IN ARGENTINA WORSE MEANS BETTER

Argentina's current stock of sick jokes is capped by a statement from the new president of the Central Bank: "The country's economic situation is marvellous. Better than ever' Only a few months ago, Treasury Minister Duan Alberto Quilici declared that in the past year $8,000m had fled the country.

In this light the words of Jorge Bermudez Amparanza, former president of the Bank of the Nation and the successor of Carlos Brignone as the head of the central bank, sound like cruel satire.

Brignone himself recently told a businessmen's banquet that Argentina is 'on the brink of calling off its payments' His • latest remarks must sound doubly cruel to the l million Argentines who are currently out of work.

Recent figures from the National Statistics and Census Institute (INDEC) revealed growing unemployment throughout the country.

In greater Buenos Aires, with one-third of the total population, unemployment in April was 7.8 per cent, with a tendency to increase.

And greater Buenos Aires has the largest industrial concentration in the country and one of the most important in Latin America.

In the provinces the situation is worse. In Cordoba, second industrial city, joblessness rose from 4.4 to 7.2 per cent, while in Rosario, the third national economic centre, it went up from 3.5 to 6.2 per cent.

However, bare do not indicate that in the provinces consumption levels are going down and that hundreds of small businessmen are going broke.

In the view of the Developmentist paper, "Clarin', the picture is gloomy:

'Without underestimating the activities of certain extremist groups, it would be naive to ignore the presence of a factor so important as unemployment among the causes of the social dissastisfaction that at times gives rise to violence.' For the Conservative daily 'La Nacion': "All this reveals a lamentable aspect of the country's economic and social situation.' The focus of most gravity is Tucuman, a northern province which has sugar-cane as its main crop. The militancy of the sugar workers has earned Tucuman the nickname 'the Cuba of Argentina' • In this province unemployment is higher than any where else: 14.2 per cent.

In the southern province of Comodoro Rivadavia, where wool and oil are the main economic activities, the jobless are 10 per cent of the workUnemployment is high in most economic sectors. In primary production it is 6.7 per cent; in industry it has gone up from 3.7 to 6 per cent. Only in the service industries has it not increased, a sign of growing bureaucratization.

In manufacturing the hardest-hit sectors are wool and clothing, 8.3 per cent; and construction, 6.7 per cent. There are also new and serious problems in metallurgy, the slaughterhouses and the packing plants.

The INDEC figures lave been criticized as too lon by some industry sources. real unemployment level in building, for example, thought to be nearer 10 per cent.

The INDEC figures count a worker as fully employed even if he works only two days a week. The figures fail to take account of loss of overtime, short-time working and lay-offs.

With all these factors and an annual inflation of 65-75 percent, real wages have fallen by 12.1 per cent since January 1970.

Argentina, like the other states of Latin America, is feeling the wind of recession blowing from the United States.

The fall in real wages, administered with an iron hand by military dictator General Alexandro Lanusse, is the price imposed on the working class for the economic crisis.

General Alexandro Lanusse, military dictator of Argentina, where there is inflation, high unemployment, a fall in real wages and the wind of recession from the United States.

of US forces stration because neither he nor any other President has actually declared war On North Vietnam.

The campaign for prosecution of Jane Fonda is being spearheaded by the John Birch Society and other extreme right-wing groups.