Inflation Fear: Argentina Freezes Food Prices
[Argentina
freezes prices to break inflation spiral] "Buenos Aires, Argentina (AP) —
Argentina announced a two-month price freeze on supermarket products Monday in
an effort to break spiraling inflation.
The price freeze applies to every product in all of the nation's largest
supermarkets — a group including Walmart, Carrefour, Coto, Jumbo, Disco and
other large chains. The companies' trade group, representing 70 percent of the
Argentine market, reached the accord with Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno,
the government's news agency Telam reported.
The commerce ministry wants consumers to keep receipts and complain to a hotline
about any price hikes they see before April 1.
Polls show Argentines worry most about inflation, which private economists
estimate could reach 30 percent this year. The government says it's trying to
hold the next union wage hikes to 20 percent, a figure that suggests how little
anyone believes the official index that pegs annual inflation at just 10
percent.
The government announced the price freeze on the first business day after the
International Monetary Fund formally censured Argentina for putting out
inaccurate economic data. The IMF has given Argentina until September to bring
its statistics up to international standards, or face expulsion from the world
body in November.
President Cristina Fernandez and her economy minister, Hernan Lorenzino,
responded over the weekend with a flurry of attacks on the IMF, saying the
agency's data-gathering efforts had lost credibility in the lead-up to
Argentina's historic 2001 debt default. They said IMF advice is leading
Europeans astray by favoring big banks over measures that can grow economies out
of crisis.
However, Lorenzino also said that the government will begin using a new
inflation index starting in fourth-quarter 2013 — just in time for the IMF's
decision."
Argentina freezes prices to break inflation spiral
Response to comment [from a Christian]: "Here we go again..."
See:
The Final Economic Collapse, Part 1 (right click,
open)
Revelation 18:1-5 Grace
to You
