Peru: ¡Viva Investment Grade! (part 56,183)

Want to know why Peru is so popular with the world right now? Look no further than two reports in 'La Republica' today, and all is clear.

Report one: Peru's economy grew 10.41% in September

That datapoint was widely announced all over the biznews wires yesterday and today, but this next one was weirdly missed by most. A longer translation needed:

 

Report two: Lima Residents' salary averaged S/1,084 (U$388)

The average monthly income for workers in the Lima & Metropolitan area was S/1.084 (U$388) in the months August to October 2010, a figure 2.3% lower than that registered in the same quarter of 2009, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Information (INEI).

According to the Permanent Employment Survey (EPE), income for men averages S/1256.40 (U$450), some 2.1% lower compared to the same quarter of last year. Also, womens' income came to S/864.50 (U$310) on average, lower by 1.5%. Tis figure represents 68.8% of average male income and shows a S/391.90 difference between the sexes.

Meanwhile, income grew on average by 4.1% for those between 14 and 24 years old, while the population aged 45 years or more saw an 8.4% drop in average income. Income also dropped in the population aged 25 to 44 by 0.6% year-over-year.

Finally, according to ranking by education in Lima&Metro, the the referred quarter average income rose by 8.1% for those employees with at least secondary education.

Peru: The capitalist wet dream where the rich get richer and the poor get KY Jelly.

Baa Baa Baa: Moody's grants investment grade to Peru

The Trifecta is complete. Last year S&P and Fitch slapped 'investment grade' on Peru and both of those must have been sweating the call when the stock market sunk under 7,000 during the crisis and the "we're going to grow 6% and we won't be affected by the financial crisis" ridiculousness of its government was shown to be the big fat lie that it clearly was.

But now Moody's, always the toughest nut to crack, has joined in, raising its rating to the aptly named "Baa Baa Baa" (well, really it's 'Baa3'....geddit?). The upshot of this will be more money can now enter the country for investment purposes if it wants to. Let's not worry about the new capital gains tax on stock market profits though, eh?

So congrats of sorts to Peru, but the truism of ratings agencies calling tops in stock markets shouldn't be forgotten, either.

Peru: Viva investment grade (part 14,279)

This chart (English trans Otto)........

....... comes from this report on Caretas today that shows up close and personal, once again, that Twobreakfast's obsession with GDP and his KY Jelly attitude to foreign direct investment have not helped Peruvians in the slightest. Note that between 2006 and 2008 and according to the official figures (i.e. this is not a case of making shit up):

• an extra three percent of Peruvians don't reach the minimum daily calorie intake. Put in simple terms, that's ANOTHER 700,000 people who don't get enough to eat. Note to those who have been to Peru for their three week aventure vacation and now consider themselves experts on the country; you are unlikely to have met these people on the Inca Trail or in that cozy four star hotel where you stayed.

• by World Health Organization standards (not the BS stats of the Twobreakfasts gov't), chronic malnutrition still affects 27% of the population of Peru

• illiteracy levels are still at 10% of the adult population

• more people have no access to running water in their homes than in 2006

• home phones are a luxury

And the biggest takeaway from all this is that this was the supposed "boom period" in Peru, with GDP growth rates over 9%! What are these figures going to look like after our present crisis year is over? Are you beginning to understand why Twobreakfasts is such an unpopular president in Peru yet, or do you need "I am a moron" tattooed on your forehead?

Viva Investment Grade. Viva, viva, viva.

PS: for those that don't suffer under a Castilian challenge, here's the original table

Peru and Moody's: All you need to know

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Peru’s foreign debt rating was put on review for an increase to investment grade by Moody’s Investors Service (continues)

September 29 (AP): "....But Moody's faces additional scrutiny because one of its former analysts has accused the company of pressuring its analysts to inflate bond ratings, and its biggest shareholder, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, has unloaded nearly 9 million shares since July (continues)...."

