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Argentina, in dollar love affair, agonizes over divorcing the peso

Section: Daily Dispatches

By Marc Jones, Eliana Raszewski, and Rodrigo Campos
Reuters
Tuesday, September 5, 2023

María Barro, a 65-year-old domestic worker in Buenos Aires, buys a few dollars each month with her peso salary, a hedge against Argentina's persistent inflation now running at over 100% and a steady devaluation of the little-loved local peso.

The peso currency is now in the crosshairs of the country's dark-horse presidential front-runner, libertarian radical Javier Milei, who has pledged to eventually scrap the central bank and dollarize the economy, Latin America's third largest.

... Dispatch continues below ...


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Milei -- facing a tight three-way battle with traditional political candidates on the right and left ahead of an Oct. 22 vote -- says savers like Barro underscore why Argentina should shed the peso.

"I try to buy dollars, no matter how little," said Barro, who started to buy greenbacks on parallel markets in 2022 when 2,000 pesos got her $10. Now it would get her $2.70. "Pesos go like water and every day they are worth less."

Barro supports the idea of a dollarized economy in theory but says she doesn't like Milei's aggressive style, which involves regular expletive-laced tirades against rivals and even the Pope. She is still undecided about her vote.

Milei's dollarization plan has sharply divided opinion. His backers argue it is the solution to inflation near 115% while detractors say it an impractical idea that would sacrifice the country's ability to set interest rates, control how much money is in circulation, and serve as the lender of last resort. ...

... For the remainder of the report:

https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/argentina-dollar-love-affair-agonizes-over-divorcing-peso-2023-09-05/

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