forest444
forest444's JournalArgentine GDP declines 5.9% in July from same time last year, most severe contraction in 14 years.
Argentina's economy registered its most severe contraction in almost 14 years in July, shrinking by 5.9% when compared with the same month last year, the INDEC statistics bureau announced yesterday.
GDP so far this year is down 2.3% compared to last year, with the recession appearing to deepen with each passing quarter since the right-wing Mauricio Macri administration took office in December. GDP, which grew 2.5% in 2015, was up by 0.4% in the first quarter, down 3.4% in the second, and with July data in, will likely round out the third quarter down at least 6%.
This was a steeper decline than even the gloomiest estimates, and casts a further shadow over the government’s economic plans. Economy Ministry sources sought to explain away the fall of almost 6% by claiming that last year's figures were "inflated by public spending at its peak."
Their own data shows, however, that the recession has been led by plummeting business investment, which fell by 4.9% in the second quarter compared to the same time last year - a much sharper decline than either private or public consumption. For July, pro-business economist Orlando Ferreres estimates that fixed private investment fell by 9.6%.
The recession is most severe in construction — down 23.1% in a year, and down 14.1% so far in 2016. Manufacturing is also down by 7.9%, with the sharpest drops coming from raw steel (-17%), the auto industry (-12%), and building materials (-11.6%).
Retail sales figures confirm the ongoing consumer recession, as they rose by 30% in supermarkets and 28.2% in shopping centers in peso terms from the previous July - but because inflation has doubled to 47.2%, registered real declines of 11.7% and 12.9%, respectively.
The only genuinely positive figure yesterday came from merchandise trade, which in August reached a surplus of $705 million compared to $51 million surplus registered the previous August. This improvement was largely due to an 8.1% decline in imports, as the recession impacts demand from abroad.
At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/222192/indec-economy-shrank-59-in-july
WSJ: Argentines say Mauricio Macri’s policies aren’t the solutions they promised to be
Argentina’s shrinking economy and high unemployment are triggering ever-louder grumbling from its citizens, posing problems for President Mauricio Macri in a country where economic discontent has undone previous leaders.
The difficulty for Macri is that he promised it wouldn’t be like this. When he took office in December vowing to slash inflation and jump-start the economy, he told Argentines they could look forward to a brighter future in the second half of this year.
Investors are closely watching the mood on the streets, where in recent decades economic malaise and social unrest rocked and sometimes toppled politicians who weren’t members of the powerful populist Peronist movement. Macri, indeed, aims to be the first non-Peronist president in at least half a century to complete his term.
But for many here, the situation is far from rosy. “I’m really disappointed in Macri,” said Fabian Vicente, a 55-year-old magazine vendor. “He said he’d get rid of inflation and I thought he would. But he’s done the opposite. People are angry.”
Macri has tried to boost growth and pursue business-friendly policies without provoking a social backlash. Jolting the economy into growth is crucial to his hopes of gaining congressional seats in midterm elections next year, his aides say. Early on, he cut export taxes, ended currency controls and devalued the peso, earning praise from the IMF and U.S. President Barack Obama.
But the country’s economic data have been grim. The economy shrank 4.3% in the 12-month period through June, unemployment hit 9.3% in the second quarter, and in July, industrial production tanked 7.9% from a year earlier.
Tens of thousands rallied at the presidential palace in late August in the largest anti-Macri demonstration yet. This month, pilots at Argentina’s flagship airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, shut down flights to demand better compensation. Some labor leaders say the time has come for Macri to change his approach and have been calling for a nationwide strike.
Macri inherited most of his problems, including a 4% budget gap and double-digit inflation - albeit at half the 45% current rate. But some are of his own making. He lowered gas subsidies, raising consumer prices so much that heating bills soared — in some cases more than 10-fold — across greater Buenos Aires. Last month, the Supreme Court forced Macri to reinstate the subsidies, saying he must hold public comment sessions before raising prices. The error cost hundreds of millions of dollars and hindered hopes of narrowing Argentina’s deficit this year and next.
“The government’s policies benefit multinational corporations but hurt everyone else,” said Hugo Godoy, general secretary of ATE, a state workers union that is calling for a national strike.
