Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Peru: Export growth is down to sheer luck

Now I'm not saying that plain dumb luck is a bad thing. Au contraire mes braves, a decent dose of fortune coming your way is always a good thing and as the golfer Gary Player once remarked, the more you practice the luckier you tend to get. but can we please just STFU about the amazing economic management of the Twobreakfasts administration as the cause of the Peru growth "miracle" one time?

click to enlarge

Take for example this chart, that shows the figures for gold exports from Peru in the January-to-July periiods of the last five years, 2010 included. The golden coloured bars show the physical volume of gold exported and right now it's the second worst figure of the last five years (well, ten years in fact if you care to check the data back even further). The green bars show those gold exports in US dollar value, calculated on a monthly average using the London Fix average for each month (data kitco). Yes indeedy, we're miles up in cash terms thanks to the world markets.

Peru isn't working miracles, folks. It got lucky and got lucky seven or eight years after the real economic reforms (done by PPK during the Toledo gov't.. and btw neither are faves round here, but you gotta recognize the truth too) set the stage for a better economic base. The only good thing that the arrogant García and his criminal band of corrupt lackeys have done is not touch the controls and leave the whole thing on autopilot. Luck has done the rest.