The games left for the middle class team are few, today they are “candidates for relegation.” Some citizens who played in that league lost against the monthly surplus, lost against savings in dollars and could lose against dismissal. The thing is that, “the social environment of the population”, a perfect storm has hit. As we said, many had their dollar savings consumed, and most received disproportionate increases in the food brands they consume. They increased the expenses of the building or the country, the bills for: electricity, gas, running water, private school, private university of their children, insurance of the car or cars, garage, patents, medicine prepaid, medications, gasoline, costs and commissions for cards and checking accounts, mobile cell phones, internet, dining in restaurants, food delivery, etc. So, on average, credit cards arrive with balances greater than double. Jointly, those who have their house or apartment on the coast cannot pay the fixed expenses of their second home, nor can they take a getaway on the weekends.
First they doubled inflation, and then explained that “it is going down” (without clarifying: “from where we raised it”). All inflation measurements of the previous government were lower than those of Milei. The truth is that reality has been distorted for citizens, with different tricks. Even the prefabricated slowdown in inflation in May, which responds to the recessionary misfortune resulting from the sum of inconveniences. But the worst thing is that a “V reversal” – as was said – is not seen in the entire year 2024.
The GDP fall estimate released by the IMF for 2024 gives a drop of (-2.8), but has “the best will and desire” of the organization. At least we calculate double. Up to this point, the annualized rate of decline quadruples the IMF estimate, obviously a softening of the collapse in economic activity is expected.
“…As for the wealthy class, the minimum expense rose from $2,384,866.32 in December to $2,841,971.56 in January…” he had said (Infobae, February 10, 2024). (N. de la R.) Only one month had passed, and it had registered a 20% increase.
In the midst of a brutal recession, accumulated inflation since the beginning of Javier Milei’s mandate, in the quarter (Dec.-Mar. 23, 24) reached 90.17%. It more than doubled the inflation rate of the worst quarter of Alberto Fernández’s presidency in pesos, although the fall in the price of the currency made it the “dollar hyperinflation” of the cuquarter out of 137.71%. Hyperinflation in dollars. A calamity.
LIBERAL MILEI VOTERS
Part of the “middle class” is usually dazzled by desire. Some aspire to live as Americans in Miami, others have been convinced that they reside in a semi-European country. We have heard: “los bolitas”, “los yoruguas”, “losumbrellas”, “los brazucas” and, lately, “Arganzuela”. A lot of immodest people are hierarchical office staff, teachers, merchants, technicians, entrepreneurs, SMEs and, they claim for themselves, a social place, far away from the poor. Today Milei has sentenced a new social group, for now vague and diffuse, to poverty. A new social category. They approach a condition that is not yet very clear, but remains closer to the poor than to the rich. Despite considering themselves “middle class,” their income is not between the incomes of the rich and the poor. Right now, “middle class” seems like an allegory, a portrait of the past in the thinking of many aspirational citizens. The truth is that even managers are workersand they have been very mistreated by this new situation.
The middle class was very important in supporting the liberal country project of 1880. Those who created that idea to seduce them were liberals. They are supposed to serve “those in the middle,” because they act as a balance that has prevented the poor from rioting. This being the country of “Che Guevara”, the prosperity and enthusiasm that social advancement generated has been a holding factor.
Caputo and Milei are wasting a great opportunity and many votes from the middle class. According to the story, we were the country that, having had everything, failed; this was the opportunity to return to the path of “Argentina was a world power.” If we were really in 140th place in the ranking, today we are in 250th place.
The longed-for Argentine society in the story of Milei and Benegas Lynch promoted labor and economic activities, it did not destroy employment and entrepreneurs. Salaried employees were increasing and were hoping to belong to the middle sectors: commerce employees, bankers, receptionists, supervisors, secretaries, managers, bosses and managers. In 1869 there were 12,000 commercial employees; in 1914 there were 95,000. At the moment, we have massive layoffs on the horizon, because the stores are half empty and the drop in sales is monumental..
The growth of the educational system, not its destruction, was what generated employment for teachers, custodians, professors and directors. Teachers went from 2,300 in 1869 to 31,000 in 1914 (13 and a half times more in the 45 years that they remember with nostalgia).
