Funny Money -- OK, call me a cynic.

No picture for this one, just a news flash.  The Argentine government announced yesterday that for the benefit of all consumers faced with the difficulty of rapidly rising prices, it had worked out a deal with the largest grocery store chains to fix their prices for two months.  (We haven't really noticed price increases, but we have noticed that whereas we used to get 6.2 pesos for a dollar four weeks ago on the black market, we now get 7.3 -- good for us!).  So, no more price increases for consumers.  Yippee for consumers.

But wait, there must be a catch . . .   Ah yes, the grocery stores in exchange will give up their discounting.  Traditionally, each store has discounts for using different credit cards on different days -- 20% of for using a Citibank card on Tuesdays, a Galicia card on Wednesdays, etc.  These are big discounts, much greater even than the rate of inflation.  Oh well, yippee for the grocery stores.

But wait, it gets better.  Sometimes banks would underwrite the discounts as promotions for their credit cards.  They didn't like this practice, but if some banks did it, other banks felt compelled to do it as well.  Ah, that nasty competition among banks -- can't we do something to get rid of it?  Why sure!  Just get the government to let us agree to end discounts -- in exchange for the stores fixing prices for a couple of months.  Yippee for the banks.  Everybody is winning so far. 

But wait, it gets even better.  In March or April, the government is facing labor negotiations with some group.  If the government can show that prices of essential items have stabalized, they can give smaller wage increases.  And, look at grocery prices . . . stable as can be.  No price increases for two months!  You don't need a raise!  Yipee for the government.

So overall, the government is helping everybody -- especially those consumers who, the newspapers screamed in the headlines, were being saved from inflation.