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Economists of the pampas

ECONOMICS is not a profession for the publicity-hungry—except in Argentina. Consider Tomás Bulat, who holds three degrees in the subject, hosts a weekly television show about it and has written two best-selling books on it. He boasts over 179,000 followers on Twitter. In comparison, Ricardo Darín, arguably Argentina’s most famous actor, has only 41,000; Andrés Calamaro, a well-known rock star, has 34,000. At a recent lunch in the seaside city of Mar del Plata, your correspondent was intrigued to see waiters and diners fawn over Mr Bulat. A neighbouring table invited him to share their calamari and a particularly bold waitress hugged him and took his photograph to show her friends.

Other economists are equally feted. Martín Lousteau, a former economy minister and current congressman, has 162,000 Twitter followers and is frequently hounded for autographs. Martín Redrado, a former head of the central bank who now runs a consultancy, has 127,000 Twitter followers. Both have dated a series of stars and appear almost as frequently in tabloids as in the financial press. A few years ago, Mr Lousteau married Carla Peterson, one of Argentina’s top actresses (the couple is pictured).

Victoria Giarrizzo of the University of Buenos Aires attributes this wealth of celebrity economists to the volatility of Argentina’s economy. “The Argentine economy is like a sickness. People have to stay constantly informed to manage their personal finances. As bearers of answers in times of chaos, economists have amassed a unique amount of power.”

According to CERX, a consultancy, Argentines feel that they are at their worst off in ten years. Ms Giarrizzo muses: “Having economists appearing frequently on television and in the newspapers is not a good sign. That means things aren’t going so well.”

from The Economist

 

Venice and suitcases

Venetians are assaulted on a daily basis by cruise ships, tourists, pigeons and flooding caused by high tides. Now they have declared war on noisy suitcases on wheels.

Venice council will soon introduce a ban on luggage equipped with hard rubber wheels, forcing the city's 27 million annual visitors to instead use suitcases that roll on air-filled, softer wheels that make less noise.

The authorities are concerned about "growing noise pollution" caused not only by tourists using wheeled luggage, but local businesses wheeling goods around on trolleys, the council said in a statement.

The daily noise of wheeled suitcases is giving Venetians "serious discomfort" and also causing the "progressive deterioration" of centuries old marble steps and foot bridges, it added.

The council, which is under special administration after a corruption scandal earlier this year forced the resignation of the mayor, is planning to introduce the ban next May.

After that, anyone with a noisy, hard-wheeled suitcase will have to pay a fine of up to 500 euros.

For a city with so many problems – rising waters caused by global warming, an exodus of locals because of high rents and property prices, and a daily invasion of 60,000 tourists – the issue of noisy luggage may seem trivial.

"Is that true? That's crazy," a French tourist told Il Gazzettino, a local newspaper, when told that his suitcase on wheels will be banned within a few months.

A young Italian woman pulling her suitcase along the banks of the Grand Canal said: "It seems to me to be a stupid idea."

But the council insists that the issue is a real one and that local residents living near hotels and bed and breakfasts dread the moment when groups of tourists arrive and leave, dragging their heavy loads over the city.

The council admits that the new law will be hard to enforce, with thousands of tourists arriving by train, plane and boat every day.

To make matters worse, the vast majority of suitcases sold around the world have wheels made of hard resin or plastic. Anyway, Venice authorities hope that a firm will spy an opportunity to produce a new line of Venice-friendly suitcases with pneumatic wheels.

"The law won't come into effect until May, so hopefully by then one or two companies might start producing suitcases with air-filled wheels," said Maurizio Dorigo, the council's planning director. “The new, hushed suitcases will benefit not only Venice but the historic centers of many Italian cities. The historical centres of lots of other places have the same problems as us – Rome, Florence, Siena. There must be a way for tourists to wheel around their luggage without making that crazy noise." 

edited from The Daily Mail and The Telegraph

Cristina’s long farewell

 

THE pot-bangers are back. On November 13th several thousand gathered outside the Casa Rosada to protest against corruption, runaway inflation, crime and above all the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Judging by their chants, “Argentina sin Cristina” (Argentina without Cristina) was their principal demand. Her approval-rating languishes at 30%. But the crowd was nowhere near as large as the million who rallied in 2013

Argentina’s economy is suffering from a combination of a global slowdown and a series of self-inflicted wounds, including the imposition of exchange controls, which worsened a crisis of confidence in the peso, and a debt default in July, which intensified the recession.

