“My friends are asking me to bring tampons back for them. Try doing
better than that, Santa Claus.”
Santa Clause replies that he will see that Andrew Cuomo and the soul of Mario Cuomo will see that Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation, is either closed or open on BOTH ROMAN CATHOLIC PALM SUNDAY AND EASTER SUNDAY AND GREEK ORTHODOX EASTER SUNDAY (SEE ALSO NY CONST ART 1, SEC. 3)
ARGENTINA IS RUN BY A WOMAN AND NEW YORK IS RUN BY ROME!
Argentina Faces Tampon Shortage
Retailers Scramble to Get Fresh Shipments as Government and Importers Trade Blame
ENLARGE
Tampon shelves at a Jumbo supermarket in Buenos Aires on Jan. 8.
Taos Turner/The Wall Street Journal
On Friday, retailers and tampon distributors said they were scrambling to arrange the delivery of fresh shipments, possibly from Brazil, as early as next week. For now, women are finding it nearly impossible to find tampons at pharmacies and smaller supermarkets around the country—an embarrassing situation for President Cristina Kirchner ’s government, which has had to publicly address the problem.
“We don’t have any tampons. Nobody around here does,” said Stella Maris, a 44-year-old biochemist who works at a pharmacy in a nearby suburb. “But the problem is not just with tampons. We also have problems getting adult diapers, mouthwash and some medicines.”
The shortages stem from another scarcity issue—the lack of U.S. dollars. Argentina doesn’t have enough dollars on hand to pay down its debt while also paying for critical imports like fuel and supplying dollars to importers. Economists say with dollars in short supply, the bureaucracy has to decide who gets the dollars that are available—and some importers inevitably lose out.
“We have ended up with a socialist system in which one bureaucrat decides what you import or produce at which price and when,” said Roberto Cachanosky, an Argentine economist.
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Lucia Bravo was elated on Thursday after finding a box of Kotex tampons at Jumbo, a giant supermarket in Palermo, one of this city’s upscale neighborhoods.
“Oh, great, they have some,” she said after finding the product. “I tried to buy tampons a month ago and couldn’t find any.”
Ms. Bravo and her friend, Ana Moglianesi, hadn’t been able to find tampons at other retailers. The two women, both in their 30s, quickly left Jumbo’s personal hygiene section for the cash register to pay up. They said tampons are critical for summer activities, such as swimming.
Johnson & Johnson , which makes the OB-brand tampon, said it is working with distributors to get its products back on Argentine shelves soon.
“We are experiencing some difficulties in satisfying high seasonal demand for OB tampons because of delays in the import process at the end of 2014,” the company said.
Argentina’s Economy Ministry said internal “logistical problems” at companies like J&J and Kimberly Clark Corp. caused the shortage.
Though import problems have been around for years, the tampon tempest was unexpected.
In the past four days, Argentines referred to the problem more than 25,000 times on Twitter and Facebook , according to www.t-bee.tv, which monitors social networks.
“I’m in the U.S.A.,” read one post on the Twitter account of @PaulaGalay. “My friends are asking me to bring tampons back for them. Try doing better than that, Santa Claus.”
Some commentators said such a problem shouldn’t happen in a country governed by a female president. Women also make up about 40% of Argentina’s Congress.
Miguel Braun, an economist who works with opposition presidential candidate and Buenos Aires City Mayor Mauricio Macri, reflected such critiques in a Twitter post.
“If the economy minister were a woman, we wouldn’t have a tampon shortage,” Mr. Braun said. “If the economy minister knew anything about economics, we wouldn’t have a problem either.”
Argentine officials played down such critiques and said their trade policies bolster local manufacturers without causing critical supply problems.
“It’s important to note that there is no lack of sensitive products,” the Economy Ministry said. “Our trade management priority is to supply medical products and necessary goods.”
Kimberly-Clark said its products, which include Kotex tampons, were available on store shelves. “Because of distribution issues, there may be an occasional delay at some places related to increased demand at this time of year,” the company said.
Importers say that last year the government made it harder to bring in goods from abroad. Miguel Ponce, director of the Center for 21st Century trade, a think tank, said Argentina’s central bank owes importers more than $5 billion needed to pay for goods they have already brought into the country. That has created commercial bottlenecks and delayed the deliveries, he said.
Argentina’s central bank declined to comment, saying it provides importers with dollars on a daily basis.
“This is something you can laugh at,” said Nicolas Solari, a political analyst at pollster Poliarquia, referring to the tampon problem. “But it exposes how the economy works when you have so much government control over it.”
Write to Taos Turner at taos.turner@wsj.com
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Home > LI
Confidential > Stop
scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
