Uncertainty and chaos continue to roil Argentina’s currency and financial markets in the countdown to the Oct. 22 presidential election, now 11 days away. Today, after the government’s statistical agency INDEC reported September’s inflation rate of 12.7%—well above the expected 11.5%—the Central Bank announced it was raising interest rates to 145%, up from the already whopping 97% announced on Aug. 14. In the first 10 months of this year, inflation rose by 103.2%, and 138.3% year-on-year. The current inflation rate is the highest in three decades, Bloomberg News reported.
This occurs against the backdrop of a run on the peso which accelerated early in the week after the fascist Libertarian presidential candidate Javier Milei publicly trashed the peso as “excrement” and “not worth being used as manure,” and told people to abandon their peso fixed-term deposits and to replace them with dollars. Milei was blamed for the run on the currency and attacked from all sides for destabilizing the economy. Rather than paying too much attention to Milei’s antics, Finance Minister Sergio Massa, presidential candidate for the ruling Unity for the Fatherland coalition, has focused on deploying law enforcement to pursue speculators whom he blames for causing the black market dollar rate to shoot up over $1,000 this week.
