[Fiscal tightening? Perhaps we should ignore them considering what their advice led to in Argentina. And in a NYTimes editorial today, Stephen Roach, chief economist and director of global economics at Morgan Stanley, argues deflation is still a distinct posibility.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/22/international/americas/22ARGE.html Slump Turns Jobless Argentines Into Scavengers By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BUENOS AIRES, Sept. 21 (AP) — Unemployed and hungry, Guillermo Guerrero yanks up his shirt sleeves and plunges his grimy hands into a trash bag bulging with old newspapers, bottles and rotting vegetables.
Blocks away, Marisa Demitri and her 11-year-old son, Adrián, sift through trash piled on a street corner, picking at discarded food and searching for anything to recycle, sell or eat.
As night falls, thousands of people like Ms. Demitri and Mr. Guerrero take over the streets. Many emerge from abandoned buildings or rusted rail cars; others come from the depressed neighborhoods that ring this city. Clattering on the pavement are carts, wagons on metal wheels, even the occasional horse-drawn carriage with whole families aboard.
Not long ago, Buenos Aires was one of the most prosperous cities in Latin America. But after a four-year economic slump, Argentina's jobless rate has risen above 20 percent and the value of the peso has fallen by more than 70 percent against the dollar. Homelessness is on the rise, and nearly half the country's 36 million people now live in poverty.
Mr. Guerrero, 22, took to the streets to feed his family of 10 after his father died in May. The butcher shop where he had worked closed as cash-short Argentines cut back on buying meat.
"I'd be on the streets begging if it wasn't for this," Mr. Guerrero said of his trash scavenging. "I grab whatever I can. It's the only way I can survive."
Government aid is sparse for low-wage workers — construction workers, cleaning ladies, security guards — who are now out of work.
Ms. Demitri, a seamstress who was laid off, holds her son's hand while poking in trash outside office buildings as men and women in business suits walk by.
"This is better than stealing," she said, turning away from the stares. "I'm a mother with children. I want to hide my head in shame, but what can I do?"
Artemio López, a sociologist at the Equis consulting group, estimates that 30,000 to 40,000 people are eking out a bare existence by scavenging through trash. Recycling, he said, has become "a very important business in the informal economy."
Paper, bottles and plastic all head to warehouses like one run by José Cordoba, who said he separated the loads, paid the scavengers and then resold at a profit. He said competition was fierce among the scavengers, known as cartoneros to their fellow citizens.
"Nowadays there so many people without work that they are out on the streets scavenging," he said. "Before, men used to go out alone. Now it's entire families — women and children." ---------- Thomas Friedman failed to mention Argentina in his pro-globalization column today.
>In Europe, the lender suggested reducing labor-market rigidities and
>increasing competition in product markets, while in Japan banking and
>corporate reforms top the list of needed measures that would boost potential
>economic growth.
I hope the DC demos go well. I'm becoming convinced the IMF should be scrapped.
Peter