Official numbers say that the unemployment rate climbed from 6.8% in the third quarter of 2013 to 7.5% a year later. But it is really 1.5-2 percentage points higher, private-sector economists believe. Even for Argentines with jobs, living standards are dropping. The country’s inflation rate has soared from 28% in 2013 to an annualised 41% so far this year.

Car sales have plunged by 35% from last year. Even more worrying is the slide in spending at supermarkets, which dropped by 4.3% year-on-year from September 2013, according to EconViews, a consultancy.

The government’s counter-measures are making matters worse. It has expanded state employment by nearly 5% this year to blunt the rise in joblessness. But the deficits needed to pay for this are being financed by printing pesos, which worsens inflation. Import restrictions to control the trade deficit are causing shortages of both consumer goods and the supplies that manufacturers need to maintain production. Unexpectedly, the “blue dollar” premium—the gap between the official rate for the United States dollar and the parallel free-market rate—dropped from 90% in September to 70% now.

The threat of social turmoil remains, too. December is a nervous month. It is when Argentines hoping to treat their families to holiday gifts and meals feel most stretched and summer heatwaves trigger power cuts. For the past two Decembers, police officers in various provinces have gone on strike for higher pay. Last year more than a dozen people were killed in looting during the police walkout.

The next big test will come in January, when the government must decide whether to resume talks with creditors who hold bonds on which Argentina has defaulted. There is an opening, provided by the expiry on December 31st of the “Rights Upon Future Offers” clause of the bond contracts, which bars the government from offering one group of bondholders a better deal than the terms others received during earlier debt restructurings. Argentina defaulted rather than make an improved offer that had to be open to all bondholders. A deal with creditors could bring relief, however, by giving the country access to dollars, which would in turn allow it to ease controls on imports and on capital

The next presidential election, to be held in October 2015, will bring about a bigger change, with luck for the better. All three leading candidates say they would break with the populism and protectionism that have prevailed during the presidency of Ms Fernández and that of her husband, Néstor Kirchner, who governed from 2003 to 2007 and died in 2010.

The candidate closest to Ms Fernández is Daniel Scioli, the governor of Buenos Aires province, who belongs to her Peronist Front for Victory (FPV). But he is no clone. He is more pragmatic than the president. He would maintain the popular social programmes she introduced and would not reverse the nationalisation of YPF, the biggest energy company. But he says he would do a better job of fighting crime and inflation.

 He faces a charismatic rival in Sergio Massa, a congressman who broke away from the FPV last year, more to distance himself from Ms Fernández than because of any profound disagreement with her. He is a gifted speaker and an astute political operator. So far his candidacy has revolved more around his personality than his ideas.

The biggest and perhaps most encouraging change would come from Mauricio Macri, the popular mayor of the city of Buenos Aires and the only non-Peronist in the race. Republican Proposal, the centre-right party he founded, is pro-market and favours greater openness to global and regional trading partners.

There is no clear front-runner in the early opinion polls. Much will depend on how the economy fares between now and next October. Relief from inflation and unemployment would help Mr Scioli. Further misery would play into the hands of his rivals—and bring out the pot-bangers.

edited from The Economist

 

Fishing without nets (video)

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Sharing Economy (video)

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Drones and vines

 
A drone demonstration at Bernard Magrez's Chateau Pape Clement in April this year

An alliance of Burgundy’s wine council, Airbus air defence engineers and Bordeaux wine magnate Bernard Magrez will fund the use of drones to detect killer vine diseases.

The consortium plans to spend up to €1.7m during the second phase of its 36-month-long drone project, named Damav, according to Burgundy’s wine trade body, the BIVB. It will be part-financed by the French state, with drones supplied by Novadem.

‘It’s not science fiction,’ said the consortium. ‘Images obtained using drones and interpreted using sophisticated analysis systems will, in the near future, constitute a key instrument of diagnosis for growers.’

Cecile Mathiaud, spokesperson for the BIVB, said the group’s next challenge is to ‘make sure that what the drone sees can be analyzed to get results, and to get better results than with the human eye. That will stop winemakers from having to check every single vine.’

In January this year, Bernard Magrez, who is also part of the alliance, will begin using drones to analyze vines in his four classified estates in Bordeaux.

Separately, the BIVB is also part of a second consortium that is researching ways to stimulate vines’ natural defenses against disease, without resorting to chemical sprays. That project will last 36 months, with a budget of €1.7m.

 edited from The Decanter