnt ein Ansturm auf die Banken. Privatkonten werden abgeholt und der Bedarf an Bankschließfächern steigt rapide.
Die Regierung verspricht den Gläubigern Ausgabenkürzungen von 1,5 Mrd USD in diesem Jahr und 4,3 Mrd. im nächsten Jahr. U.a. sollen Beamtengehälter und Beamtenpensionen um 13 % gekürzt werden.
2001.08.
Eine Abwertung des Pesos gegenüber dem Dollar würde die Schuldenlast erhöhen, weil rund 70 % aller Bankguthaben und der privaten Kredite über US-Dollars laufen.
Die Übernacht-Zinsrate steigt auf 35%. Der IWF schießt noch einmal 8 Mrd. USD an Krediten bzw. Kreditgarantien nach. (Wohl um die argentinische Regierung über die Parlamentswahlen im Dezember zu helfen. wb)
Die Steuereinnahmen gehen um 14 % zurück.
Demonstranten errichten Straßensperren im ganzen Land.
Im Juli und August werden 8 Mrd. USD von privaten Bankguthaben abgehoben.
2001.09.
In den letzten drei Jahren sind die Nominallöhne in der Privatwirtschaft um 20 % gefallen. Offizielle Arbeitslosigkeit: 17%.
2001.10.
Aus Protest gegen ihre Politikerklasse geben zu den Parlamentswahlen am 20. Oktober 21 % der Wähler ungültige Wahlzettel ab, 25 % der Wähler erscheinen nicht zur Wahl, obwohl die Stimmabgabe gesetzlich vorgeschrieben ist.
2001.11.
Die Zentral- und Provinzregierungen zahlen ihre Gehälter in „Ersatzgeld“.
2001.12.
Geschätztes Wirtschaftswachstum für 2001: minus 8%.
Schuldenstand: 135 Mrd. USD.
Die Regierung blockiert den freien Zugang zu privaten Bankkonten. Jeder darf nur noch 1000 USD im Monat abheben. Zahlungen sollen unbar erfolgen, aber nur jeder vierte Argentinier hat ein Bankkonto.
Die Regierung beraubt die Lokalbanken und die Rentenkassen um 50 Mrd. USD, indem sie ihnen praktisch wertlose Bonds aufzwingt.
Selbst wenn alle Maßnahmen greifen, kann Argentiniens Regierung ihre Schulden nur noch bis „Mitte Februar 2002“ bedienen.
Das Wirtschaftswachstum des Jahres 2001 sank um rund 10%. Die offizielle Arbeitslosenrate liegt bei 20%. Gewerkschaften rufen zum Generalstreik auf. Präsident Rua tritt zurück.
Rund 20 Mrd. USD wurden im Laufe des Jahres 2001 aus Argentinien abgezogen.
2002.01
Argentiniens Schuldenstand: 155 Mrd. USD.
Der neue Präsident Duhalde erklärt am 1. Januar: „Argentinien ist pleite!“.
Die Bindung des Pesos an den Dollar wird für Kredite unter 100.000 USD aufgehoben.
2002.02
Die Regierung kündigt an, dass sie zusätzliche Pesos drucken wird, um durch Inflation ihre Schulden auf die Verbraucher abzuwälzen. Die Argentinische Zentralbank verfügt noch über 14 Mrd. USD.
Die offizielle Arbeitslosigkeit erreicht rund 25%.
Wal Buchenberg, 24.2.2002