15.09.2023
Argentina Inflation Hits 124% As Cost-Of-Living Crisis Sharpens
Argentina's annual inflation rate shot up to 124.4% in August and hit its highest level since 1991, stoking a painful cost-of-living crisis in the South American country. It is pushing poverty levels past 40% and stoking anger at the traditional political elite ahead of October elections. A central bank analyst poll, released after the data, forecast inflation would end the year above 169%, a sharp hike from its estimate a month earlier of 141%. It predicted monthly inflation of 12% in September and 9.1% in October. Argentina is caught in a cycle of economic crises, with a major loss of confidence in the peso driving steady depreciation, triple-digit inflation, negative central bank reserves and a flagging economy due to drought hitting farming. The country is also battling to salvage a $44 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and facing the prospect of a $16 billion legal bill after a U.S. court ruling related to the state takeover of energy firm YPF a decade ago. The high inflation rate is, in large part, a product of the government’s devaluation of the local currency, the peso, by nearly 20 percent following the August 13 primaries. Inflation uncertainty causes product shortages for business owners, who themselves are caught in a problematic cycle of wholesale prices rising before they have dispatched their goods and had a chance to restock. Credit: AP
Poverty deprives people of adequate education, health care and of life's most basic necessities- safe living conditions (including clean air and clean drinking water) and an adequate food supply. The developed (industrialized) countries today account for roughly 20 percent of the world's population but control about 80 percent of the world's wealth.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