In the Argentina idealized by Benegas Lynch, the economic evolution was ascending, not recessive. Since in 1869 there were 22 inhabitants out of every 1,000 who stood out as entrepreneurs and we had only 439 lawyers, 458 doctors, 70 architects and 194 engineers, in 1914 we already had 37 professionals per 1,000 (+68.18%). We had 173,000 merchants, 30,000 retail food and beverage stores, and only 330 wholesalers. There were 5,000 butcher shops, 1,600 shoe stores, 1,700 pharmacies, 1,600 bookstores.
The 1895 census counted 22,000 establishments of various sizes, in 1914 there were already 49,000, and 19,000 were bakeries, tailor shops, dry cleaners, custom shoe shops, hairdressers, blacksmith shops, carpentry shops and printing shops. We exceeded 12,000 graduates, around 1.54 professionals per 1,000. These professionals, businessmen, entrepreneurs, merchants, were encouraged, not destroyed. Today they walk the paths with sad looks.
In 2024, the possibilities of the self-employed salesman, intermediary, gas fitter, plumber, electrician, bricklayer, plasterer, middle class will fall. Workers in a dependency relationship are mostly working poor, but there is still a lack, they can still lose their jobs because there is no company that can last without sales.
The flip side of the development of the middle class was that there were fewer poor people or “potential populist clientele,” according to the vision of Milei and Benegas Lynch.
Gino Germani, whom no one can suspect of being a Marxist or Peronist, explained with these numbers that there was in the Argentina of Benegas Lynch’s great-great-grandfather, an incipient upward social mobility to benefit Milei’s great-great-grandfatheraspirational people, who never wanted to be confused with the choriplanera society. Milei is attacking that social group and is turning it against.
THE CASTE WAS THE MIDDLE CLASS
The slogan was not true. The process of change has generated more poor and less rich. The winners are few and the losers are the middle class of the 54% of the ballot that voted for him. They have suddenly become impoverished, and are walking around like zombies, having to give up pre-paid medicine and not being able to pay the bills. As Macri said, children “have to end up in public school” and in underfunded hospitals.
The situation for the “middle class” has become a real hell. Dinner with the children in the restaurant has been left behind because it costs $100,000. The most popular platform $15,000, cable and connectivity $60,000, prepaid increased 160%. If we were India, right now the middle class would be closer to the caste of “the outcasts” than to the longed-for “Brahmans”. This vast majority is experiencing an undesirable phenomenon: “downward social mobility.”
Young people who did not inherit an apartment, with the release of rental contracts, cannot even rent a studio apartment. They are returning to their parents’ house. The government chose a very toxic enemy.
The unknown Milei and Benegas Lynch evoke figures, but they did not understand the strategies of their leaders. With liberal-conservatism, the measures of force in the streets were isolated, because “the honorable citizen” did not do those things.
On April 24, the streets were filled with the middle class. They were “white people who looked like Europeans”, grandchildren of grandparents who “came off the ships” (a frightening and false image induced by vernacular liberalism). Once again on the street, “the ideal, desirable and reasonable citizen”, the Argentine they longed for, this time came out to fight.
The huts of Mitre-not Alberdi-, are melting the “good people”, those of elegant and distinguished consumption, of good appearance and decent. They bombed the bourgeoisie that wants to progress, work and save, they came to tell them to their faces to sell the dollars, mocking.
THE ONLY TRUTH IS THE REALITY
For now everything remains in evanescent promises that engendered fleeting satisfactions and dizzying frustrations, simply because the logic of economic freedom is not the logic of family values. The average family longs for quality of life. The market strives exclusively to achieve its purpose, to generate profits.
Director of Esperanza Foundation. https://fundacionesperanza.com.ar/ UBA Postgraduate Professor and Master’s Degrees at private universities. Master in International Economic Policy, Doctor in Political Science, author of 6 books, @pablotigani
Source: Ambito
David William is a talented author who has made a name for himself in the world of writing. He is a professional author who writes on a wide range of topics, from general interest to opinion news. David is currently working as a writer at 24 hours worlds where he brings his unique perspective and in-depth research to his articles, making them both informative and engaging.
