Milley, officially inaugurated as Argentina**.
The first fire of the new official in office burned to the inflated value of the Argentine peso.
Argentina's Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, announced in a televised address that the official exchange rate of the peso against the dollar would be increased from 1,3665 adjusted to 1 800.
In total, Argentina's official exchange rate depreciated by 54% in one day.
In the past, the Argentine peso against the US dollar, in addition to the official exchange rate, in practice is the "blue dollor", which is actually the black market exchange rate, which has fallen to 1 900 before and after Milley's election in Argentina**.
So, now the peso is depreciating by 54% in a day against the dollar, which the Argentines have already expected.
Here, a brief description of the history of the Argentine currency - in fact, the history of the currencies of the world's major countries, is my real specialty.
Before the Spaniards came to the Americas, Argentina had only 300,000 indigenous people in the primitive social stage, so to speak, there was no currency.
In the early 16th century, the Spanish colonists came here and found that the local natives who lived near a large river were covered with ** ornaments, and they thought that this was the holy land of wealth rich in **, so they called the area de la plata - la plata is the meaning of "** in Spanish", so it can be translated as"The Land of **".As for the river, it is naturally called "Rio de la Plata", which is the La Plata River, the mother river of Argentina.
During the Spanish colonial period, Argentina was always called the region of La Plata, but to Spain's great disappointment, they never found valuable silver deposits in the area, and the indigenous ones were extracted from the mines of the Andes.
Later, the Spaniards discovered the Potosí super silver mine in present-day Bolivia, and began to mint a large number of Spanish peso silver dollars (peso), the currency used by the colonists of La Plata, which was naturally the peso silver dollar.
This silver dollar was known as the "Spanish Dollor" in North America and became the precursor to today's "US Dollor".
In 1816, Argentina declared independence, although these people who fought for independence were also descendants of the Spaniards (according to our popular saying in China, they should be "Western traitors who forget their ancestors"), but in order to reflect the difference with the colonists, they chose to translate the name La Plata into Latin argentina - in Latin, argent is **, shiny meaning, argentina, meaning"The Land of **".
As soon as the language is changed, do you immediately feel that Argentina's forced grid is a notch higher than La Plata?
After independence in 1816, Argentina borrowed from the United States in terms of currencyGold and silver double standardBut they don't have a sense of monetary sovereignty and still use the Spanish peso silver dollar.
Politically, Argentina was embroiled in a political struggle between federalists and authoritarians in the decades after independence, until 1852, when the federalist Urquiza took power and formulated the Argentine Constitution, which was recognized as a federal state.
After 1880, Argentina stabilized politically, and then in 1881, as European countries switched to the gold standard, Argentina followed Germany, Japan, France, and the Nordic countries in announcing its implementationThe gold standard
A stable political situation and a stable monetary system have given wings to Argentina's economic take-off.
From 1870 to 1910, within the framework of the 1852 Constitution, Argentina implemented the principle of non-interference in the economy"Alvidisianism"., the flow of migrants and the reduction in mortality have increased Argentina's population fivefold in 40 years, and its railway mileage has increased sharply from 503 kilometers to 310,000 km, the annual export volume of wheat increased from 100,000 tons to 2.5 million tons, and the application of refrigerated ships at sea contributed to the annual export of beef from 250,000 tons increased to 3650,000 tons.
With the export of agricultural and animal husbandry products and mineral products, coupled with a convenient railway system, Argentina quickly became the richest man in Latin America and a developed country at that time, because of a large number of surpluses, the Argentine central bank accumulated **, so that the then world hegemon Britain and the Bank of England were ashamed, and Argentines also became the people with the highest living standards in the world at that time.
Argentina shares cultural roots, religious beliefs and kinship with Western Europe, and operates a secular system of free public compulsory education, and in a few decades, the literacy rate of Argentines has surged from 22% to 65%, which is higher than the current level of some Latin American countries, and in 1912 Argentina implemented the secret ballot election of ordinary adult males, the first national ...... in the world to be elected by universal male suffrage
In 1908, Argentina became the 7th largest economy in the world;
In 1910, Argentina's per capita GDP was the third largest in the world after the United States and the United Kingdom
In 1922, Argentina's per capita foreign trade volume ranked third in the world, second only to the Netherlands and Belgium, which were small countries
In the First World War, Argentina strictly adhered to the policy of neutrality, escaped the ravages of war, and made a windfall through the export of goods, and became the paradise of the entire civilized world like the United States. Compared with the United States, Argentina has a small population, and the overall quality of the people is higher, and the climate is milder, so many European aristocratic elites have chosen to immigrate to Argentina.
After the outbreak of the Great Depression, major Western countries at that time set up protective barriers, which dealt a heavy blow to Argentine exports, which changed the path of the Argentine economy.
First of all, a populist ** was elected, and engaged in the national economy and state-run economy, and with the collapse of the economy, the army launched a military coup d'état and established a military ** regimeThe gold standard, which had brought decades of monetary stability to Argentina, was abolished and the currency was pegged to the US dollar, with a value of 1:1.
The outbreak of World War II once again brought Argentina the opportunity to get rich economically, although Argentina was inclined to German, Italian and Japanese fascists (Argentina had a high proportion of Italian immigrants), but until the eve of the end of World War II, Argentina did not participate in the war, but resold all kinds of war materials, made a fortune, and ** reserves skyrocketed.
