Nothing too interesting happened this weekend in the news. There was - as usual - at least one common denominator in the first-page news at Clarín and La Nación, the 2 most popular newspapers in the country. This was the imminent increase in ABL (property taxes - stands for lighting, sweeping and cleaning in Spanish) taxes everywhere around the city, looking to raise approx. U$S 50 million this year and U$S 200 extra million in 2008. The reason: property fiscal valuations have not been updated since 1993, and the new mayor needs some additional funding to cut the deficit that Telerman - actual mayor and 3rd place out of three in last election - promised to leave the city with breakeven finances.
Anyhow, the sad result of this untimely tax increase - amidst the President´s other set of economic measures all moving in the direction of increasing disposable income and thus prolonging the consumption boom that's fueling economic growth - is that we will all pay increases ranging from 50% tp 150%. Macri's PRO party will have to take some of the heat for the tax increase, even though the FpV (President's party) also approved it. There is a heated debate right now, that will spread over this last week of the month - whether this increase will be revoked or not.
Other headline news: La Nación mentions illegal aliens in the US, who left Argentina
after the last crisis (totally irrelevant subject, if you ask me), and also shows evidence about how January's inflation was manipulated. This has been an ongoing topic and the national statistics organism (INdEC) has lost absolutely all credibility in the eyes of local and foreign - and may even generate important legal actions against the country since manipulating the inflation index directly lowers the yield on Gov't Bonds ties to inflation (CER adjusted) therefore newly affecting investors' rights. Seems we need to make our homework there, otherwise we'll just end uo selling all of our bonds to petrodollar-rich-neighborhood-friendly Chávez. At twice the rate the IMF used to lend to us, but hey, they bothered us with the talk about institutions that may actually force us to reconsider if our path to growth is something that can last over the long run or a short-lived fantasy. Heck, sometimes it seems like the 90's, except that it's a 3 to 1 convertibility instead of 1 to 1 and there are less trips to Miami!Clarín talks about the most important and relevant news in the country: My beloved Independiente is leading the local champsionship. With a 3 point lead over the 2 challengers, we are playing historic rival Boca Juniors on Wednesday.
