News of Mac Margolis

Mac Margolis

Mac Margolis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He was a reporter for 'Newsweek' and is the author of 'The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier.'

Bolsonaro is now Trump’s most prominent orphan in the Americas, and his politics by tantrum may ring hollow absent the hemisphere’s alpha provocateur, writes Mac Margolis.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Brazil’s Bolsonaro is Trump’s biggest orphan

09-11-2020 17:54 Bolsonaro is now Trump’s most prominent orphan in the Americas, and his politics by tantrum may ring hollow absent the hemisphere’s alpha provocateur.

by Mac Margolis

The Bolivia that Luis Arce will govern is far from the economic juggernaut Morales commanded during the commodities boom.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Bolivia’s new president can’t ride Latin America’s ‘pink tide’

22-10-2020 14:49 The Bolivia that Luis Arce will govern is far from the economic juggernaut Morales commanded during the commodities boom. Coronavirus has clobbered the country. Set to shrink by 7.9 percent this year, its economy is hurtling toward a balance of payments crisis.

by Mac Margolis

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro's populist push already has some investors smelling fiscal disaster.

BLOOMBERG – OPINION

Bolsonaro’s addiction to Covid cash could make Brazil go bust

07-10-2020 16:12 Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro's populist push already has some investors smelling fiscal disaster.

by Mac Margolis

In this file picture taken on September 20, 2019 Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro gestures during a ceremony to pass the Economic Freedom Act at Planalto Palace in Brasilia.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Brazil's Covid response brings out Bolsonaro's inner leftist

01-09-2020 09:45 With little aptitude for reforms and even less for leadership, Bolsonaro has addressed the ravages of the pandemic by turning to the oldest Latin American expedient: government cash.

by Mac Margolis

A man wears a wig with an Argentine flag.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

For Argentina, reaching a debt deal was the easy part

10-08-2020 15:50 Many analysts foresee the IMF agreeing to reschedule the loan to its biggest debtor. Nonetheless, the Fund’s imprimatur will come with conditions.

by Mac Margolis

It’s no secret that a robust infrastructure spurs growth. But politicians in the region have traditionally hurled up ill-conceived grand public works and crisscrossed their nations with asphalt and transmission lines to nowhere, too often lining their pockets along the way.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Latin America infrastructure woes add to inequality

10-08-2020 09:25 The poorest workers and households in the region shoulder an inequitable share of the cost of ramshackle transportation, dirty water, serial power outages and patchy communications. Throw in the coronavirus pandemic, and the plight of those at the bottom is even more dire.

by Mac Margolis

Venezuelan migrants wait for a bus to travel to the border, in Bogotá, Colombia,. Facing no work due to the COVID-19-related economic shutdown, hundreds of Venezuelan migrants are returning to their country.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

A refugee crisis is the last thing Latin America needs

29-07-2020 15:55 Latin America is already confronting a public health calamity, an unprecedented economic collapse and incipient social unrest. The last thing it needs is a refugee crisis, as well.

by Mac Margolis

Mexican housekeeper Dolores Sánchez, 35, poses for photograph at her home in Mexico City. In March, when the new coronavirus outbroke in latin America, many domestic workers were sent home without payment, others were laid off and others confined in the homes where they work.

BLOOMBERG – OPINION

Covid-19’s toll will rewrite Latin America's future

01-07-2020 23:22 The multiple crises assailing Latin America might not go entirely to waste, but to achieve lasting salutary change, the region must address the systemic vulnerabilities laid bare by the pandemic.

by Mac Margolis

Argentina’s largest creditors have sent Alberto Fernández’s government new counter-offers in an effort to reach a US$65-billion restructuring deal in the coming week.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Good behaviour won't deliver Argentina from economic pain

03-06-2020 15:50 Argentina deserves debt relief, but also a credible way forward. The country still needs a path to growth, new investment and the prospect of fiscal reasonableness beyond the pandemic – and that is where the road map ends.

by Mac Margolis

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Why is Uruguay beating Latin America’s coronavirus curse?