Macri’s approval rating has slid to 40% from 63% in December, according to pollster Hugo Haime. Inflation, which soared after the devaluation, is hitting lower-income families hard. Some 4.5 million people have fallen into poverty since Macri took office, according to a study by the Catholic University of Argentina.
Many on this city’s outskirts fear a “social explosion” if things don’t improve soon, Haime said. “That concern is based on history, not the Macri administration, because we’ve had times when people didn’t have enough money to get by and we had looting in December.”
At: http://www.wsj.com/articles/argentines-say-mauricio-macris-policies-arent-the-solutions-they-promised-to-be-1474673665
Politifact rates Clinton's assertions 82% TRUE/MOSTLY TRUE; 56% of Trump's FALSE/MOSTLY FALSE
Or PANTS ON FIRE outright (none of Clinton's were).
Another 9% of Clinton's statements were "half true" compared to 19% by her opponent - leaving just 25% of Trump's statements as true or mostly true.
This is based on fact-checking done on 11 major points made by Secretary Clinton, and 16 by Trump.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/sep/26/trump-clinton-first-debate-fact-checks/
Argentina's Macri counters falling approval with staged photo-ops using working-class extras.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri came under fire over the weekend for staging a photo-op in which he, Transport Minister Guillermo Dietrich, and other officials in his right-wing administration can be seen riding a city bus with what appears to be a group of working class residents.
The event, which took place on Thursday in Derqui (a small town 20 miles NW of Buenos Aires), was touted by the administration and its supportive media. It was, however, proven by to be a staged photo-op by photos and footage taken during the event, which show Macri and his entourage arriving at the site by helicopter and boarding a presidential VW Touareg to the site of the waiting bus.
The bus was not on its normal route; but was instead commandeered by Macri officials to the site, outside city limits, for the brief, 5-minute ride around a patch of grassland. The riders, though locals, were paid extras.
The sham was first revealed on Saturday by Página/12 writer Gustavo Veiga, who described it as an "attempt to humanize Macri by turning a bus into a photography studio."
Macri ex machina
This is not the first time Macri's use of working-class citizens as props has created controversy since he took office in December.
His visit to a General Motors plant in Santa Fe Province on May 11 was followed by revelations that a number of "workers" who posed, all smiles, with the president during his visit were in fact hired extras.
This was followed by a "neighborhood walk" taken by Macri in Mendoza Province after presiding over festivities for General San Martín Day, which takes place every August 17 and honors the father of Argentine independence. During the brief visit, Macri personally "surprised" local schoolteacher Liliana Monti de Frigoli by ringing her doorbell and requesting use of her facilities.
Mrs. Frigoli was happy to comply - but later admitted in an interview with the right-wing daily La Nación (which supports Macri) that her husband had informed her a day earlier that "an official would be coming by tomorrow to ask to use the bathroom" as part of a staged event.
The "official" was President Macri.
Taken for idiots
These staged neighborly visits coincided with a number of politically damaging controversies for the 9-month old Macri administration.
The first took place shortly after the Panama Papers scandal revealed that he and/or his family control around a dozen offshore shell companies opened over the last 35 years with the apparent intent to evade taxes; the second, following a series of court rulings that struck down Macri's decrees authorizing utility rate hikes of over 300% as illegal because they had been imposed without public hearings (as the law dictates); and the most recent, just days after the ICIJ published its Bahamas Leaks and uncovered another multi million-dollar Macri offshore investment from the past.
A variety of polls released over the past few days show that while Macri's job approval has stabilized at around 44%, they show that if presidential elections were held today he would lose by 13% (he won by 2.7% in November). 57% of those polled, moreover, find they are worse off since Macri took office, with only 17% saying they are better off. A similar share (57%) support calls for a general strike by the CGT, Argentina's largest labor federation.
An estimated 200,000 Argentines have lost their jobs since Macri enacted a sharp devaluation, steep hikes in rates and fares, and other austerity policies since taking office. For those who remain employed, real wages have fallen by an average of 11% and many have lost benefits.
"The administration needs to stage these things because they've broken too many campaign promises," publicist Fernando Braga said, referring to the staged photo-ops. "But the bus event has backfired because people feel they're being taken for idiots."
