I think so far this is what people wanted: end the status quo and apply shock therapy.
His supporters hope that in the long run the economy will become independent and the country would come out of the never ending crisis. My guess is that everything will simply end up owned by private interests and while (best case scenario) the economy will do better, people will suffer even more.
The Argentinian economy will not do better, only the wealth of the neocolonial compradors will, and the wealth of their Global North capitalist masters.
That’s what I meant, it will do better “on paper”.
Hard to call that worse than the mess they are in
They should have played hardball with the rapacious IMF instead of licking its boot.
ugh welcome to earth where the only way to have a healthy “economy” is for people to suffer. but we cant seem to just live in peace and help eachother out without monetary benefits. so people are forced to suffer because of greedy bastards.
LETS GO WE NAILED IT GUYS
They privatized many of the highways and you have to pass through toll booths every so often as ownership changes. These people provide no service, there are just taking the money. Same with much of the transit—many buses and trains are privately (mafia) owned.
Yeah, because Friedman’s free market shock doctrine shit just isn’t working.
Free market regulating itself is the next bullshit argument
More than having 60% child poverty? Doubtful.
Well, I guess we’ll see. Currently I don’t really see how privatizing everything and opening real estate market to foreign investors helps poor children but maybe it will. My guess is that when the private corporations take over everything they will squeeze even more money out of the poor but maybe the wealth will somehow trickle down. It’s definitely an interesting experiment. My other guess is that if this fails all the libertarians will say that it’s because he implemented all the policies they like so much wrong. If he succeeds I’m definitely voting for the right wing nutjobs in the next elections.
The historical record shows that there are no maybes about this. It’s obviously not an “interesting experiment.” There’s no sense in giving these rhetorical inches while they’re taking miles.
What historical record? Can you point to another country taking such a extreme turn to the right while being in similar situation? And not being met with sanctions like in Afghanistan for example. I’m genuinely curious.
Can you point to another country taking such a extreme turn to the right while being in similar situation?
While that isn’t what I was talking about, Weimer Germany is the canonical example of a similar situation, but there are many examples.
What I was talking about is the historical record of neoliberal shock therapies, which Naomi Klein documented well.
Shock therapy in Russia after USSR breaking up, maybe?
That was more extreme, since it was not a transition from left-wing liberal democracy to right-wing liberal democracy, but from bureaucratic planned economy to a pretense at liberal democracy.
Still some examples may apply.
Say, if things state-owned or state-managed in Argentina now get privatized, one can look at the specific mechanism and whether it’ll be similar to what happened in Russia.
I guess the right wing theory is that the president makes Argentina a great place to do business, business people rush in, and wealth trickles down.
But, that “trickle down” idea doesn’t ever seem to have actually worked anywhere. Maybe the best Argentina can hope for is that at one point when the economy is booming, the working people suddenly form or join unions and the companies decide it’s too risky / expensive to leave, so they negotiate with those unions.
OTOH, these days it’s so easy to move corporations around to wherever the laws are the most corporation-friendly. So, even if somehow the new president does make corporations want to do more business in Argentina, it’s hard to see how the people of Argentina will really benefit.
I would agree if Argentina wasn’t so fucked right now. The goal is not to make Argentina great but to get out of crisis. I think what can happen is that all this drastic cuts and price hikes will lower inflation and stabilize the economy. With inflation under control and normal interest rates people will be able to start saving money again, take out mortgages and import goods. This could improve their situation if public services survive but my guess is they will end up fully owned by foreign capital at the end.
I think what can happen is that all this drastic cuts and price hikes will lower inflation and stabilize the economy
It might, or it might not. The thing with inflation is that it’s based on people’s expectations as much as anything else. People have to believe that inflation will go away before it goes away.
The new president has one thing going for him, which is that he’s not a continuation of the previous administration. That means there’s a chance that people will believe that he’s actually making serious reforms. If they’d stuck with a prime minister who was the finance minister when the inflation was going nuts, I don’t think anybody would have believed that things were going to improve, which meant they wouldn’t improve.