September 23 (Reuters) - A former analyst with Moody's Corp (NYSE:MCO - News) has accused the credit ratings agency of issuing inflated ratings, and has taken his concerns to U.S. congressional investigators, the Wall Street Journal reported (continues)

May 29 2008 (Rebuild org): "The Moody's Corporation, a securities rating firm, is under suspicion of giving false ratings to some of the securities that it had been evaluating. Currently, the corporation is looking into whether those inaccurate, high ratings were the result of computer mistakes (continues)"

LIMA, March 24 2009 (Reuters) - More Peruvians went hungry last year despite blazing economic growth, a sign that President Alan Garcia is stumbling in efforts to direct benefits of an impressive expansion to the poor. The percentage of people in Peru with inadequate nutrition rose by more than 11 percent in 2008, faster than the economy's 9.8 percent surge, according to the national statistics agency. Now, 32 percent of Peruvians do not get enough to eat (continues)

LIMA, Oct 8 2008 (Reuters) - UPDATE 1 - Thousands march against García, corruption in Peru (continues)

Hundreds of other links available.

Pisco sours served, the end.

News from investment grade Peru, part 1573

Follow the bouncing ball, people:

1. A group of students go on a high ticket price end of school year vacation to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

2. On returning, 16 of them fall ill with swine flu

3. In the house of one of the student group that hasn't (as yet) fallen ill with AH1N1, the family maid comes down with flu symptoms.

4. She is immediately fired by the family and forced to leave the house, thus losing all medical health coverage she might have had.

5. With nowhere to go, she gets a bed for the night from a family member in a poor local neighbourhood.

6. She goes to the local health centre where she and the other 10 members of the family that was generous enough to offer her a bed have now been placed under strict quarantine.

Isn't Peru a wonderful, socially responsible place? That trickledown economics strategy really working wonders again amongst the caring sharing middle class. Que viva investment grade, because this is just the kind of attitude amongst da movers and shakers that the financial world applauds.

Mexico confuses me

Call me slow if you like, but how can a country that

• has a currency like this
• 

• that ran a U$16.8Bn trade deficit in 2008

• that has an economy set to drop by 5% this year according to Morgan Stanley

• and that according to this Bloomie report, is about to accept thirty to forty billion dollars in bailout cash from the IMF

How can it still be classed as "investment grade"? Can somebody please explain this one to me?

News From Investment Grade Peru (part 7,592)

Can you count?

Headsup dudes, cos the combo of news in this post will get you big businessy people itching to set up shop in Peru. Form an orderly queue please, rich people...no pushing at the back.

1) Today Reuters (EngLang) reports that even though Peru "grew" by 9.8% in 2008, a full 32% of its citizens didn't get enough to eat, that number up 2% from the 2007 figure. These are the official INEI stats office statistics, by the way, not some bunch of hangwringers with an NGO.

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LIMA, March 24 (Reuters) - More Peruvians went hungry last year despite blazing economic growth, a sign that President Alan Garcia is stumbling in efforts to direct benefits of an impressive expansion to the poor.

The percentage of people in Peru with inadequate nutrition rose by more than 11 percent in 2008, faster than the economy's 9.8 percent surge, according to the national statistics agency.

Now, 32 percent of Peruvians do not get enough to eat yada yada continues here

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C'mon rich foreign people, how tempting do you want a country to be for investment? Make Peru your choice and not only do you get all that growth, but the gov't makes sure that it all gets funnelled back to you. No need to worry about the peasants revolting or anything, as those small, brown people that live in the hills won't do anything to burden you or the state.......such as eat, for example.

2) BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! If you invest now, you even get a guarantee from Latin America's least popular President that the present trickledown policies that you all love will continue after his term is done. President Twobreakfasts told a whole bunch of bankers (!) at a posh lunch (!) today that.......

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"..In Peru, the President has power. He cannot make whoever he wants (the next) President, but he can avoid making President somebody he doesn't want. In this way I can guarantee you that all who want to bring money to this country, that money is guaranteed by the political stability that Peru will have in the next 10 years. This is my long-term contribution for the post-crisis that will come."

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I'm not making this up, he actually said that today. But hey...apart from it being illegal, immoral, arrogant in the extreme and total demagoguery, I can't see anything wrong with keeping the present system of rich richer and hungry hungrier, can you? Manna from heaven, for all you rabi..SORRY, caring capitalists. Who really care. Yes you do. We know you do. You care. Because you told us you do. And you'd never lie to us.

3) Meanwhile, in 'that other Peru' that doesn't get to sit down for lunch with Twobreakfasts every day, here's a random report plucked from about two dozen possible examples and put through the Ottotrans™.

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A part of the population of the capital city of the province of Sandia drinks non-potable water that contains parasites, bacteria and virus says the director of the local hospital, Gustavo Calderón Vargas.

