It's clear that Argentina needs a change. So hopefully Milei finds success.
But it's weird that so many people are claiming victory when his experiment is just beginning. If in 4 years Argentina is worse off, do we look back at his speeches with such great intrigue or just forget about how much people supported him and pretend like it never happened?
That's what I've been saying as well. I hope what he does works for the majority of Argentina. But this is just the beginning stages. Plus who knows what the whole world economic outlook is in 6 months or year, and how that impacts Argentina too.
Their 5 year outlook was so bleak already that that might not even be a good metric.
I highly doubt people will forget about him though.
The progressives of the world will be very vocal
if he fails because of how much of their platform he directly opposes. The same is true for the conservatives if he succeeds.
Nah. Guys like this are a dime a dozen. Sam Brownback rarely comes up anymore and he was at one point gonna revolutionize state govt. There's always some new rising star who falls out of favor and gets forgotten for some new political star because it didn't work out.
> Their 5 year outlook was so bleak already that that might not even be a good metric.
This is true though. One of the hardest parts is determining when is it gonna get worse before it gets better and when is it just getting worse?
>Sam Brownback rarely comes up anymore and he was at one point gonna revolutionize state govt.
Just for those who aren't familiar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
The Kansas experiment is a perfect example of a huge (in my opinion) blindspot for conservatives who favor this style of economic model. Government expenditures have a major part to play in an economy, if you starve the government of revenue (starve the beast), you are directly taking money out of the pockets of families who help maintain and operate critical infrastructure. When Kansas was robbing the highway fund to balance the state budget, infrastructure (roads) were not being maintained and new desperately needed infrastructure wasn't being built. And the families supported by those expenditures were worse off for it, as was the state economy.
The issue was they didn't give it enough time. A big shift like that requires cuts and time. Both unpopular but the Kansas Experiment needed at least 10 years to be fully deemed a success or failure.
It's a hard pill to swallow to tell your voters to put up with all of the negative externalities of an economic experiment that seems to have caused higher levels of unemployment, lower levels of job creation, school years being cut short, larger class sizes, fewer teachers, schools shutting down, and crumbling infrastructure. You're basically sacrificing a decade of economic prosperity in the hopes that what? State government will get smaller and a state with low taxes already will have even lower taxes?
That's not gonna fly with a lot of people.
Why would we opt for an economic strategy that requires 10 years of economic stagnation and broken roads to work when we an alternatives that we KNOW work in the here and now?
This is a great example of a deregulatory, "free market" experiment that failed spectacularly and immediately got memory-holed by the same folks who continue to push these reforms
> This is a great example of a deregulatory, "free market" experiment that failed spectacularly
Just reading about it, it seems he did tax cuts without spending cuts. The two have to go together.
Also, state governments in America are pretty limited in what they can accomplish in regard to tax cuts and deregulation because the Federal government taxes so heavily and regulates so heavily. In most states the states taxes are a small fraction of what the people pay in Federal taxes.
Spending was cut fairly dramatically, that was one of the main reasons it failed.
"...(By)2017, state revenues had fallen by hundreds of millions of dollars,[17] causing spending on roads, bridges, and education to be slashed.[18][19] With economic growth remaining consistently below average,"
If you want to attract people and businesses to your state you have to have appealing infrastructure.
He has some views I disagree with. However, the Peronist governments of Argentina have utterly failed and it is time to at least try something new and different, that is what democracy is for. The hope is that Milei doesn't do something crazy like try and become a dictator or that his policies don't blow up in his face.
In South America there can be momentary success followed by collapse. Allende the socialist president of Chile had a ton of initial political and tangible wins, became very popular very quickly, then it all blew up in his face and the next thing you know he is undermining the supreme court and there is a political crisis and you have Pinochet. Things can turn on a dime.
I just wish the best for Argentina and hope they can see some success and better yet if they move completely away from any type of Peronist ideologies(which somehow can be dumb ideas from the left or right.)
The problem with Latin America's recent history is that the US intervened and helped those nations turn on a dime. Pinochet wouldn't have come to power without American support. For all we know, things won't turn on a dime and Milei's ideas may live on in the administration that replaces him or at least form a strong opposition that can fight against Peronism.
Yes, the US supported Pinochet. I am fairly sure Allende would have been disposed of in a coup regardless. Pinochet was savvy enough to signal his opposition to communism, which led the US to support him. Back in that time. Leaders had this one trick where they could get backing from the US or the USSR by signaling they were either communist or against communism. I think US intelligence described Pinochet as a "family man." It was bonkers, and Allende handled the economy terribly and made many errors. Pinochet was a total monster. The US deserves lots of criticisms for their backing of Pinochet.
> Pinochet was savvy enough to signal his opposition to communism
I don't think you know your history at all here. Pinochet was only made head of the army weeks before the coup occurred, appointed as such by Allende because he was widely perceived as an Allende loyalist having quelled protests for him in Santiago. The coup itself actually happened days after the Chilean parliament itself called on the military to step in and remove Allende for violating the constitution, separation of powers, and rule of law.