But, that “trickle down” idea doesn’t ever seem to have actually worked anywhere.
If you look at Switzerland, it does, just takes long.
That’s not what’s happening in Switzerland. Switzerland just has a weird niche as a tax haven.
I meant “last few centuries” by “long”, in that context your answer is invalid.
In that case, by the standard of the last few centuries, the Swiss are especially poor.
If he succeeds I’m definitely voting for the right wing nutjobs in the next elections.
Uh, I saved this comment of yours for that one sentence.
My views are rather libertarian, but I wouldn’t trust most of the real life libertarians (too trusting into thousands of shitcoins or excited with reading sci-fi and busy writing and discussing articles about mechanisms of anarchy in the ancap meaning of the word).
However, if it comes to you voting for the “right wing nutjobs”, please remember that GOP in USA is not libertarian in any way, no more than Ukraine’s ruling party which uses the word sometimes.
I don’t live in USA. I would be voting for Konfederacja in Poland which has similar, libertarian ideas as Milei. They are always dismissed as idiots (and I tend to agree) but if Milei fixes Argentina I’m ready to eat crow and give them a chance.
Well, for the next 10-20 years I doubt I’ll have the option of participating in a real vote, not without a revolution. So wishing you well and wishing Argentinians well, what is described should work in theory, but it’s just too sharp a turn.
I would be voting for Konfederacja in Poland which has similar, libertarian ideas as Milei.
They are in a solid chummy political party with neonazis and monarchists for years. This alone should tell you what kind of libertarians they really are.
how privatizing everything and opening real estate market to foreign investors helps poor children
the wealth will somehow trickle down
Spoiler alert: it never did.
This is just the price the poor are going to have to pay while the rich get to loot the country.
“some of you may die, but thats a sacrifice im willing to make”
The poor are kept poor by being unable to even buy a pc… 200% import tax on electronics is the WORSE YOU CAN DO TO NORMAL PEOPLE.
Because inflation has absolutely no bearing on poor people’s silver linings.
He did say he would apply shock therapy to the economy. He never mentioned if the economy would come out alive.
Tankie much?
Who could’ve guessed that a rightwing government wouldn’t solve their issues (which were originally caused by rightwing policies)?
No, you are lying. Argentinas problems do not originate from right wing policies but from over protectionism
which were originally caused by rightwing policies
Such as…
The implosion of Argentina is a very complex issue, but, essentially, the country allowed itself to be informally dollarized and ceded control over most of its industries to international (read corporativist) interests. When Perón restructured the country, it was done with a limited scope and with relatively short term changes, causing their economy to collapse again later (it doesn’t help that Brazil, a powerful potential ally, had undergone a rightwing U.S.-backed coup at the time). Then, the whole Falklands/Malvinas war happened, all rightwing bullshit, and the country still hasn’t bounced back.
Don’t forget that every time a right-wing government get to power, they open up a new credit line with the IMF and leave the next government and the population on debt.
You just reminded me of an art display that went up in a park in Buenos Aires when I lived there. Basically the park is oriented around a fountain with a large circular area of brick around that, then pathways that go to the corners and sides of the square (ie to the sidewalks).
They put up a series of walls in that outer circle that told the story of the Malvinas conflict. What stood out to me was that they referred to the UK not by any name or country reference, they were just called “The Enemy”.
People remember and they don’t forgive.
Always take that sort of thing with a grain of salt. The UK is by no means innocent, but Argentina had no real claim to the Falklands - they were the invaders. Can’t really forgive others for a crime you committed.
The previous leftist government had used complicated currency controls, consumer subsidies and other measures to inflate the peso’s official value and keep several key prices artificially low, including for gas, transportation and electricity.
Yea devaluing peso from 360 for a dollar to 790 for a dollar instantly meanwhile is such a big brain play.
there is no such thing as a ‘natural’ price. every price is artificial. OPEC is literally a cartel ffs. The concept of ‘artificial’ pricing is so libertarian brained.
