Buenos Aires, Argentina – Carolina Ascona, the former chef turned taxi, is in the midst of a reinvention.
The 44-year-old single mother learns to sew miniature tents for young people, as well as picnic blankets that she plans to cut into the look of the road on the outskirts of the Argentine capital.
“It’s the only thing I can locate right now,” he says of his new adventure in a tent. “There’s no work. At the age I am, it’s very difficult. “
This is the moment when Ascona tries to identify a counterfeit earnings base, as the monetary floor curves and bends to the coronavirus pandemic and its anger.
After the closure of Argentina in March and the closure of the airports on which it depended for taxi consumers, it created a new business: buy cheeses for resale and deliver them to consumers in Buenos Aires.
That is what I can locate now.
But these paintings dried temporarily as the order of the population diminished in parallel with the economy of the South American nation.
Argentina recorded its maximum severe economic downturn in 16 years in the 3 months ending June, when the economy contracted 19. 1% compared to the same time last year.
The country is in the third year of recession, which means that its population sinks under the highest level of unemployment, dizzying inflation and dizzying poverty even before the pandemic strikes even harder.
But for Argentines accustomed to moving from one economic crisis to another, pivoting to locate new revenue source resources has such a well-established skill that it’s called “the rummager. “brain that works the margins to survive.
We are the countries with the biggest declines in the economy
Argentina has been quarantined since 19 March, and its immediate confinement to the guard against COVID-19 has been hosted by a population terrified of scenes emanating from Europe and has helped the public fitness system.
But with the restrictions still in place six months later, for many Argentines, the balance goes from concern for the virus to concern about economic ruin, even though the number of new instances show no symptoms of slowdown and instances are branching out far and wide. not just in urban centres as had been the case in the first part of the crisis.
Some 840,000 Argentines have become inflamed with COVID-19, while more than 22,000 have died as a result of the disease, according to the knowledge of Johns Hopkins.
People dressed in protective masks line up outdoors at a branch of Banco Provincia in the monetary district of Buenos Aires, Argentina [File: Erica Canepa / Bloomberg] The government has extended a series of measures to help them succeed over the monetary havoc of the pandemic, adding the continuation of direct money bills to the deficient and self-employed, a moratorium on evictions and launching a monetary lifeguard at companies so that they do not fire their employees.
However, tens of thousands of companies have permanently closed their doors and others who may simply not pay their rent have been found on the streets, despite the ban on evictions.
Unemployment reached 13. 1% in the 3 months ended June, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina; year-on-year inflation in August reached 40. 7%, driven by the fall in the Argentine peso; poverty in the first quarter at 40%, a figure that, according to the Catholic University of Argentina, is now between 46 and 47%.
The Argentine government was able to restructure $ 65 billion in foreign debt in September, granting itself very important fiscal flexibility with foreign creditors, but the desire to print pesos to finance economic measures in the face of the pandemic has contributed to uncertainty, economists say.
The reaction has been predictable: Argentines have traded their weights for the most reliable US dollar, which is used to save here through those they can.
Argentina places limits on the amount of currency that Americans can buy.
People dressed in protective masks enter and leave a bus in Buenos Aires, Argentina [File: Erica Canepa / Bloomberg] According to official figures, 3. 9 million Argentines bought the legal amount of $200 in July. In August, about five million.
In an attempt to shore up the depletion of foreign exchange reserves, the country’s central bank imposed stricter foreign exchange controls in September. At the same time, the main unofficial exchange rate, known as the blue dollar, soared to about 145 pesos per US dollar, almost double the official exchange rate.
“We are among the countries with the economies in maximum decline [in the global quarter at the moment], and we can be just a component of the organization that will revel in slower growth,” said Gabriel Rubinstein, former governor of the Central Bank of Argentina and director of the Cabinet of Buenos Aires Gabriel Rubinstein.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty. The country’s risk point, despite debt restructuring, is very high. It is one of the worst, if not the worst, of emerging countries, with Angola and some other countries. So the stage is very bad. And in a political context that obscures things, everything gets worse.
The country’s risk point, despite debt restructuring, is very high
Since then, the government has replaced regulations on the dollar motion and created incentives for Argentines to save on pesos. In a radio interview this week, Economy Minister Martín Guzmán described the justification for capital controls.
“The first condition for making an investment is stability and the option of doing nothing would result in a jump in the exchange rate. These are not measures that make us happy, but they allow us the exchange rate scenario, a pillar of stability,” he said.
For others like Ascona, the burden of an economy going from one crisis to another is etched in its recent history.
He is in Ezeiza, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, has a six-year-old daughter and a 19-year-old son, they are in the space where he grew up, with his mother.
After wasting his job as a chef at the age of 40, it took him nine months to find work, in part, he says, because the maximum donations were for others under the age of 35 at an airport and able to survive until the pandemic decimated. air travel.
In addition, her family circle is based on donations of food from social organizations and her daughter’s school, as well as government emergency aid for 10,000 pesos ($130) every two months.
“Today, because of the desires we face in my house, and in fact, my son has to pass out and paints under construction,” she says. “Today, for example, you had a scenario where you almost cut off your hand with a 19-year-old And you have to do a task for which you are not qualified because today there is no other option, if you cut off your hand, you will have this mutilation for the rest of your life.
Ascona also fears that her children may get used to relying on a bag of donated groceries to survive.
“I don’t need this for them. I don’t need to manage their quality of life,” he said.
Gustavo Ponce de León also reinvented himself twice the pandemic. The plumber and 35-year-old fuel operator had 12 other people running through him at a structure site, but he lost all those paintings at once to the pandemic.
He a vegetable stall with a bag of potatoes, which lasted in a larger supply that lasted a few months, but has become unsustainable and had to close.
A few weeks ago she opened a convenience store in the garage of the rental premises, with tables in front and a table football, as before the grocery store called her El Rebusque.
“I have a motorcycle trail in front of my house, so everyone comes by to get to the park,” said the father of a family of four, who lives in the Bonaerense community of Villa Urquiza.
Among the plumbing works, he learns to navigate the fierce world of hunting for grief and inflation.
“I do what I have to do. I’m looking for the most productive costs. Today, for example, I went to a hot dog factory because it’s much cheaper,” he said. “Every week, the costs change, a little, a lot, but I’m learning. “
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