By Michael Soltys

This week has seen a classic “bread and circuses” strategy unveiled even though its full scope still remains to be defined. It will be necessary to study yesterday’s anti-poverty and job creation plan beyond its announcement (and the immediate knee-jerk criticisms) to assess how much bread will be placed on the table — the jury is still out on whether this multi-billion plan (coupled with the simultaneous announcement of the pre-programmed pension increase taking the retirement benefit floor up to 827 pesos) makes President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner the last of the big-time spenders (perhaps with the intention of leaving a debt-ridden minefield for her successors) or whether the 100,000 cooperative-based jobs, etc., are just so much hot air. Meanwhile the week’s big bombshell of the nationalization of soccer broadcasting has remained in the air (so to speak) — partly in order not to compete with the social plan for the headlines in today’s press but partly also because the state seems to be labouring under the illusion that soccer can be free for everybody, including itself.

In fact it is so obviously a scandal that a cash-strapped administration governing a country where those below the poverty line have moved from a quarter to a third of the population could suddenly find 600 million pesos to offer the free lunch of televised soccer gratis that the government (or at least Cabinet Chief Aníbal Fernández) is trying to convince us can go ahead without any state intervention or expenditure. It is true that around half the 600 million pesos could take the form of the government writing off tax arrears (at least in the first year) and it is also true that the seven billion pesos passing through Argentine soccer every year should make it self-financing at least in theory — although this does not allow for the astonishing capacity of the state to turn such booming sectors as agriculture or energy into disaster areas nor for the equally amazing ability of Argentina’s soccer clubs to squander the millions of dollars earned from the transfer of playing talent to Europe (if they were given more money, they would only spend more).

But even taking the Cabinet chief’s claims of no state outlay at face value, there remains the scandalous blow to legal security of a 13-year contract being unilaterally scrapped without the alternative being ready (and the legal costs could still prove a considerable expense) — socializing bad debts is not the way to bridge the credibility gap.