More Good Economic News!

Well, at least the campo strike has been called off for 30 days. As part of getting to that point, however, interior commerce secretary Guillermo Moreno supposedly sent police to feed lots to demand that cows be put on trucks to be sent to slaughterhouses (the well known government enforcer apparently threatened the feed lot owners hours before); according to Bloomberg News, Argentine grain producers are diverting ships away from the country because a farmers' strike is halting exports; and Chris Garman, director and practice head for Latin America at Eurasia Group, said yesterday that the populist governments of Argentina and Venezuela, already hammered by high inflation, face revenue shortfalls that will force them to cut spending or let their currencies devalue. "There's no easy solution in Venezuela as well as Argentina," he said. "Both of them are in a context of not an acute crisis, but certainly marginal weakening, which could set up a larger crisis in 2009."

You know you're in trouble when your economic prowess is compared to Venezuela's.