The invisible hand of Chicago School pseudoscience.
A Mileista friend of mine keep complaining about 140% of inflation a year for the past government, but now that yhey had like 300% in a week suddenly is ok and is just the true price of everything. Of course he dosen’t live in Argentina and dosen’t has his salary cut by a third in a week so it’s ok.
Always the gusanos living outside their countries that back their right-wing nutcases the hardest
I think in his bigbrain libertarian mind, the money market pricing of the peso to usd is what defined the value previously and he decided that the market’s pricing is not correct for that of the Argentinian currency.
By devaluing the currency, it makes Argentinian labor and goods comparatively cheaper on the international market. This is a similar move to how China grew at such a tremendous rate in the 90’s - they intentionally devalued their currency in order to use foreign investment in their relatively cheap labor pool to fund the creation of their manufacturing industries.
That solution probably won’t work here, though. Corporations are scared of investing in countries with unstable political leadership that performs brash actions like his. (Libertarian economics cannot account for such beliefs though since everyone must be a perfectly rational actor that chooses price above all). They are afraid that he may unilaterally nationalize certain industries and claim all assets for the state. Or he may rugpull outside investments and say that all profits must go to the state for some amount of time. Whatever flavor of stupid chainsaw wielding antics he comes up with one day is what they will see and use as a justifiable rationalization for not investing in the devalued market of Argentina.
also China was handpicked by the American capitalists to be the manufacturing hub (cheap currency was a cherry on top). Countries recently forced to devalue currencies haven’t had a similar manufacturing boom especially because global economy is doing kinda shit.
also back then there was western industry that could be offshored to china. whose industry’s gonna move to argentina now? nobody else with a significant manufacturing sector is stupid enough to do it, after watching the west shoot itself in the foot. or so one would hope…
I think in his bigbrain libertarian mind, the money market pricing of the peso to usd is what defined the value previously and he decided that the market’s pricing is not correct for that of the Argentinian currency.
You’re half right here. The idea is that the black market Peso:USD price represents the actual real value of the Peso, while the government’s official rate was miles away from this and completely divorced from reality and only remotely sustainable by endless amounts of borrowing, price controls, and money printing, which just contributes to worsening the problem. The hope is that a necessary but painful adjustment to the actual economic reality will eventually provide the stability necessary for real growth.
A smart government will know that, if you want to actually pull this kind of thing off, you need to do everything possible to make the transition as minimally painful as possible and do what you can to help protect the most vulnerable. We’ll see how Millei does, but I can’t say I’m exactly confident.
Every time I see that phrase it makes my eye twitch. ALL pricing is artificial. Always. No exceptions.
There’s a meaningful difference between a government arbitrarily mandating a price and buyers and sellers reaching an equilibrium, whatever you want to label it.
You can say that price controls are worth it in some cases, and plenty of economists would agree with that, but they do come with consequences compared to raw market prices, and we shouldn’t ignore that, whatever label we want to use.
there is no such thing as a ‘natural’ price.
Have you seen a middle-eastern market? Of the kind where they bargain. Like in fairy-tales.
That’s how markets actually look in the wild.
And the natural price is the mathematical expectation of the price you get by bargaining.
It’s very simple and in this particular case “mainstream” economics and libertarian economics get along pretty well.
no. because the prices are influenced by external factors. i live in a country where markets like these exist and the price is not ‘natural’ in any way, in an idealized world maybe but not in reality.
firstly, transporting any commodity (and inputs such as fertilizers) requires fuel and fuel prices aren’t determined by such idealized markets you mentioned, its determined by what cartels and oligopolies want it to be. you are also ignoring subsides, not just by the national governments but foreign governments. for example, developed countries provide a shit ton of subsidies which pull down prices in the international markets, without restrictions and tariffs these displace local production.
there is also the fact that food prices are very inelastic, the seller can push prices very high and the consumer will be forced to accept it because you can’t live without food.
i dont really get the middle eastern market you are mentioning because in reality there is absolutely price discrimination going on.