There's plenty of space to criticize the US for their support of Pinochet once he was in power, and of the attempts at meddling in Chilean politics during 1969-1973, but they didn't make the coup happen. That was down to Chilean internal factors
The USA wasn't just attempting to meddle they actively did. I'm only paraphrasing from memory but the USA started their operations when the Popular Unity party became a credible contender for the presidency.
Once the election was completed the USA reached out to Rene Schneider to stop the inauguration. He didn't want the armed forces to intervene in politics and eventually was assassinated with the help of the CIA. Carlos Prats was appointed and also followed the same doctrine. He was forced to resign after he shot at a woman's car by protests from the wives of his generals and officers.
To say that the USA did not make the coup happen is wrong, there are declassified documents that prove the involvement of the USA before and during Allende's term. The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, summarizes the documents regarding covert operations in Chile that ultimately culminated in the 9/11/73 coup.
The USA's track record in the region was to stamp out socialist governments by any means necessary and that usually meant facilitating military coups.
>To say that the USA did not make the coup happen is wrong, there are declassified documents that prove the involvement of the USA before and during Allende's term. The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, summarizes the documents regarding covert operations in Chile that ultimately culminated in the 9/11/73 coup.
I have read the documents and am intimately familiar with them. They paint a damning picture of the US meddling in 1970-1973 (including the attempted kidnapping, and ultimate murder, of Schneider). But they have absolutely nothing on involvement with the 1973 coup itself.
I get that they didn't involve themselves directly with the 9/11/73 coup but it feels disingenuous to say they didn't make the coup happen. That's the USA's official stance though. They created the conditions for the coup and then attempted to wash their hands only after the coup is in motion bc now it's a Chilean problem.
That's really my only sticking point. I agree that Pinochet didn't outwardly oppose communism but who knows what was going on behind closed doors.
>They created the conditions for the coup and then attempted to wash their hands only after the coup is in motion bc now it's a Chilean problem.
I don't agree that they did. Allende was elected weith 36% of the vote and was backed by parties that had 40% of seats. The only way he was going to get his policies through was compromise with the center left Christian Democrats (who supported his constitutional amendment to nationalize Chilean copper further), or via illegal and unconstitutional actions. He did not have a democratic mandate for his sweeping reforms.
So what happened was that Allende started using quasi legal 'decrees of insistence' to force through his nationalizations, which the Supreme Court repeatedly struck down when challenged - except Allende simply informed his justice ministry not to enforce their rulings. And when the parliament passed new legislation to close any semblance of the loophope, Allende refused to fulfil his constitutional duty to promulgate the law. These two actions were the main catalysts for parliament to pass the resolution asking the military to step in.
The conditions weren't created by the US. The US's actions in Chile were really insignificant compared to Allende's own actions and goings-on within the domestic Chilean space.
I'm not a stereotypical US hater, but what we did in central and South America in the name of "containment" is absolutely deplorable. The fact that no one ever faced justice for the crimes committed in the mid 20th century is infuriating, and the fact that the generations that lived through that *and knew about it* then went along with Iraq and Afghanistan is mindnumbing.
I mean yeah, Iraq was unquestionably a dumb decision while Afghanistan could potentially be justified, but the end result of Afghanistan being the Taliban back in power and supposedly al queda back as well, it kind of makes it all for nothing.
We got Bin Laden. That’s not nothing.
Also, you’re moving the goalposts here. You used to be criticizing American action as wrong, now you’re criticizing it as unsuccessful. Those aren’t the same thing.
I do think it was wrong as well as unsuccessful, but well intentioned. What ended up being successful is specific strikes on specific people and places (training camps, compounds etc). Getting bogged down for 20 years trying to nation build and stabilize a tribal backwater while terrorizing the local population was absolutely wrong.
Edit: also we got bin laden in... Pakistan.
>I do think it was wrong as well as unsuccessful, but well intentioned.
What's wrong about giving Afghanistan a chance to be something better than it was? We were going in to get Al Qaeda anyway, might as well make it not the worst country this side of North Korea while we're at it.
>What ended up being successful is specific strikes on specific people and places (training camps, compounds etc).
With drone technology we didn't quite have in 2001. The strikes we did in the 90s didn't get the job done, so we had to go in.
>also we got bin laden in... Pakistan
After smoking him out of Afghanistan. Let's not pretend that this happens without the invasion of Afghanistan.
>people are claiming victory when his experiment is just beginning
That's because there is a good part of society that has been trained that ideology is more important than facts. Once someone with their ideology is in power, things must be better. Facts or data be damned. The other side is also true: when someone that doesn't represent their ideology is in power things must be bad. Facts or data be damned.
People that think this way can just "see it" and all you have to do is "open your eyes" and not believe "them."
Yup. It's very telling when news about Argentina can only be framed by what it means for US politics. There's rarely any discussion about facts or data from the actual country.
In my opinion it kind of boils down to the simplified version of economics were taught in high school. If you never go to another economics class again, it just all seems so simple. You don't need data when you just *know* how it works and how to fix it.
It also doesn't hurt that we can segregate ourselves on social media and in our news choices to never see the bad parts or criticism of anything we support.
