Second round of 'Ruidazo' protests in Argentina against Macri's utility rate hikes.

[forest444]

Source: politicargentina.com

Less than a month after the first massive Ruidazo ("big noise&quot protests against sharp increases in public service rates took place in cities across Argentina on July 14, a second Ruidazo erupted in different parts of the country.

The protests were held in support of recent court injunctions against utility rate hikes authorized by the right-wing Mauricio Macri administration that range from 300% more for water, 600% more for electricity, and 1000% more for gas. The courts have determined in each case that the hikes were not only “unreasonable” but illegal because they were never submitted to public comment, as the law requires for all large rate hikes.

Hours earlier, Federal Judge Luis Arias of La Plata ratified his July 18 injunction against the gas rate hikes and Federal Judge Martina Forns of San Martín issued a separate injunction against electricity rate hikes. Both injunctions have been appealed by the Macri administration but apply nationwide until the Argentine Supreme Court rules on each case.

The rate hikes - known in Argentina as tarifazos - are part of a broader, IMF-endorsed austerity package which Macri defends as a way to trim $4 billion from the nation's budget deficit, which reached $25 billion last year (4% of GDP). Critics, however, point out that because the massive rate hikes also affect schools, hospitals, government buildings, and many other public institutions, the net savings would be at most $1 billion - a figure dwarfed by the $10 billion in tax cuts Macri enacted for agroexporters, large corporations, and the well-to-do.

The rate hikes have also contributed to a doubling in overall inflation to 47% a year as of June - twice the rate under Macri's populist predecessor, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Macri had made inflation a key campaign issue in last year's election, which he won narrowly; he repeatedly dismissed his opponent's warnings about plans for a tarifazo as a "fear campaign."

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[Judi Lynn]

1. Have never seen a leader take down a country faster than this fascist.

No one sane could blame any of the people protesting his assault on the middle class and the poor in favor of boost the income of corporations and the very wealthy.

He and his tiny crowd of elites should be so ashamed, but they are doing everything they've been planning all along. It won't get better, it will get far, far worse as he digs in more deeply into the deep trench he's already cut out for the country.

Hope they really let him know how they feel long before he and his cohorts can start disappearing them the way they did the last time the fascists destroyed 30,000 real or imagined dissenters.

Oh, yes, to add something important:

This week John Kerry is going to huddle with the Argentina leader, and the US always just loved the military dictatorship throughout his long, treacherous, brutal reign. That doesn't seem to bother right-wingers in the least, but moral people know it's wrong.

[forest444]

2. It's nice to see Kerry have a nice time in Argentina.

But he needs to stop describing Macri's shock doctrine nonsense as "courageous."

Wrecking the economy for the sake for transferring $20 billion a year in wealth to the top requires no courage at all, Mr. Kerry; I know he knows that - or should, given his liberal record of opposing Raygun's trickle-down and Bush's "ownership society" scam.

And you're right, Judi. It's very disappointing to see the Obama administration push the idea of two pointless - and unwanted - military bases in Argentina, simply to have a strategic military foothold in Antarctica.

All the more so because the ones in Colombia and Paraguay have brought nothing but crime of all kinds, child prostitution and pornography, kidnappings and disappearances, and increased drug trafficking - all with complete impunity. They seem to always be staffed with the worst of the worst in the U.S. military - people who obviously have had to be transferred from domestic or European U.S. military bases because of all the problems they cause (a little like the Catholic Church did with errant priests under JPII and Ratzo).

The current moratorium that bans drilling and mining in Antarctica is set to expire in 2041, and I realize President Obama and Secretary Kerry must have been relentlessly lobbied by Big Oil to make these bases happen. Not good.