Argentina despreza o Capitalismo

No meu outro blog Thyself, O Lord, eu falo hoje que o Papa Francisco é um peronista ao pensar em economia. Um filósofo, amigo de João Paulo II, recomenda que o Papa leia Hayek.

E hoje vemos que a Argentina voltou a desafiar as leis do mercado ao tentar pagar seus credores desobedecendo as normas do contrato que fez com eles. Sem normas legais reconhecidas e respeitadas, não há desenvolvimento de mercado, vira barbárie.

Não é por acaso mesmo que Che Guevara é Argentino. E o povo de lá tem orgulho disso.

Vejamos dois textos da Bloomberg sobre a tentativa de burlar as leis da Argentina.

     Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Argentina deposited $161 million in

a local bank for bond payments, seeking to get around a U.S.

court ruling that bans the country from servicing its overseas

debt.

     The payment was made in a new trustee account at Nacion

Fideicomisos SA, a unit of state-run Banco de la Nacion

Argentina, the economy Ministry said in an e-mailed statement.

Lawmakers in the South American country approved a bill earlier

this month to allow for the local payment of foreign debt.

     “Argentina ratifies once more its unbreaking compromise to

comply with its obligations to bondholders and contribute to

preserving the right to be paid what is owed to them under debt

contracts,” the ministry said in the statement.

     U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa ruled yesterday that

Argentina is in contempt of court for shifting control over debt

payments to Buenos Aires from New York. The judge had previously

ruled the nation cannot make payments on foreign debt unless

holders of defaulted bonds from 2001 are paid in full. President

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has refused to comply with the

ruling, triggering a default in July.

     Argentina had asked Bank of New York Mellon Corp. to step

down as bond trustee after Griesa’s ruling prevented the New

York-based bank from passing along payments to bondholders. The

bank hasn’t stepped down.

     Today’s payment is the second due from Argentina since

June, when the U.S. Supreme Court left Griesa’s ruling intact.

While the ministry’s statement says that the funds are now

property of the new trustee, it doesn’t say if the bank has the

bondholders’ information or how investors can claim their money.

                           RUFO Clause

     The legal dispute stems from Argentina’s record $95 billion

default in 2001. While the nation renegotiated about 92 percent

of its debt by issuing new bonds at discounts of as much as 70

percent, some holders such as Elliott rejected the terms, sued

and were awarded full payment in court.

     Argentina would be willing to negotiate a solution in the

first quarter of 2015 if Griesa grants the nation a stay until

the Rights Upon Future Offers clause expires Dec. 31, Cabinet

Chief Jorge Capitanich said Sept. 26. The RUFO clause prohibits

the nation from extending better restructuring terms to

creditors that shunned the earlier offer.

     Bondholders may be overestimating the government’s intent

to resolve its debt dispute with holdout creditors, according to

Siobhan Morden, the head of Latin America fixed-income strategy

at Jefferies Group LLC.

     President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner “tells us every

day that she’s not paying the holdouts,” Morden said. “It is

hard to believe that President Fernandez will change her mind

and pay the holdouts after all the hard-effort campaigning with

international institutions like the United Nations.”

                        Payment Capacity

     Fernandez, who replaced her late husband in 2007, is

 scheduled to hand over the presidency in December 2015.

     Unable to raise funds in overseas capital markets,

Argentina is boosting controls on dollar purchases to retain

foreign-currency reserves it relies on to pay debt and imports.

The central bank’s funds fell $668 million this month to $27.9

billion, the lowest since April.

     The peso in the black market has tumbled to near a record

low 15.5 per dollar as investors dump the local currency to

protect against estimated 40 percent annual inflation and

further devaluation.

     While the post-default economy is hurting domestic demand,

it is also prompting a tightening of controls, safeguarding

funds to pay bondholders, according to Michael Roche, an

emerging-market strategist at Seaport Group LLC.

     “The mix of weak domestic demand, capital controls and

devalued currency is having a positive impact on the external

accounts and reserves,” Roche said in an e-mail. “The

consensus view by strategic holders is for an ultimate

resolution to the holdout case sometime between the first

quarter of 2015 and first quarter of 2016.”