In the midst of World War II, on June 4, 1943, the Argentine "Union Officer Corps" staged a military coup d'état and took powerBy the beginning of 1944, it was named after Jd.The "colonel's group" headed by Peron replaced the "joint officer corps" and seized the power of the state, and seeing that the German, Italian, and Japanese fascists were exhausted, they changed the rudder in time and hurriedly declared war on Germany, Italy, and Japan, turning themselves into victorious powers.
At the end of the Second World War, the world was in ruins, but it was the most powerful moment for Argentina, its economy ranked fifth in the world, its reserves were the fourth in the world, and its per capita GDP ranked third among major countries.
With the strong national strength, Peron, with the assistance of his second wife Eva (the famous Lady Peron), put forward the slogan of "political sovereignty, economic independence, and social justice", which won the broad support of the lower strata of society, and thus smoothly transformed from the military to the people.
And then it's all known."PeronismThe introduction has since affected Argentine politics and economy to this day. For the story of the Argentine economy after World War II, see the article "How a first-class country degenerated into a third-rate country".
Here we will only talk about the currency vicissitudes of Argentina.
In 1946 and 1951, Perón was elected to Argentina twice by popular election, and under the toss of Peronism, state ownership, high tariffs, high corruption, high welfare, high inflation, and strict capital control seriously affected the Argentine economy, and the peso continued to depreciate.
The army staged another coup d'état and overthrew the Peron regime, and Argentina fell into a cycle of military-democratic-military**, but the ills of state ownership, high tariffs, high corruption, high inflation, and strict capital control have not improved at all. The peso has also fallen from 1 to 1,350 against the United States dollar, and it has defaulted on its external debt twice.
On January 1, 1970, the Argentine Army issued a new peso and a ratio of 1:100 to the old peso.
Due to the fragility of the military's rule and the defeat of the Falklands War, the value of the new peso continues**, and it depreciates faster and more severely than the previous peso.
On June 1, 1983, the Argentine Army** decided to issue new pesos and recover them at a ratio of 1:10,000.
In October 1983, Argentina held a democratic event, and Alphonsine, chairman of the Radical League, was elected.
In order to consolidate his rule, in June 1985, Alphonsin** once again offered a "currency exchange**".
A new currency, Austral, is issued, 1 Ostra = 1000 new pesos, 08 Ostra to 1 dollar.
However, Alphonsin still practiced Peronism - and this is the root cause of inflation, so the value of Ostra has been **, and the political economy is in chaos. From 1980 to 1992, Argentina defaulted on its foreign sovereign debts twice, becoming a well-known "old man" in the world, and has fallen from a first-class country to a third-rate country.
Under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Menem embarked on a sweeping economic reform that was the most daring Argentina had ever seenCurrency Board System
In April 1991, Argentina** announced that it would issue a new new peso in 1992The new new peso is pegged to the US dollar at an exchange rate of 1:1, 1 new new new peso = 10,000 oost,Each new new peso issued must be backed by a reserve of US dollars and be freely convertible.
The currency board system lasted for 10 years, buying the Argentine economy a rare period of normal economic development after the Second World War – but only for 10 years.
On January 1, 2002, ** had to announce that it would abandon the currency board system, liberalize the peso exchange rate, and at the same time announce another default on the $130 billion foreign debt, which led to the instant collapse of the peso - the exchange rate of the new new peso against the US dollar quickly fell from 1 to 4.
Then, the value of the peso against the dollar fell all the way to 1,800 today.
You might as well calculate how many times the dollar has "appreciated" against the original Argentine peso from Peron's election to the current Millet's ascension:
World War II just ended: old peso, 1;
1970: New Peso, 100;
1983: New new pesos, 10,000 x 100 = 1 million;
1985: Ostra, 1000x1,000,000 x 08 = 800 million;
1992: New new new peso, 10,000 x 800 million = 8 trillion;
Now: 8 trillion x 800 = 6400 trillion.
In other words, the dollar has appreciated 6,400 trillion times against the original Argentine peso!
Further calculations, in 1945 it was $35 an ounce, and now it is $1980 an ounce, which means thatThe U.S. dollar has lost more than 98% of its value, depreciating to its original 177%。Compared to **, the value of the Argentine peso 70 years ago has actually depreciated to the original 1,360,000,000 ......
In other words, the last 70 years, relative to the original Argentine peso,** "Passive appreciation" of 36 trillion times
Many people may have the illusion that this is a special case in Argentina.
No, no, no, this is the universal history of the currencies of the vast majority of countries in the world, don't believe it, if you go and check the monetary history of any major country except the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland, and Sweden in the past 100 years, if there is no history of currency exchange, I will lose.
Take our renminbi as an example, many people may not know:
When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1950, the People's Republic of China stipulated that the exchange rate of the renminbi against the US dollar was 1 42,000
In 1955, China implemented a currency reform and issued a new version of the renminbi, with the exchange rate of the old and new currencies at 1:10,000, and the official exchange rate of the new currency against the US dollar was set at 1 246；
Just on New Year's Day in 1994, we we, like Argentina today, the official exchange rate of the yuan against the US dollar suddenly increased from 1 to 58 depreciated to 1 87. Depreciation of 45%.
This is the credit of credit money.