At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.diarioregistrado.com/conurbano-registrado/un-video-muestra-el-burdo-montaje-de-macri-en-el-colectivo-de-pilar_a57e92a3dd17589f27a53fee6&prev=search
And: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.diarioregistrado.com%2Fsociedad%2Fmas-de-la-mitad-de-los-trabajadores-cree-que-la-situacion-empeoro-y-apoya-un-paro-general_a57e518c6d17589f27a53f1b8
Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected as Leader of Britain’s Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn strengthened his grip on Britain’s opposition Labour Party on Saturday, beating back a challenge to his leadership by members of Parliament with increased support from the party’s rank and file.
The results of the summer-long leadership struggle were announced in Liverpool, in northwestern England, on the eve of the annual Labour Party conference.
Mr. Corbyn, a 67-year-old hard-left politician, won 61.8% of the more than 500,000 votes cast, up from the 59.5% he won a year ago, when his victory shocked and divided the party.
A revolt by Labour members of Parliament, who said they feared that Mr. Corbyn would lead the party to electoral disaster, came to nothing as their favored candidate, Owen Smith, won only 38.2% of the vote.
The result tightened Mr. Corbyn’s grip on the party and isolated many of its members of Parliament from a growing membership that is younger and more left-leaning, drawn by Mr. Corbyn’s policies to reduce inequality, make Britain non-nuclear and renationalize key areas of the economy, like the railways and energy.
The party has almost tripled its membership to more than 500,000, making it the largest political party in Western Europe, Mr. Corbyn said. But opinion polls regularly indicate that if an election were held tomorrow, Labour under Mr. Corbyn would suffer a historic defeat in the country as a whole.
In a victory speech, Mr. Corbyn called for unity, said that more held “the Labour family” together than divided it and vowed that the party would win the next election under his leadership.
At: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/world/europe/jeremy-corbyn-labour-party-leader.html?_r=0
Argentina's Chubut Province first to approve cannabis oil for medicinal use.
Chubut Province has become the first Argentine province to approve the use of cannabis oil in the public health system.
The bill, passed by the Legislature and signed yesterday by Governor Mario das Neves, provides for the use of a class of cannabis oil known as Charlotte’s Web in the public health system not only for epilepsy caused by the Dravet syndrome but also “for other pathologies that the provincial health minister deems appropriate.”
The oil is manufactured by a company in the United States, where it is considered a medical form of cannabis in some states. Charlotte’s Web has a low percentage of THC, the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis. The law approved by the Legislature also stipulates that the oil be added into the list of medications covered by health programs provided to public employees.
Legislator Gustavo Fita of the center-left FpV, was “very satisfied because from now on Chubut families that need cannabis oil for the treatment of disease are no longer going to have the travel to the Customs Office in Buenos Aires (2,000 mi to the north) to obtain it. This treatment has reduced the number of seizures in epilepsy patients from 60 episodes to two to three per week, and of a lesser intensity. This will no doubt make this medication more available.”
Fita spearheaded the effort in the provincial legislature to approve the bill, which was eventually approved with 15 FpV votes, one from President Mauricio Macri's right-wing 'Let's Change' coalition, and several abstentions. The Macri administration opposes the use of medicinal marijuana, and has stepped up efforts to interdict its production and distribution from Argentina's rainy northeast as well as from Paraguay.
María Cecilia Rodríguez, Security Minister from 2013 to 2015 under Macri's populist predecessor, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, had stated that “the war on drugs has failed at a global level” and called for nationwide decriminalization of marijuana in the near future. Her stance created a backlash in this largely conservative Catholic nation of 43 million, although imports of small quantities of cannabis oil were approved for treatment of debilitating conditions.
Ana María Nicora, head of the CAMEDA medical cannabis organization, applauded the news. “It has opened up possibilities to move forward with the use of cannabis oil as a treatment; but we need a national law and domestic production,” she said.
Former President José “Pepe” Mujica on December 10, 2013, made neighboring Uruguay the first nation in the world to legalize the cultivation, sale, and consumption of marijuana - medicinal or not.
To Gustavo Fita, it's a matter of public health. “Micaela (a 7 year-old Chubut resident) had seen numerous specialists, took up to 27 pills a day, and was still suffering up to 10 seizures a day lasting up 35 minutes. Her mother, Carola, was hesitant to pursue alternative treatments; but today Micaela's seizures occur two or three times a week, and are less intense.”
