Word: frondizi
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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When austerity-minded President Arturo Frondizi predicted last January that "a lowering of the standard of living is inevitable," the warning could hardly be heard for the sounds of high living. Over street fires, outdoor laborers at noonday broiled tender chunks of marbled beef that cost 8? a pound; white-collar workers lunched in restaurants on 17? beefsteaks so large they overlapped the dinner plates. Sundays brought an outdoor churrasco (barbecue) that began with meaty ravioli, went on to beef broiled over a pit fire...
Giving up Comforts. In less than six months, Frondizi's austerity has turned from vague phrase into dinner-table reality. Headlined Noticias Gráficas: DISASTER HITS ARGENTINE TABLE. "Commodities that were never missing from tables of the most modest homes," the paper said, "are now fast disappearing, such as wine, butter and the classic Argentine barbecue. How far can a meager family income...
...choice of this road is Frondizi's own. Elected with the support of Communists and Peronistas, hailed as a man of the left, this cold realist soon concluded that he had to put an end to the labor featherbedding, price subsidizing and other self-indulgences institutionalized by Demagogue Juan Perón. Item: per capita gross national product had remained stationary for four years. Item: though Argentina ranked ninth in the world in oil reserves, the inefficient, 37-year-old national oil monopoly forced it to spend $300 million annually to import petroleum and refined products...
...Frondizi turned his back on his leftist past, turned toward economic orthodoxy. Today the improved climate for foreign investment has resulted in deals for $1.2 billion of new foreign capital, and the Communist and Peronista-run unions have been sharply curbed; e.g., out of 95 labor organizations, four operate under army orders, 13 are run by government interventors...
...Frondizi's only dependable ally is the armed forces, and he takes care to cultivate them. Lieut. General Héctor Solanas Pacheco, the War Minister, operates as the army's man in the Cabinet, and is rated as its most important member. Frondizi says he needs two years before the benefits of his reforms abate his unpopularity. He counts on force to secure those two years...