OK. Natural prices exist as an unreachable ideal point, but there are no absolutely natural prices in real world. I agree, and, BTW, no ancap would argue with that.
natural prices can only exist in an environment where every consumer and producer has all the information and is completely rational.
if you are rich and a vegetable seller who typically charges $5 for a vegetable charges you $10 you are unlikely to bargain as you would consider it a waste of your time and energy and just buy it. is this person being rational by not wanting to waste their time or irrational because they aren’t squeezing more out of the seller.
My two comments combined do not contradict what you say.
Thx for the link, I’ll look at it
Have you seen a middle-eastern market? Of the kind where they bargain. Like in fairy-tales
imagine citing a fantasy trope to justify economic policy jfc
I don’t need to justify anything to you. It’s an example for educational purposes.
EDIT: And if you think it’s just a fantasy trope, then you probably haven’t been out of your state.
you called it a fairy tale, genius
I wonder what’s the longest text you’ve read in your life and understood anything at all.
Hey aren’t you that guy from like a week ago who refused to read a two paragraph article someone linked you?
I remember no such thing, but if you link me the thread, we’ll see.
Diaper prices have doubled
I hate to defend the libertarian, but nobody could have forseen the IDF suddenly buying up the world’s supply of diapers for their troops in Gaza.
Why would they do that? Already wearing the brown pants
They like the feeling of it
The highest concentration of adult babies in the world
Helps with cum collection later
sorry, it’s been a bit since i’ve been to the news mega
what?
There’s a meme subtitle of a Hamas statement which says IDF soldiers wear diapers into battle. I speak zero Arabic, so I assume that it’s just a funny subtitle and not a real statement idk.
no he actually said that
Wtf extremely based.
offtopic: A bit of advice on your nickname - it’s “desantnik” in Russian.
death to america
I didn’t know that this was a thing and a now horrified.
Libertarians around the world like AKTCHUALLY this is good for Argentinians! Nobody being able to afford goods and services is the cornerstone of a healthy society! I am very smart!
Idk what you’re talking about my guy. Pretty sure numbers going up is a good thing for the economy 🤷
Is everything more expensive, or just fossil fuels and disposable diapers?
If a coin gets devaluation, everything else to the coin becomes more expensive, so yes.
For example: If 100 pesos was worth 1 euro, but through devaluation 200 pesos is now 1 euro, an Argentinian would have to pay up double the amount for the same thing in euro’s. So international import is hard because everything from all over the world just got so much more expensive, but export ‘should’ be easy, because all your domestic products are worth so much less to produce.
I think fossil fuels and diapers just got even more expensive than that, but I don’t know why. (I’m bad at economics)
If fuel was subsidised, it could be because it gets hit twice: general rising (import) prices + subsidies cut, while some other products might only feel the general rising prices.
Fossiel fuels are the base for the price of basically everything else. If gas is expensive, transportation costs are goi to be expensive and the products are going to reflect that.
Appling your political beliefs led to 60% child poverty. Explain that.
Why does everyone keep saying child poverty?
Like, do children in other countries have some sort of massive wealth I’m not aware of?
To distinguish in their minds between people possessing free will and such, and people who don’t (yet). The first, the adult, is only a victim of their own poor life choices (in this individual responsibility-guilt view on society), their shitty life situation is supposedly their own fault. While children are ‘victims’. Thus advocating for equal chances rather than actual equality (which would involve shit like hard capping inheritance etc).
He can’t. That’s why he called his fellow tankies to downvote you instead!
Environmentalists not knowing how to react to this headline
Easy. You sing “Yay Boo”
A country like Argentina, beyond its meat industry, isn’t really a country with a significant impact on the environment - but this will hurt the local population.
By design even, considering what the aim of the current government is.
meat has nowhere near as much impact as transit/cars
The air in Buenos Aires aside, It’s really a very clean country.
“In a storm…”
I can’t believe this is happening. There was no possible way to have seen this coming from a man who cosplays as “General AnCap”. I’m just beyond floored that this man could do something bad to an economy.
