José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz

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José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz
Minister of Economy of Argentina
In office
29 March 1976 – 31 March 1981
PresidentJorge Rafael Videla
Preceded byJoaquín de la Heras
Succeeded byLorenzo Sigaut
In office
21 May 1963 – 12 October 1963
PresidentJosé María Guido
Preceded byEustaquio Méndez Delfino
Succeeded byEugenio Blanco
Personal details
Born(1925-08-13)13 August 1925
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died16 March 2013(2013-03-16) (aged 87)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Political partyIndependent
Alma materUniversity of Buenos Aires University of Cambridge
WebsiteOfficial website

José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz (13 August 1925 – 16 March 2013) was an

Minister of Economy of Argentina during the country's last military dictatorship (1976—1983) (especifically during Jorge Rafael Videla's regime, between 1976 and 1981), and shaped the economic policy of the dictatorship until its end.[1]

Martínez de Hoz was an economic orthodox of businessman origin, who imposed a plan of economic neoliberalism reforms in the 1970s that aroused strong controversies.[2] From 1976 until today, globalization began to appear and some attempts of insertion in the world began.[3] The spirit of all the reforms implemented during his administration was that of economic liberalization and "economic freedom", and its results and legacy are highly controversial to this day, either being praised or strongly criticized in Argentina depending on the period and side of the general political spectrum.[2]

Biography

Martínez de Hoz, scion of one Argentina's oldest cattle ranching families, was born in

Juan Domingo Perón, he was appointed his province's Minister of the Economy of Buenos Aires Province
.

Minister of Economy with Guido

Though

Argentine Economy Ministers during José María Guido's brief presidency (an interlude marked by squabbles among the military brass and recession
).

Private career

Becoming an influential lobbyist for Acindar, one of Argentina's largest steel manufacturers, Martínez de Hoz became its CEO in 1968. Seven years later, after union labourers at Acindar's

shop steward, Martínez de Hoz retaliated by using his family's long-standing connections with the armed forces to have them brutally repressed. Supported by Metalworkers Union leader Lorenzo Miguel, security forces abducted the new shop steward, Alberto Piccinini, and about 300 others (most of whom were murdered).[4]

Minister of Economy under Videla's administration

By 1975, Argentina had considerably developed, but was nevertheless in the throes of some of the worst instability since 1930. Argentine public opinion turned to the

Inheriting a wave of

Anxious to restore

Chase Manhattan Bank and International Monetary Fund loans of nearly US$1 billion following his appointment.[7]

He eliminated all

exchange control regime. A single floating exchange rate was born.[8]

He freed

imports (removed existing prohibitions, quotas, and licenses and gradually reduced import tariffs).[9]

He decreed a general freeze on wages, and instituted a value-added tax while rescinding the inheritance tax. This last measure allowed him to avoid paying taxes on the land and investments, valued at several billion dollars at the time, that he inherited from his father. As a result of the changes instituted by Martínez de Hoz, inflation fell sharply; but, many local retailers and home builders became incapable of coping with the fall in demand and declared bankruptcy.[10]

He eliminated political tariffs for

subsidies and overprotections for privileged sectors of the economy.[6]

A year later, the billion-dollar

trade deficit had turned around and business investment had soared by about 25%. However, real wages had lost nearly 40% of their purchasing power, and while consumer spending remained weak, the shock might have been worse but for hitherto high savings rates. Inflation revived again, and Martínez de Hoz responded in June 1977, with deregulation of the financial markets, removing checks on banks and transferring responsibility for any bad loans to the state, which took charge of their debt as needed.[11]

The Central Bank, like many key economic posts in the Martínez de Hoz era, was led by one of a number of Chicago Boys: Adolfo Diz. Diz enacted much of the Economy Minister's financial deregulation policy, while moving to limit domestic credit. He enacted the Monetary Regulation Account Law of 1977, which raised reserve requirements to 45% of deposits, thereby doubling borrowers' interest rates while eliminating yields on demand deposits.[12]

Total

second oil shock, the external debt increased strongly.[13]

Years later he explained in his books that his management "had a '

crisis. On April 2, 1976, three programs were announced: liberation and modernization of the economy, modernization of the state and stabilization of prices. They would have to be applied interconnected, although not necessarily simultaneously. The great courses of action were the subsidiary function of the State and the opening of the economy."[14]

Short-term

During his tenure, the
lower classes became much more pronounced.[15] The period ended in a tenfold devaluation and one of the worst financial crises in Argentine history.[16]

"Sweet money"

Again in

US dollarset
by a monthly timetable, popularly known as the Tablita.

