The Economist Latin America November 2, 2019

Politics Alberto Fernández, a Peronist, won Argentina’s presidential election, defeating the pro-business incumbent, Mauricio Macri. Voters blamed Mr Macri for a recession, an inflation rate of more than 50% and a poverty rate that tops 35%. The newly elected vice-president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, laid the groundwork for these economic problems when she was president from 2007 to 2015. Bolivia’s electoral authority declared that President Evo Morales won re-election, avoiding a run-off by just 0.57% of votes cast. At least two people died and dozens were injured in clashes between his supporters and those of opposition candidate Carlos Mesa, who has accused the government of rigging the vote. Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, reshuffled his cabinet and agreed to spend extra money on pensions and health care and to raise taxes on high earners,…

THE DRILLING of the first modern well in Pennsylvania in 1859 set oil on a path that led to the heart of economics and geopolitics. Oil fuelled the rise of the West’s consumer culture; it helped determine who won the second world war and prompted a global economic crisis in the 1970s. Over the past 20 years China has become the second-biggest consumer of crude, while America’s fracking revolution has meant it is close to being a net energy exporter for the first time since the 1950s. Now a new chapter in oil’s story is unfolding: the prospect of stagnating or falling demand as the world shifts to cleaner energy. As in the past, this era promises startling economic and geopolitical change. Consider the imminent stockmarket flotation of Saudi Aramco, which…

Politics Alberto Fernández, a Peronist, won Argentina’s presidential election, defeating the pro-business incumbent, Mauricio Macri. Voters blamed Mr Macri for a recession, an inflation rate of more than 50% and a poverty rate that tops 35%. The newly elected vice-president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, laid the groundwork for these economic problems when she was president from 2007 to 2015. Bolivia’s electoral authority declared that President Evo Morales won re-election, avoiding a run-off by just 0.57% of votes cast. At least two people died and dozens were injured in clashes between his supporters and those of opposition candidate Carlos Mesa, who has accused the government of rigging the vote. Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, reshuffled his cabinet and agreed to spend extra money on pensions and health care and to raise taxes…

A FORTNIGHT BEFORE Christmas, winter fêtes and school nativity plays will be put on hold as village halls are once again converted into polling stations. Britain faces its third general election in little more than four years, a result of the fact that today’s MPs cannot agree on how to leave the European Union—or even whether to leave at all. Boris Johnson, the Conservative prime minister, promises that with a majority he will “get Brexit done”. Jeremy Corbyn, his Labour rival, proposes a second referendum, with the option to call the whole thing off. That alone would represent a momentous choice. Yet in what is being billed as the Brexit election, more is at stake than Britain’s relationship with Europe. The far-left Mr Corbyn promises to put the state at the…

FOR DEFENDERS of free markets in Latin America, October was a dismal month. In Chile, free-marketeers’ favourite economy in the region, protests against a rise in fares on the Santiago metro descended into rioting and then became a 1.2m-person march against inequality and inadequate public services. Sebastián Piñera, the centre-right president, sacked some officials and promised reforms. In Argentina voters booted out the pro-business president, Mauricio Macri, after one term. Instead, they elected Alberto Fernández, whose Peronist movement prefers a muscular state to vigorous markets (see Americas section). Both countries are rising up against “neoliberal” governments, claimed politicians and pundits. Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s socialist dictator, tweeted praise for Argentina’s “heroic” people and for Chile’s “noble” ones. In this, he speaks for much of the left. His glee is misplaced—because the assumptions behind…

MOST PEOPLE have—mercifully—not had to think about the money markets since the financial crisis, when obscurities such as LIBOR briefly became part of the discussion. It is time once again to pay a bit more attention because New York’s “repo” market is not working as it should. Every day more than $1trn is borrowed and lent by financial firms through repos, which involve posting Treasury securities as collateral. The interest rate that borrowers pay ripples through the global financial system. Hence, if the repo market malfunctions, it matters. That is what happened in September, when rates briefly spiked as high as 10%; they should be much closer to the Federal Reserve’s target interest rate, which this week was cut to 1.5-1.75% (see United States section). The surge indicated that some financial…