At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/222003/chubut-first-to-accept-cannabis-oil
Macri and de la Rúa families among the Argentines found offshoring in recent Bahamas Leaks.
A fresh batch of documents leaked from the corporate registry of the Bahamas has revealed offshore shell companies with links to Antonio and Fernando de la Rúa — sons of former Argentine President Fernando de la Rúa — and to the family of current President Mauricio Macri.
The roughly 1.3 million documents, first obtained by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its media partners, has uncovered a new offshoring scandal known as the “Bahamas Leaks.” This leak includes documentation from 1990 to 2016, and is the largest such scandal since the 11.5 million document “Panama Papers” leak revealed on April 3.
According to a report, the Macri family’s Grupo Socma holding invested $10 million in capital into ViajeYa.com, an online tourism booking service, in April, 2000. Socma reportedly had a minority stake in the company - about 10% - and the investment was said to have been channeled through the Cayman Islands. Socma reportedly sold its stake in 2001, and the firm closed in 2004.
At the time Mauricio Macri, who had recently launched his political career, was no longer a Socma director; but had shares in the holding.
The conservative daily La Nación indicated that the Macri family had previously declared the investment to Argentine tax authorities. Participating in offshore firms is not illegal in and of itself if it is duly reported. It nonetheless raises questions about possible tax evasion.
The ViajeYa.com revelations were preceded days ago by revelations that the Macris used a cutout - Uruguayan accountant Santiago Lussich Torrendell - to manage at least one Bahamas firm: Karter Properties, founded in 1999. No one in the Macri family is directly named in the company directory for Karter, possibly a reason why its name did not surface initially.
The Macris have been linked, by way of the Panama Papers and Open Corporates leaks, to over a dozen offshore firms in numerous tax havens. Many of these were opened at the elder Macri's behest by disgraced Panamanian corporate law firm Mossack Fonseca.
Other offshore shell companies linked to Macri include Fleg Trading, Kagemusha, Foxchase Trading, and the Danae Alliance Company, as well as a Merrill Lynch investment account.
Federal investigations
Federal Judge Sebastián Casanello has requested that the Anti-Corruption Office (OA) and the City of Buenos Aires analyze Macri’s sworn statements from 2013 to 2015 part of an investigation to determine if the then-mayor “maliciously omitted” this information from his financial disclosure statements.
Prosecutor Federico Delgado had requested on June 8 that a review of the statements be conducted by experts from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA); but Casanello instead entrusted the reviews to the OA and officials under Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta. This was controversial because both the OA director, Laura Alonso, and Mayor Rodríguez Larreta are Macri loyalists.
de la Rúa implicated
Yesterday's Bahama Leaks also revealed that former President Fernando de la Rúa's sons, Antonio and Fernando, were listed as principals in two Bahamas offshore firms: Furia Investments Holdings Inc and Bonds Cay Development Bahamas, which were opened in 2006.
Speaking to Suddeütsche Zeitung, the former president claimed to have no knowledge of his sons’ business interests; but admitted knowing that his son Antonio and Colombian pop star Shakira had lived in the Bahamas as a couple and had business ventures on the island. He maintains that paperwork for the companies had been duly filed with Argentine tax authorities.
De la Rúa, 79, served as President of Argentina from 1999 to 2001, and is best remembered for presiding over the most severe socio-economic crisis in the country since the 1890 Baring Brothers panic. He has been a vocal supporter of President Macri, a fellow right-winger.
At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/221907/families-of-macri-de-la-r%C3%BAa-named-in-new-leaks
Macri falsely touts agreement with Theresa May over future Falklands sovereignty talks.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri stirred controversy both domestically and abroad yesterday after telling journalists in New York that British Prime Minister Theresa May had agreed to a discussion over the two nations' sovereignty dispute over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands.
According to President Macri, he and Prime Minister May spoke briefly on the sidelines of the 71st United Nations General Assembly yesterday — their first meeting after much speculation that a face-to-face meeting was imminent. Soon afterwards, the president said that he had told Prime Minister May that he “was ready to start an open dialogue that, of course, includes the issue of the sovereignty of the islands.”
Asked what May said in response, Macri responded that “she said that 'well, yes, that we should start'. These things take years; but it is important that we start. And she agreed.”