To prevent the population of the Puno jungle region from becoming ill, the support hospital of Sandia, in coordination with the provincial municipality, performs monthly water purifications. However it is insufficient due to the lack of purification stock available yada yada continues here

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Viva investment grade. Viva, viva, viva.

For more details about those nutrition numbers and how they show the true poverty level of a country, go here as someone who really knows about these things explains in detail, in English and without the IKN snark. An exellent report and a learning experience.

Peru: Tide's Out!

What's that one that Buffett likes about naked swimmers at low tide? Yeah, you know it too. Well here's another example to show off the Omaha dudes set of smarts. First let's examine the accepted financial world wisdom of three South American countries:

• Chile: Smart, conservative, wise, financially prudent, stable, investment grade, stable outlook

• Peru: New star, biz-friendly, now stable, financially prudent, investment grade, stable outlook

• Argentina: Irresponsible, anti-free trade, unstable, will default at any moment, crazy to invest there, junk bond graded, negative outlook.

But where the rubber hits the road, what do we see?

Red = Peru Sol vs USDollar, Blue = Arg Peso vs USDollar, Green = Chile Peso vs USDollar

Nuff said. The sooner the world wakes up the arriviste BS propagated about Peru, the better things will be. I still find it amazing that any investor trusts convential wisdom of the idiots in suits about anything economic after the evidence of the last few months.

Peru: House sales down 45% in Lima

It must be really annoying for President Twobreakfasts when incontrovertible facts get in the way of his delusions. El Comercio reports that house sales in the capital Lima (by far the most sophisticated real estate market in Peru) dropped 45% in the 4th quarter of 2008 compared to the 3rd quarter. Also notable was the relatively low decrease in top-range housing (-7.4%) compared to the lower socio-economic groups (between 60% and 75% drops reported).

Slightly OT, let's add this report about how Repsol is deferring its $350m investment in the Peru oil&gas sector due to low prices. Then there's this report entitled "Peru Miners: project financing drying up on lower metal prices" from DJNW. And then there's the 8,000 mineworkers already laid off in the first two months of 2009.

All this must be part of that "strong macroeconomic framework" that the idiots at Fitch cited when they reaffirmed Peru's investment grade rating (with a stable outlook!!) in January.

News from 'Investment Grade' Peru, part 829

Jacqueline Fowks at her impressive Spanish language blog 'noticias desde lenovo' brings us another tale of Peru. Remember this is the country feted by all and sundry, especially the all-seeing-all-knowing band of idiots known as economists that have been proven 100% wrong with all their models recently.

This is the country that has supposedly grown like a rocket. This is the country whose FinMin bullshit liar Luis Carranza said in November 2007 that the effects of trickledown economics were being felt by all Peruvians. All of them. Understand the word "all"? Now read on, and find out what things are like in Andahuaylas, Peru:

"...the mothers of children under two years old receive diverse aid, amongst them food complements that are not only destined for the undernourished child but also to the other children (in the family) as they do not have enough to eat, either.

The mothers comply with the program instructions up to a certain point in time, because if the children reach the age of two and have moved away from being malnutrition cases they are taken off the program. So two months before the age of two the mother begins to undernourish the child so that it stays on the list of those that receive food complements."

Remember that this is the very same region recently mentioned where women get pregnant in order to receive 100 soles per month from the government.

Viva investment grade. Viva viva viva.

News from "investment grade" Peru (part 3)

If that's glandular go see a doctor.

For the past 10 days, doctors have been on stike in Peru. The reason is pay and conditions (surprise), but the real bad feeling between doctors and the gov't goes back to January this year when both sides reached agreement on pay rises and improvements in working conditions, the Health Minister and the Doctors' Executive signed the papers and everything was done and dusted. The García government promptly ignored the accord, refused to honour the agreements and brought the matter to a head this month.

On Monday in Puno Gladys Huaraya, a 28 year old woman suffering a urinary infection, entered the local state hospital. She waited at the hospital in increasing pain all that day and was finally given a preliminary examination nine hours later. A couple of hours later she died from avoidable complications arising from the infection.

Who's to blame for her death? I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that the doctors are laying the blame at the door of the government, and the gov't is laying the blame at the door of the doctors. However, as yet neither party has been to the house of Gladys and explained to her three children why their mother won't be coming home.

Viva investment grade. Viva viva viva

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