Saturday, February 9, 2013

Argentina Bans All Advertising

When desperate, governments will use standing laws or create new ones that it views as benefiting the state and shutting down critics.

Supermarkets and electronics retailers say Argentina's government has ordered them to stop advertising in the country's top newspapers, in a bid to weaken independent media companies as President Cristina Kirchner turns to increasingly unorthodox policies to prevent inflation from derailing an ailing economy, reports WSJ.

The order, confirmed by retailers and newspapers but denied by government officials, comes after retail executives say price-control czar Guillermo Moreno pressured them earlier this week to agree to freeze prices for two months. Executives say Moreno then told them to pull all newspaper sales ads in hopes this would somehow curb inflation.

"This was an imposition, not a request. He simply decided that nobody should publish any ads. It's not sustainable and will be hard to comply with," said one retail-sector executive.

10 comments:

  1. While I obviously don't advocate this, it could have an odd effect. When the US banned tobacco tv ads, the tobacco companies actually made bank. They no longer had to shell out big money for tv ads to compete with each other.

    I guess it wasn't as good for the networks.

    BTW, while I don't advocate Argentina's economic policies, I believe it has been targeted for a color revolution. If so, I hope it is thwarted..

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  2. No wonder Bitcoin usage is on the rise in Argentina:

    http://blockchain.info/nodes-globe?series=48hrs

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    1. Here's a first hand account of someone using bitcoins to get around currency controls in Argentina:

      http://thebluemarket.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/bitcoin-dollars-and-pot-banging-protests-in-argentina/

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  3. Clearly, they haven't read chapter 9 of Walter Block's Defending the Undefendable.

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  4. Ms. Kirchner is so far in over her head without a clue about what to do that her house of cards will soon come down...

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  5. Ahh, an advertising free life. One can only dream.

    I think Bill Hicks said it best:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

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  6. Paul Krugman has another hit on his hands to justify his stuttering and stammering!

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  7. Craigslist, with its free classifieds, the lifeblood of any newspaper, essentially drys up funding for independent publishers. Nobody really knows who currently owns Craigslist either.

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