It appeared to be a diplomatic feather in the cap for the president — but barely an hour later, Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra felt the need to walk back the comments. Shortly after the president’s remarks became known, Malcorra clarified that though the matter of sovereignty is a priority for Argentina,“to say that the issue is on the table, and that we have agreed to advance on this issue — there is long way to go.”
The Macri administration has recently come under fire from various opposition parties for agreeing to concessions in favor of the United Kingdom on the subject of natural resource rights in the Falklands despite the UK's ongoing refusal to negotiate.
Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra and the UK Foreign Office Minister for Europe and the Americas, Sir Alan Duncan, recently agreed to a joint statement which called for a greater number of flights from the Argentine mainland to the islands in exchange for a lifting of economic restrictions placed by Buenos Aires on foreign exploitation of natural resources close to the islands.
Malcorra's concession, albeit informal, thus appeared to undermine a UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) ruling on March 27 that effectively extended Argentina's maritime rights over the country's entire Atlantic Ocean continental shelf - which includes the area around the Falklands. The UK, per the CLCS ruling, would only retain an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) over the 12 nautical miles within Falklands territorial waters.
At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/221865/macri%E2%80%99s-claims-over-malvinas-talks-denied-by-malcorra
Capital flight from Argentina doubles since Macri took office, adding $37 billion in foreign debt.
The Central Bank of Argentina reported that capital flight rose to $1.5 billion in August, reaching a total of $9 billion during the first eight months on 2016. This was twice the level of capital flight registered in the first eight months of 2015.
Central Banks data shows that the increase in capital flight mostly took place by way of dollar hoarding, which reached $1.567 billion in August - a 130% jump from August 2015 dollar purchases. This practice was facilitated by a Central Bank decree deregulating the wholesale purchase of dollars and their transfer abroad. The decree, enacted with no congressional oversight, was signed on December 17, 2015 - a week after the right-wing Macri administration took office.
President Mauricio Macri repeatedly asserted that financial deregulation was necessary to attract foreign investment. Foreign direct investment, however, has declined by 51% during the first half of 2016. Increasing capital flight has in turn forced the Central Bank to intensify its dollar sales, which reached a net total of $503 million in August.
Exports, which Macri sought to stimulate by decreeing a 40% devaluation and a sharp cut in withholding taxes in his first week in office. Exports, however, were down 11% in July from the same time a year earlier, and mostly due to a 9% drop in volumes. While part of that was due to the deepening recession in Brazil, Argentina's largest trading partner with around 30% of the total, the devaluation proved counterproductive to export competitiveness in that it also doubled inflation to 47% at its peak in July.
Record foreign debt
"Everything indicates that the exchange rate of 15 pesos remains uncompetitive for exporters, and is instead an incentive to hoard foreign currency and to travel abroad," economist Miguel Ángel Broda, a supporter of the adminsitration, told Ámbito Financiero. Indeed, the demand for tourism dollars so far this year has risen by 16%.
In all, gross international reserves at the Central Bank fell by $1.36 billion in August to $31.15 billion. Central Bank reserves have, even so, risen by $5.6 billion - something often touted by the Macri administration as proof of policy success. The increase, however, is entirely due to a $37.3 billion net increase in public foreign debt, which ballooned from $83.9 billion in December 2015 to $121.2 billion in June.
This is the sharpest such increase on record, and made up 60% of all new emerging market debt over the same period.
Argentina's public foreign debt is now an all-time high, eclipsing the $116.2 billion reached in December 2004 - just before former President Néstor Kirchner shaved $50 billion in foreign debt by way of a successful bond swap with 76% of bondholders (this grew to 93% after a second swap in 2010).
Some $16.5 billion, the largest single bond issue ever for a developing country, was contracted in April to pay off Caribbean vulture funds and other holdouts which had bought old, defaulted Argentine bonds for pennies on the dollar had been granted payouts averaging 1,600% by New York courts.
Inconvenient at this time
Besides foreign obligations and capital flight, much of this added debt has gone to finance yawning budget deficits. The federal deficit is projected to rise by 60% in peso terms, from 225 billion in 2015 to 360 billion pesos in 2016. While the dollar figure would be similar ($24 billion), in terms of ratio-to-GDP the fiscal deficit would rise from 3.9% in 2015 to 4.8% this year - the highest since 1990.