29-05-2020 13:10 Stricken neighbours take note – Uruguay has not only contained the outbreak, it has done so without a lockdown, harsh quarantines or heavy-handed policing.

by Mac Margolis

A bus driver wearing a protective mask sits behind a plastic screen in Buenos Aires.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

For Argentina, coronavirus is a matter of life or debt

11-05-2020 08:00 So profound are Argentina’s self-made misfortunes that an imported contagion and the economic turmoil it has wrought have thrown out an unexpected lifeline.

by Mac Margolis

A woman from the Barrio Norte in Buenos Aires takes a stand at the pot calling for social networks against the government on May 7, 2020.

Bloomberg - Opinion

Helicopter money won’t ease Latin America’s pandemic pain

08-05-2020 09:25 Along with Covid-19, a fever of wonkery has broken out over how to reverse the collective economic contraction and to carry on once the health emergency has passed. As the worst of the pandemic is yet to come.

by Mac Margolis

A city worker wearing protective gear sprays disinfectant at a public bus station in the Cota 905 neighbourhood of Caracas, Venezuela, on Tuesday, March 24, 2020.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Coronavirus thrives in Latin America’s multilateral vacuum

25-03-2020 15:47 Shutting down is part of the new global normal. The danger in Latin America is that such sweeping measures feed the tempting illusion that walls, wilfulness and nativism are the way to beat a threat that is already ubiquitous.

by Mac Margolis

Supporters of the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro take part in a protest against the National Congress and the Supreme Court while wearing protective face masks to prevent the spread of the new Coronavirus, Covid-19, in São Paulo, Brazil, on March 15, 2020.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Coronavirus reopens fiscal debate for Brazil and Latin America

18-03-2020 15:08 Even if most Latin American countries have yet to manifest the full brunt of the pandemic, economic contagion is already at hand.

by Mac Margolis

President Alberto Fernández and Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner embrace on inauguration day.

BLOOMBERG: OPINION

Argentina’s government needs to speak with one voice on debt

21-02-2020 08:38 Before Argentina can come up with a solid economic plan, it needs a credible political pact. That takes a government which speaks with one voice, mutes the palace incendiaries and treats debt and economic recovery not as a passion play but as part of a national business plan.

by Mac Margolis

Where there’s waste, there’s also opportunity, says Marc Margolis.

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Latin America’s trash brims with hidden cash

24-01-2020 13:42 "Where there’s waste, there’s also opportunity. Latin Americans, belatedly, seem to be catching on," writes Marc Margolis.

by Mac Margolis

BLOOMBERG - OPINION

Could dollarisation be Argentina's salvation?

30-10-2019 14:50 To a growing number of respected economists, the only path to a fresh start for Argentina involves embracing the US dollar.

by Mac Margolis

José Maria Marin, the former head of the Brazilian football confederation (CBF).

OPINION AND ANALYSIS

Brazilian football is on the road to self-destruction

11-10-2019 08:00 A conspiracy of blunders and malfeasance by professional football’s elite handlers has squandered talent and left Brazil's cherished national institution in shambles.

by Mac Margolis

BLOOMBERG – ANALYSIS

What the markets are telling Argentina's next leader

14-08-2019 09:45 To boost his credibility, Fernández could name someone with a track record in finance to reach out to creditors and the IMF, clearly signalling his commitment to follow through with the fiscal consolidation Macri has put in motion.

by Mac Margolis

Frente de Todos presidential candidate Alberto Fernández at the close of his pre-PASO campaign.

BLOOMBERG

In era of extremes, Argentina's candidates fight for the centre

10-08-2019 11:18 The government and its main opposition demonise each other as extremists while fighting for votes in the middle of the political spectrum from an electorate that demands solutions.

by Mac Margolis

President Mauricio Macri and Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro

BLOOMBERG

Latin America and free trade score a win with EU-Mercosur deal

09-07-2019 15:22 Who knew that even as China and the United States played chicken with international trade, 31 nations with a tenth of world population and a fourth of its wealth would agree to abide by global rules and swap goods freely across the Atlantic?

by Mac Margolis

ELECTION 2019: ELECTION 2019

Argentina’s election won’t change its economic options

01-06-2019 12:05 Voters will have the last word in October, but whoever wins the election will face the same narrowing policy choices and even less room to improvise than Macri.

by Mac Margolis

Bloomberg

Argentina's election won't change its economic options

28-05-2019 17:15 Voters will have the last word in October, but whoever wins the election will face the same narrowing policy choices and even less room to improvise than Macri.

by Mac Margolis