The Tablita invariably set a slower depreciation of the

peso value than what local inflation warranted and although inflation did ease somewhat, imported goods and foreign credit soon became much cheaper than those locally available. Imports almost tripled in volume and by 1980, the peso became one of the most overvalued currencies in the world; its high purchasing power abroad soon had many referring to it as sweet money. Record numbers of Argentines now vacationed abroad, often stocking up on appliances; between the suddenly negative trade deficit and tourists' foreign spending, however, this chalked up a then-record US$4 billion annual loss for the national balance sheet in both 1980 and 1981.[15]

Having already suffered from weakened demand, many industries (particularly smaller factories) could not compete with the flood of imports and a second wave of industry bankruptcies began. Ostensibly to avoid a sharp rise in unemployment, Martínez de Hoz took an even more controversial step when he decided to begin absorbing private sector debts (mostly those of the well-connected, including US$700 million of Acindar's)

nationalised at his orders at a reported cost of US$394 million.[18]

The economy was still in relatively high gear and, with rising fiscal revenues, the nation's finances appeared healthy during 1979 and 1980.

treasury bills, paying 60% in US dollars. Facing these pressures, the Argentine peso increasingly became the object of short-selling by insiders, including Martínez de Hoz himself.[4]

Circular 1050 and the shattered Tablita

Martínez de Hoz addresses the nation in a 12 March 1981, farewell address

The end of his tenure soon near and increasingly unpopular, in April 1980 Martínez de Hoz had the

put options against the peso increased sharply and in February 1981, Martínez de Hoz announced the unthinkable: the time had come for a sharp devaluation. The Tablita was shattered and he retired the following month.[15]

What followed was one of the worst financial crises in the history of modern Argentina. Speculators quickly took advantage of the 1977 deregulation to write off their debts, legitimate borrowers (including many large employers) were faced with suddenly unaffordable US dollar payments, and homeowners' monthly payments (tied by the Circular 1050 to the value of the dollar) rose by over tenfold during the next fifteen months.[20]

Legacy

It took defeat during the disastrous Malvinas War in June 1982 to usher in more moderate leadership in the junta. In July, the new Central Bank President, Domingo Cavallo, rescinded the hated "1050". Thousands were saved from financial ruin by this change, but the economic damage would remain.

Business confidence was destroyed by the whole calamity and even though Argentina's productive

Agricultural sector brought in over US$34 billion in trade surpluses over the next eight years, none of it sufficed to deal with chronic capital flight or the newly monstrous public debt (US$7 billion at the start of the dictatorship, growing to US$43 billion by the time democracy was restored in 1983).[15]

Martinez de Hoz voting in the 1983 general elections

Martínez de Hoz was himself indicted in 1988 for his involvement in the human rights abuses at Acindar and spent 77 days in jail. Quickly freed, he subsequently benefited from a pardon by President Carlos Menem in 1990. Returning to the world of high finance despite a 1992 conviction of operating a brokerage with a revoked licence, Martínez de Hoz became a member of the board of directors of two arbitrage houses, Rohm Group and the Banco General de Negocios ("General Business Bank").

The General Business Bank, now defunct, later helped clients illegally wire up to US$30 billion out of the country prior to the December 2001 financial crisis.[21]

In 2006, a judge declared the pardon unconstitutional and revoked the suspension of the previous judicial process, paving the way to investigate Martínez de Hoz's alleged involvement in the kidnapping and extortion of Federico and Miguel Gutheim (a local textile mill owner and his son) in 1976, as well as the murder of Juan Carlos Casariego (one of his own assistants at the Ministry of Economy).

Martinez de Hoz was arrested on 5 April 2007, following a Supreme Court ruling deeming the 1990 presidential pardons unconstitutional,[22] and was given a preliminary sentence of house arrest (due to his advanced age) on 4 May 2010, pursuant to his indictment in the Gutheim case.[23]

References

  1. ^ "Martínez de Hoz: murió el ideólogo del programa económico de la dictadura militar". Clarín. 17 March 2013.
  2. ^ a b "Martínez de Hoz: un ortodoxo que marcó a fuego a la Argentina". La Nación. 17 March 2013.
  3. ^ "Economía. Cuáles fueron las ideas de los ministros que trataron de hacer despegar al país". La Nación. 14 December 2019.
  4. ^ a b Significativa propuesta realizada a Acindar Archived 25 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ "Jorge Rafael Videla | president of Argentina".
  6. ^ a b "Argentina - Military government, 1966–73".
  7. ^ "Lo que pienso de Martínez de Hoz". El Historiador. 6 November 2017.
  8. ^ "Por Juan Alemann" (PDF). La Nación – via martinezdehoz.com.
  9. ^ "José Alfredo Martinez de Hoz - Biografía".
  10. ^ Lewis, Paul.The Crisis of Argentine Capitalism. University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
  11. ^ Crawley, Eduardo. Argentina: A House Divided. St. Martin's Press, 1985.
  12. ^ a b de Pablo, Juan Carlos. Economists and Economic Policy: Argentina since 1958.
  13. ^ "A LA MEMORIA DE JOSE ALFREDO MARTINEZ DE HOZ" (PDF). martinezdehoz.com.
  14. ^ "El Proceso I" (PDF). martinezdehoz.com.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Paul.The Crisis of Argentine Capitalism. University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
  16. ^ Argentina: From Insolvency to Growth, World Bank Press, 1993.
  17. ^ Inversiones millonarias en medio de los cortes de energía Archived 7 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  18. ^ Buenos Aires Económico: La saga de los Martínez de Hoz Archived 10 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  19. ^ National Geographic Magazine. Argentina's New Beginning, August 1986.
  20. ^ Argentina: From Insolvency to Growth. World Bank Press, 1993.
  21. ^ Atlas Escolar Archived 31 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  22. ^ Argentina arrests former dictator's top money man (AFP)
  23. ^ InfoBAE: Martínez de Hoz fue trasladado a su domicilio tras recibir el alta (in Spanish)

External links

Media related to José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz at Wikimedia Commons

Preceded by
Joaquín de las Heras
Minister of Economy

1976–1981
Succeeded by