Dude you are a moron if you think argentina was going well. They went from 4% poverty just 15 years ago to 35% (of population living on less as 5$/day) now. Thats LEFT WING GOVERNMENTS
Who would’ve known, the man that made it so people can get their salary in jugs of milk is a complete idiot.
Not correct. He’s trying to undo fifteen years of lunatic tankies stealing money. The country is BANKRUPT. two times over. He’s doing his best. Even tho he has old fashioned dumb religious ideas, you do NOT know what one hundred percent inflation EACH YEAR FOR A DECADE does to people. Argentinians are now waiters in Mexico and Ecuador… They fled because of Kirchner making the country into a mud pool of corruption and freeloaders
If this keeps up I’ll have to stop shitting myself.
Don’t you dare
I’m guessing it will not stop him from shitting on his citizens.
You can’t stopp the plopp
Install a bidet already, instead of smearing your shit all over your cheeks
It’s beginning to look like Venezuela but with libertarians. It’s quicker than I thought.
No it isn’t. Venezuela is one of the most sanctioned nations in the world.
Venezuela’s economic crisis really began after oil prices fell drastically in 2014 and the west used Chavez’s death/Maduro’s election to increase pressure on the country via sanctions which for example made buying parts to maintain oil refineries difficult. Before that, it was doing about as well, or better (of course, failing to become independent from oil exports) compared to the other countries in Latin America.
Argentina was already in a crisis for the last …20 years-ish, but this acceleration of the crisis happened in a week even as Milei backpedaled on some potentially damaging promises like cutting trade with China.
Venezueal is a locked country that’s sanctioned to hell, Argentina is about to break incompetence records not ever seen before
If you think that you are under 20 or have been living under a rock.
Hell no. For Argentina to look like Venezuela, inflation must be 100,000%. I wish I was exaggerating. 1 USD is 40 trillion of the old Venezuelan currency pre-Chavez, the one the government has cut 9 zeroes to hide inflation ever since.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the situation in Argentina isn’t looking dire.
Argentina has been doing the venezuela way for fifteen years, WHY DO YOU THINK IT’S SO BAD NOW?
If you have never lived in a place with a DECADE of ONE HUNDRED PERCENT INFLATION PER YEAR, you should just shut up already.
That will make EVERYONE poor. No joke!
I lived in Argentina for five years. I’ve spent much time since then trying to convince people in the US that you have more rights and freedoms in Argentina. This might be changing now.
I knew he was going to hurt Argentina badly, but I didn’t expect him to be this quick
I’m so glad Argentina pulled out from BRICS+, it would have been a drain on it
Brics hahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Where nobody trusts each other enough to even talk about one single deal.
China and India are almost at war. China will invade Russia as soon as they can to take back kamtsjatska (and they should) Etc
I’m glad you are underestimating them, for a moment I was worried the G7 might take them seriously and do something
It’s clear you do not understand geo politics… Who is in the g7 with veto power? Which letters of brics?
The Security Council is made up of former Allied Powers, so the US, UK, France, Russia (successor to USSR), and PRC (successor to ROC). So 3 in the G7 and 2 in BRICS.
I’m not sure what’s the point of this question.
Now my turn: Name the bloc that just exceeded the G7 as the largest economies in the world.
Here’s the answer:
Not even one brics country trusts one other brics country. Nuf said. Hahaha you lost Argentina?
hopefully circumstances worsen quickly enough that it’ll be noticable for everybody so that the general public can clearly identify it as a direct consequence of this maniac being elected. If its deteriorating too slowly people might just not notice it as much and might go along with all the coming explanations ( probably immigrants, leftists, blahblah). If there’s a quick look into the abyss people might wake up and get into action.
“He also devalued the peso by 54 percent, putting the government’s exchange rate much closer to the market’s valuation.”
It looks like the situation was worse all this time. The government just stopped pretending.
If there’s a quick look into the abyss people might wake up and get into action.
