Argentine President Kirchner tells IMF neoliberals: Infrastructure Investment Is For the Public Good

April 26 (EIRNS)--In an April 26 speech at the Presidential Palace, before businessmen and workers from the construction industry, Argentine President Kirchner tore apart the argument made by "neoliberal economists," who say that investment in infrastructure is an unproductive expenditure.

So, he explained, "whether or not houses are built, is not their problem; whether or not streets are paved is not their problem; it's not their problem whether or not people have clean water...or whether people have decent sanitation services, it's not their problem. ****They all have those services. They don't care whether or not we have highways, or everything a nation should have--ports, infrastructure, hospitals, which is part of the next government's agenda, to consolidate public health in Argentina."

Neoliberal economists don't like it, Kirchner said, but "for us, it's totally clear: public investment means jobs. It means economic transformation, and growth, dignity, and improved living conditions." There were the (IMF-dictated) economic prescriptions that "created the tension of exclusion," Kirchner said, but "we prefer those prescriptions which brought us the tension of growth."

The Argentine President pointedly noted that in the London Economist's recent ranking of nations according to their "competitiveness," the magazine had placed Argentina 27th. Bankers meeting in neighboring Chile at the World Economic Forum on Latin America April 25 repeated that Argentina wasn't a good "investment choice." But Kirchner responded, "let them put us in 550,000th place--as long as there is no Argentine without work, no table without food, no child who can't go to school, or attend university." These are the pressing issues of our time, President Kirchner said, and now is the time to prepare the policy agenda for the years ahead, with a view toward creating a "strategic Argentina."