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financial companies. Despite the high fees involved, many middle-class
workers opened up such retirement accounts. Saying that she wanted to
save the private accounts from failing during the downturn, President
Fernández sent a bill to the Peronist-controlled congress to national-
ize all those liquid assets. Few citizens with private accounts believed
her explanation and thought the president just wanted to spend their
investments. Members of congress passed the measure anyway.
Next, the president turned to the most prosperous sector of the
economy: farmers. Early in 2008, her economics minister raised the
export tax on soybeans and sunflower seeds from 35
to 40 percent
advalorem
. The organizations of Argentina's farmers and
estancieros
together decided to confront the government. They agreed to stop
all exports of farm products. To ensure the shutdown of exports,
the farmers adopted the tactics of the unemployed. They drove
their tractors and pickup trucks onto the highways and set up road-
blocks throughout the country, announcing that they would only
permit shipments of foodstuffs for the urban markets. Despite the
disruption, the middle-class housewives of Buenos Aires seemed to
Farmers in several littoral provinces closed highways in protest of the Fernández government's
high taxes on the export of farm products such as soy, wheat, and corn. In 2008, such taxes
made Argentine produce less competitive on world markets.
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