And vote for the politicians that gave them slow decline again…
Or, at any rate, someone else rather than this specific one giving them either the fast or the slow decline. At least there’s a chance, then, that people vote for something other than that.
Regularly worse is still better than significantly worse.
The thing is, in weak democracies there’s rarely “someone else” that will fix things. Ukraine got super lucky with Zelensky but even he looked like a total crook when elected. Pretty much only populists can win elections in countries like that and it’s impossible to tell if the populist is saying populist things to get rich or to actually try fixing things. Most of the time they just want power and money and people that take the risk and vote for them have big chance of getting if more fucked.
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This is the standard political cycle in Argentina, like a giant pendulum. Someone starts screaming about how they will fix everything and gets voted in. Their incompetence makes things worse and the cycle repeats with someone new.
Look, theres a lot of reasons this guy sucks.
Increasing the costs of two things that are causing the most damange to our planet is not a reason to criticize him tho.
This guy isn’t a climate activist. It’s funny to see the price of fuel going up with a climate denier.
sure it is. removing subsidies on commodities like gas doesn’t change the demand for gas, it just puts more of a burden on poor people, and doesn’t matter at all to the rich who use it most. that path will only lead to backlash against green policies in general, see the yellow vest protests. in order to reduce consumption you actually need to reduce demand by giving people sustainable alternatives.
Demand elasticity is a thing. Demand won’t shrink by the same ratio prices rose after removing subsidies, but it will shrink.
Response to that I can’t predict, but there are places in the planet where prices are lower because of the general poverty of population and the need to still sell it, and places where prices are even higher, but most of the population can’t afford fuel, I can’t name.
EDIT: This was incomprehensible, sorry. I meant that in the long term prices for the consumer are going to become closer to what they were with subsidies, likely, thus the real prices - lower. The question is how bad it gets before that happens.
How the fuck do they afford subsidies? Why do you think they have been in this crisis for 30 years? It is a well educated and fairly modern society. But if you think socialist programs can be paid by borrowing money or printing money indefinitely and won’t result in cronic poor outcomes then you have little understanding of basic economics.
Diapers are straight up more valuable and less dangerous than the phone you type on. Do you like Cholera outbreaks?
I assume they mean disposable diapers. Cloth dipers prevent sanitation issues and solve the waste issue.
But the problem I was referring-to is the catastrophic environmental damage caused by humans reproducing
diapers bad
this reads like the reddit mayobrain take where they pat themselves on the back for not eating octopus because it’s “smart”
You’re not doing anything, you’re just stretching and reaching for a bright side to make yourself look good/feel good. Plastic literally-everything-fucking-else usage (ziploc bags, garbage bags, cups, spoons, forks, condiment packets, takeout containers, grocery bags which still exist despite having been banned) is so astronomically higher than diapers that it probably makes the CO2 differential between Africa and Europe look small
You missed the point. Disposable plastic items filing our landfills are bad, sure.
But the problem I was referring-to isnt the diapers. It’s the catastrophic environmental damage caused by humans reproducing. The problem is the babies.
I promise you nobody is going to stop having kids because diapers specifically are expensive
No, a better policy is investing in schools, giving free contraceptives and healthcare including abortion services
that’s nice but has nothing do do with your initial comment
This was not really clear in your previous comments where you zoned in on a specific product rather than population growth.
diapers bad
Let me guess, you’ve never raised small children while also having to work full time?
Washing, boiling and drying poopy diapers is something people had the time to do back when women were expected to be full-time housewives. Unless you’re proposing a drastic reduction of work hours for parents, something “just raise the price of everything” is the direct opposite of doing, you’re simply cheering for life becoming harder for ordinary working class people.
You’re not going to avert climate change by making things suck more for working class people. All that is going to lead to is ecofascism. A socialist alternative to climate change has to offer actual justice and a better future than the present.
I wish I could update this twice.
Increasing the costs of two things that are causing the most damange to our planet is not a reason to criticize him tho.