Macri had made rising budget deficits a centerpiece of his 2015 campaign. Economy Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay, who presented the administration's 2017 budget request to Congress last week, admitted, however, that "a lower deficit would be inconvenient at this time." While his 2017 budget projects a federal deficit of 4.24% of GDP - a slight improvement of 2016 levels - market analysts are skeptical over his assumptions of 3.5% economic growth and 17% inflation.
Inflation was 43.5% as of August and real GDP, according to official INDEC figures, contracted by 4.3% in June from the same time a year earlier.
At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.politicargentina.com/notas/201609/16624-se-duplico-la-fuga-de-capitales-en-lo-que-va-del-ano-supero-los-us-9000-millones.html&prev=search
And: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http://www.diarioregistrado.com/economia/la-deuda-externa-ya-supera-los-188-000-millones-de-dolares_a57e1a4fbd17589f27a53e66c
Macri's accountant ties president to more Panama Papers firms
Argentine President Mauricio Macri's accountant may have inadvertently tied the Argentine leader to even more offshore tax havens, a report by Argentine online journal El Destape revealed Friday.
This offshore firm, named “Karter Properties,” is a shell company created in 1999 and tied to another Bahamas firm called Fleg Trading. Fleg, like Kagemusha SA and numerous other such offshore firms, was founded and run by Francisco “Franco” Macri, a prominent Argentine state contractor and President Macri’s father.
Macri was one of only five current heads of government listed in the Panama Papers scandal in April, when it was revealed that he was once a director and vice president of the Bahamas-based company Fleg Trading. Fleg was an offshore shell company set up by Mossack Fonseca, the disgraced Panama City corporate law firm at the center of the scandal.
Macri claimed Fleg Trading was set up for a venture in Brazil that was never active and was ultimately dissolved in 2009. An investigation by the Buenos Aires news daily Página/12 later found that the company was active and invested millions of dollars in Brazil for the Macri family's largest current business interest, the Pago Fácil wire transfer and bill payment service.
According to an investigation by Página/12, the two firms (Fleg and Karter) operated together, with lawyers and accountants dealing with them concurrently as shown by emails that ordered paperwork be carried out for both firms simultaneously.
The link between the two firms is an accounting firm ran by Santiago Lussich Torrendell in Uruguay, a favored destination for Argentine offshoring and tax evasion activities. Lawyers at both the Uruguayan firm and Mossack Fonseca were responsible for dealing with both Fleg and Karter.
Macri's accountant was called to testify in the investigation probing the president's potential improprieties by virtue of his association with offshore companies. Lussich himself is named in the documents as the person responsible for managing Fleg Trading. In his testimony, Lussich said he set up Fleg Trading upon the request of Franco Macri in March 1998.
“A few months later we asked (Panama) to provide us a template for the minutes of the Board of Directors to make a change: the departure of the initial three directors and admission of employees of Francisco Macri,” Lussich said under oath. This testimony appears to confirm suspicions that the Macri family would name employees as directors of companies in order to avoid having to list themselves as the directors.
Macri’s bother, Gianfranco, alone owns eight shell companies in Panama. According to economist Ezequiel Orlando, who has done research on the Macris’ links to offshore companies for El Destape, five out of the other seven companies in which Gianfranco Macri is a board member were established in December 12, 2007, only two days after Mauricio Macri became mayor of Buenos Aires.
The listed board of directors of those entities include Armando Amasanti, who was the chairman of Franco Macri's defunct automobile company Sevel in Argentina and was indicted, with Mauricio Macri, for involvement in a massive export and import tax evasion scheme in the late 1990s.
Most of the firms are still active, the investigation shows, while at least two of them - Foxchase Trading SA and Danae Alliance Company SA - were founded just as Macri was gearing up for his presidential run last year. Macri failed to declare any offshore firms as assets in his financial disclosures, as Argentine law requires for all candidates and public officials
At: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Macris-Accountant-Ties-President-To-More-Panama-Paper-Firms-20160919-0006.html
And: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/221786/new-company-linked-to-macri-family-in-panama-papers-documents
Profile Information
Member since: Tue Dec 30, 2014, 06:11 PMNumber of posts: 5,902
