The differences between
Luis Caputo and Federico Sturzenegger
are long-standing. On June 17, 2018, in the middle of the exchange rate run, Mauricio Macri appointed the then Minister of Finance to head the Central Bank, which until a few days ago was occupied by the economist with a PhD at MIT and a professor at Harvard University.
The father of DNU 70 saw the hand of Caputo - in addition to
Nicolás Dujovne and Marcos Peña
- on the fateful
December 28, 2017
, when the Central changed its inflation goals, lowered the interest rate and lost independence. “The leitmotif of the Central Bank had been that a change in goal means not having a goal (…) The president had decided to change the president of the Central Bank if necessary,” wrote Sturzenegger in “
Macri's macro, the winding road to stability and growth
”, a document that earned the economist excommunication from the universe of pure macristas.
Javier Milei once again joined the paths of the two economists.
Caputo was left in charge of Economy, a position for which Sturzenegger was also dreaming,
and embraced the
zero deficit
as his main banner thanks to a chance meeting with the President in a restaurant and the offices of his powerful nephew,
Santiago Caputo
.
Sturzenegger, who was part of Patricia Bullrich's technical teams in the electoral campaign, became the
ideologist of DNU 70
and made his State reform
vademecum
available to the libertarian administration for an administration that had no economic or government plan.
, a detail that allowed him to appear on the national network when he didn't even have a position.
Milei detonated the
link he was aiming to build with the CGT
by including an aggressive labor reform in the Mega-DNU devised by Sturzenegger. The presidential advisor also rejected initiatives by PRO deputies to speed up a labor reform by law - after the Labor Chamber accepted a precautionary measure to stop the original one - but without the mandatory union contribution. Sturzenegger refused. “
It is the heart of the project
,” he claimed. “
He thinks he's Schwarzenegger
,” a Macri deputy who spoke frequently with the President complained sarcastically.
Two months passed and last week the Government once again built a
bridge with the big men of the CGT
. Santiago Caputo himself conveyed to the union members last week at the Casa Rosada, in the meeting where the Minister of the Interior and the Chief of Staff were present, that the President
does not want to stigmatize the union members
and that he counts them as an important actor for Argentina. what do you imagine?
Participants in that meeting assured that Caputo - who speaks for the President - conveyed that the former head of the Central Bank and Banco Ciudad no longer has the same influence as before over Milei. “
He is only consulted on some specific issue as an external advisor
,” union members say they have heard from the president's star advisor.
The Government neither confirms nor denies the information, although they recognize that "Sturze" does not lower his line or define management after some of his recommendations collided with reality. They even suggest that his relationship with the new Secretary of Labor Julio Cordero - who was proposed by him and Nicolás Posse, but showed the political will to
agree with the Moyano
- is no longer the same as before.
Even so, while the Government was trying
to deactivate the general strike
announced by the union members, Sturzenegger broke the silence he had imposed on himself and criticized the fat people. “
The CGT represents fewer and fewer people
,” he stated on LN+. He was less aggressive than his statements at the end of December, when he responded to the unionists who called DNU 70 unconstitutional and that the CGT had been complicit in the dictatorship.
The past and the relationship with the unions is not the only thing that divides Caputo and Sturzenegger. The Mega-DNU that this Tuesday received the green light from the Supreme Court also
deregulated the prepaid medicine market
and enabled companies to increases that
ranged between 90 and 160 percent
in the last 5 months.
The discomfort - felt especially by the middle class - and distances the Government from its goal of reducing inflation forced the Executive to take measures and once again exposed the personal differences and criteria between the two economists. “
The prepaid companies are declaring war on the middle class
. We, from the government, are going to do everything in our power to defend the middle class,” the Minister of Economy said on Twitter.
As Clarín announced
- the Government is thinking about suing prepaid medicine companies for cartelization and presenting precautionary measures to cancel increases. Sturzenegger - in love with theory - defended the latest increases to members. “We are in a
situation of readjusting
the imbalance. "It has to be ordered relatively quickly and with clear rules of the game (...) It has been painful, but you cannot blame those who are ordering the situation, making the situation sustainable in any case," said Sturzenegger in the same interview. in which he attacked the unionists.
Although he lost power, he did not get an office in La Rosada but he did get an office in Olivos, Sturzenegger still has permission to express his opinions. “
He has free rein to speak, it depends on him
,” said an official with an office at Balcarce 50.
In 2018, the then Tv panelist Milei described Sturzenegger as “
a hero
”, “
the best president of the Central Bank in history
”. Instead, he blamed his current minister for having "smoked" US$15 billion of the reserves.
The President defines himself as a billard player and bets on results. Caputo, who questions Martín Demichelis on Twitter,
hesitated
to accept Milei's proposal to join the Government due to the
family cost
that she paid for her experience in Macrismo and that included
escraches in restaurants
. In the Executive since January it has been repeated that the minister never considered staying for the entire mandate. This Tuesday, social organizations from Benavídez fulfilled their threat and marched towards the doors of the Newman where Caputo lives.
Sturzenegger, also a soccer fan and Gimnasia fan, whose name was mentioned for the Hottest Portfolio, waits embraced by a liberal purism that does not accept talking about cartelization.
Milei's small table wants him further away and he already had to see how the Government lowered some of the sensitive chapters of the omnibus law, whether the chapter linked to fishing or generic medicines. With less power and influence, but a direct line to the President, “Sturze” continues speaking. Milei already showed his pragmatism to empower his economic advisors or throw them overboard, as happened with
Carlos Rodríguez
, who was running for the advisor for the Ministry of Economy.