2023-04-17 09:00:00
The latest projections published by the economists consulted by the Central Bank only tend to worsen. Each month is worse than the last. In their most recent report, they calculated that inflation this year would be 110% and the economy would fall 2.7%. That, in consumer parlance, reads as “runaway prices combined with a deep recession.” They know it: “The adjustment has already arrived.”
In our latest survey of social humor –carried out on the basis of focus groups– We detected that the perception is transversal, although with very different declinations. While in the upper class and upper middle class it is recognized that “less and less left” and that “you have to fight to maintain the quality of life”, in the lower middle class and the lower class there is already talk of “very painful cuts” that are compromising even access to the most basic goods.
Last Friday we found out that reality exceeded the bleakest forecasts. Inflation in March ended up being 7.7%, when in that projection of the economists it was expected to be 7%. Consequently, it is to be expected that his next report predicts an even more complicated short-term future. As if that were not enough, the Rosario Stock Exchange has just cut once again its forecast for the soybean harvest due to the drought: it would no longer be 25 million tons but 23 million. That shortfall in dollars, which initially had an assumption of -8,000/10,000 million, then -12,000/-14,000 million and until now was -20,000 million as the worst of all scenarios, is being corrected downwards: they could be -22,000 to -25,000 million dollars. Many of the yield reports that come in from those in the field harvesting bring worse than expected news.
Consumers who painfully acknowledge that “We no longer get to what we got” face each other and above all They will face something that fills Argentines with frustration and impotence: having to choose what to cut. In the upper class and the upper middle class, the adjustments go through giving up gratuity spaces, reviewing fixed expenses, traveling less and losing capital, either by “burning savings” or by not renovating or fixing assets that deteriorate and lose value -house, car-.
In the lower and lower middle class the feeling is one of general loss. “You eat what you can and not what you want”, the focus is on trying to maintain the basics –from milk to diapers– and, with resignation, it is expressed that “there is a world of brands that are no longer accessed”. For their prices, they are prohibitive.
It would be a mistake to think of this moment as an instance of “non-consumption”. What is happening is more complex. Consumption is mutating, not disappearing. In the consideration of people, today it is worth more to have a good time than with what or where to do it. All brands and all places of purchaseor at least the vast majority, they are under threat. And given the forecasts, in the remainder of 2023 they will be even more so. The pure and simple praxis of the street is executing that old maxim of political philosophy, assigned to both Nicholas Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes or Napoleon Bonaparte: “The end justifies the means.”
When citizens state that “now I want to live” and that “I don’t care about anything”, they combine in this synthesis from the scars they carry from the pandemic to the intolerable oppression of a toxic context that drives their daily lives crazy, where in addition the weights that exist , many or few, “burn”. Treating yourself to something, whatever you can, has thus acquired a more defensive than offensive characteristic. It is no longer even a question of rewarding oneself, but of “not exploding your head”. It is consumed to cover up the anguish and find some pleasure in the midst of hostility. The current consumption acquired the physiognomy of a psychoactive drug. Argentines are prescribing it to themselves as an anxiolytic.
Romeo Santos He has just sold out the tickets for his show at the Vélez stadium on April 22 and has already put tickets on sale for a second show the day before. Two hours of Latin music where the characteristic Caribbean joy vibrates seems like a palliative worth paying for. The new show Martin Bossi, Bossi live comedy, is presented from Thursday to Sunday with a full house at the Teatro Astral. People know it: dancing and laughing is good. He is healer. Although today’s consumption is like the laughter of a sad clown. When makeup runs, it is impossible to hide a face overwhelmed by sadness and melancholy.
Just as technology shapes contemporary society, so does consumption. After developing for years, artificial intelligence finally managed to enter the mass agenda with the emergence of ChatGPT in November 2022. Now everyone is talking about her, as if she had emerged from nowhere. On the contrary, it was the work of decades. So much is the vortex and the fascination when verifying that strange mechanical power that simulates humanism that even pioneers of the same industry, such as Elon Muskor one of the most respected and listened to contemporary intellectuals globally, such as the historian Yuval Hararihave begun to warn about its risks and the need to regulate its future potential.
In this context, where technology seems to be approaching the zenith of its evolution, challenging, a priori, equally certain human capabilities, Forbes has just published that the ranking of the richest people in the world has been modified. Paradoxically, it is no longer the technologists as Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk himself who dominate those indices as volatile as the value of the shares on the stock markets, but Bernard Aurnault, president of the luxury brand group LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy). He is the first Frenchman in history to access such a precious place. On the other hand, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers (and her family), heiress to the beauty company Loréal, is the richest woman in the world.
Two Frenchmen, with two companies whose products and brands exacerbate seduction and temptation, radiating sophistication, glamor and dreams, among many other things, are now the ones who are sending a message that runs parallel to the accelerated digitization. The hypertrophy of desire remains a central feature of the consumer society in which we live. And those desires are not only limited to the screens of the digital age, but also to physical products that can be touched, felt, smelled, drunk and displayed. Today, in the United States, electronic commerce represents 20% of the total, while physical, traditional commerce, stores, points of sale, customer service, shop windows, and ambience still accounts for 8 out of every 10 dollars spent.
Contrary to the extravagant predictions that were made in those gloomy moments of the pandemic, at the start there was no return of communism or anything like it. Global citizens already chose long ago: capitalism and consumption, beyond all the complaints and disappointments that spring up everywhere, are largely unquestioned. In any case, the protest is made not for its existence, but for its absence, translated as “no access” or lack of possibilities.
These two worlds, the physical and the digital, are not opposed, they complement each other, constituting a single world. Musk, Bezos and Arnault are likely to trade positions that are, after all, to some extent even symbolic. Everyone has won because the hypertrophy of desire is enhanced by technology. You cannot wish what you do not know, unless you have a lot of imagination. But when everyone’s life is just a click away, it is not necessary to resort to the imaginary to dream, pretend, aspire and even envy. It is enough to simply look. If the algorithms incessantly put in front of our eyes what attracts us the most, the effect grows exponentially.
The recession that will be felt from the second quarter will challenge, above all, those brands and products that cannot promise neither fun nor joy. The tension between hypertrophied desires, which of course Argentines also have, and increasingly limited possibilities will become acute as what economists are seeing today hits the streets.
Advertisements for Beldent chewing gum can already be seen on public roads where a new three-unit package is promoted. We can read it as a first taste of what is to come. Generating access will be “the task” of all those who seek to build a bridge between what consumers want and what they can actually do. The adjustment has arrived. Business strategies will have to be adapted to this new (and old) reality.
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