Latin America
Related: About this forumArgentine finance minister profited from dollar futures trading amid recent devaluation
Documents provided by Argentina's National Securities Commission (CNV) show that Finance Minister Luis Caputo profited by at least $700,000 during the recent fall in the value of the peso, which has tumbled from 17.50 to 25 per dollar since December.
The gains were made through three dollar futures transactions through Caputo's investment fund, Axis.
Axis, founded in 2012, was discovered last year to have received at least $30 million in investments by the nation's social security agency (ANSES).
Caputo, 53, was listed in the Paradise Papers leaks last November as controlling at least three undeclared offshore funds. The offshore funds, established in 2009, were omitted from Caputo's financial disclosure when he was named finance secretary in 2015.
Back to the futures
This is not the first time Caputo and others in President Mauricio Macri's right-wing administration has been embroiled in a dollar futures scandal.
Numerous Macri officials and relatives were discovered in March 2016 to have purchased millions of dollars in the same futures contracts ahead of Macri's 40% devaluation on December 17, 2015.
While the devaluation led to 45% inflation by mid-2016 and a severe recession, Caputo's Axis fund made $50 million from betting on the move - a devaluation Caputo himself organized as finance secretary.
Macri responded to the scandal by having a closely allied federal judge, Claudio Bonadío, charge former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and other officials in her 2007-15 administration for having issued dollar futures in the first place.
The charges backfired when during subsequent testimony Mrs. Kirchner provided proof that the Macri family and several administration officials had personally profited from Macri's own devaluation, at a reported cost to the central bank of $4 billion in futures losses.
Central Bank President Federico Sturzenegger admitted on May 22 that the central bank had again issued dollar futures contracts in order to mitigate the recent run on the peso, which forced the central bank to sell $7.7 billion from its reserves and to request a $30 billion stand-by credit line from the IMF.
At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eldestapeweb.com%2Fexclusivo-la-firma-que-fundo-caputo-gano-millones-el-dolar-futuro-macri-n44172&edit-text=
Argentine Finance Minister Luis Caputo: "If I'm guilty I'll eat this phone and throw myself through the window."
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)Such very good news learning Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had the evidence necessary to explode the bogus charges levied at her by Macri when he tried to hold her responsible for his crimes, and his relatives', and Caputo's.
You can be sure that wildly infuriated them all, right? Hooray for Cristina.
Then they repeated the dollar futures May 22?
The actual impact of their criminality upon the country's economy is staggering. Those billions are nothing to sneeze at, are they?
Poor, poor people. They deserve so much better from any President.
Macri apparently thinks there's nothing they can do about it if they don't want to have a revolution, which would be suicidal since he controls the military.
Very, very sad.
It's so good of you, sandensea, to give us a reliable window to what is happened in Argentina.
We really need to know, and our own news services don't give us even a glimmering of what is actually happening. Shameful.
Judi Lynn
(160,211 posts)eat his phone prior to flinging himself out his window. Hope his window is NOT a first floor view.
There is no question about whether or not he's guilty.
Why do people say things like that? Things like "if I'm lying, may I be struck by lightning from Heaven."
Man Struck by Lightning 4 Times, Then Buried Alive
By INGRID ROJAS
March 27, 2013
Imagine being struck by lightning four times in the span of six months and then being buried alive as a way to cure the problem. That's what happened to Alexander Mandón, a 20-year-old soldier from a small Colombian town called Cereté.
His town's indigenous doctors recommended he be buried alive, in an upright position with his head sticking out, to strip him from the electrical charge that runs through his body.
Maybe that will prevent him from being a walking lightning rod. Watch the video above to see what happened.
https://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/man-struck-lightning-times-buried-alive/story?id=18814553
If you are curious about what markings are left on someone's body after a lightning strike, take a moment to check these images at yahoo images:
https://tinyurl.com/yb5jl6bq
sandensea
(21,526 posts)Except that for the Argentine right, typically only Europe - or at the very least, Miami - will do.
Macri, as you know, has already made plans to seek exile in Spain should he or his coalition not be re-elected next year - a very likely scenario given that if elections were held today, they'd get around 35% of the vote in a runoff according to recent polls.
And now, he's running to the IMF for a bailout - the very definition of failure.
His friend Caputo, and his reliance on short-term capital inflows and heavy borrowing in lieu of sound economic policy, had a lot to do with that.
Did I tell you that when Dujovne arrived at IMF headquarters, hat in hand, Lagarde chided him for having no women on his team? "This is short on women," she pointed out to him. "It is, yes," Dujovne replied limply.
Thanks as always, Judi, for your witty and original take on otherwise complicated events. Sometimes all we can do is look and laugh.