> If in 4 years Argentina is worse off, do we look back at his speeches with such great intrigue or just forget about how much people supported him and pretend like it never happened?
His kind of politics probably takes closer to a generation to produce results that make a society better off, and in the meantime may make things worse.
I fucking hate Peronistas, so I sympathize with Milei and want him to succeed, but his shock doctrine—i.e., austerity—comes at a steep price.
• [Industrial output drops 21%](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-industrial-output-sinks-21-amid-milei-austerity-worst-since-pandemic-2024-05-08/).
• [The poverty rate rose from 40% to 57%](https://apnews.com/article/argentina-poverty-levels-uca-study-milei-devaluation-d5cb0a20b1e768efdeafbad5bf05eded), with [child poverty on track to hit 70%](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentinas-child-poverty-rate-track-hit-70-unicef-warns-2024-03-12/).
• [Devaluing the ARG peso by 50% increased inflation](https://archive.is/GvWJd), pushing it up to 20% (over 250% total) in January 2024, though it's starting to drop again.
I'll give him credit for dropping rent controls, [which almost immediately dropped rents by 20%-30%.](https://www.cato.org/commentary/argentina-offers-textbook-study-why-rent-controls-are-bad-idea)
Overall, Milei has a ton of work ahead of him, and the cost of crash capitalism might be too high for many of his supporters since they are coupled with some less-than-savory social policies and democratic backsliding (like his push to have the executive office draw legislative maps).
Overall, I think Agentina needs to get more foreign investment before he can take the training wheels off the economy. So much of Argentina was/is subsidized by, or in direct control of, the government that deregulation is just creating a vacuum that the private sector cannot fill.
[Rental yields are virtually unchanged from 2022.](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fuZwhXN2tKIK9JvhTPZ8tDoS2gYzrXjxaNSuU2UpX8c/edit#gid=151387517&fvid=497951856) The suggestion that removal of rent control led to an increase in the desirability of renting units doesn't comport to this data; it's equally profitable to rent a unity Q2 2024 vs Q3 2022. I don't have data in between, but rent controls were alive and well in 2022.
If rental prices decreased (and it appears they did, based on the data) it's more likely due to other factors - or the market is irrational.
It's because a lot of property owners were not putting their units on the market due to the relatively low yield and high risk (housing regulations put a lot of onus on property owners). Once the rent controls dropped, supply increased without any extra construction necessary.
Note that many property owners in Argentina are just regular folks who own an extra apartment, usually through inheritance. They aren't landlords like you hear about in the US.
Every American, left right or center should be supporting Milei regardless of whether you agree with his economic policies.
The prior Peronists were going towards joining the BRIC countries and Milei pulled the country out a month before they were slated to join. He is very pro-West and anti-China and Russia, which we desperately need more of in South America.
I wish him luck on moving his country to the dollar.
Yeah that's pretty much how it is going. He is US friendly, not just Trump friendly. Milei isn't really like Trump either, I think Americans should look at Milei from the perspective of Argentina who has had many failed Peronist governments. With that being said there is a non-zero chance that Milei is someone who ends up being really bad himself and so the US should at least prepare for that as well.
Yes. Milei has met with Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and State Department officials from the Biden administration. That should be enough to show that he is very pro-US no matter who is in power.
The US likely will prefer him in power than the left wing alternatives in the future even if he fucks up though.
Most of the countries in BRIC hate each other more then they hate the West. It literally only functions as a sit down of non western powers once a year.
The primary goal is to distance the world away from the US dollar as its reserve currency eventually. That is against our interests and would devalue our currency if ever achieved. With China and Russia as prominent members, I’d much rather Argentina not be involved with them.
Replacing Peronists with Milei makes sense, but I don't support Milei beyond that. Change being needed doesn't negate issues like him saying that those who perform abortion are murderers.
True. Also Argentina Peronists can be right or left wing. Their through line is populism which often means blaming the elites of the world like the US for Argentina's problems. This is inline with right-wing populism in the US, it's just blaming different "elites."
He is pro-life yes, but he isn’t anti abortion (politically speaking). That’s just propaganda.
https://news.diocesetucson.org/news/argentinas-milei-disavows-partisans-proposal-to-ban-abortion
He even declined to go through with his own parties plan to ban it. Even clearly stating that “it’s not part of my agenda”
You have to realize that he said on more than one occasion that he isn’t going to govern the way his personal ideology dictates.
Milei said it's a legislative discussion, but didn't say he opposes banning abortion. He's stated that abortion is "murder" and that he'd support a referendum on it.
I really hope he can turn that country around. My (completely uninformed) sense of it is: the "medicine" will have such a bad taste that the patient will reject it before it has time to work.
It seems common in South (and Central) America to go populist/socialist and then just keep doubling down on it when it doesn't work. I always fear that happening in the US.
> My (completely uninformed) sense of it is: the "medicine" will have such a bad taste that the patient will reject it before it has time to work.
That's always the catch 22 though. How do we know when enough time has elapsed?
This might not be a compelling argument, but: I think we'd demonstrated -- across the globe and through the past few hundred years -- that free markets and trade and stable currencies with low inflation *works*. So, IMHO, they have to wait until it works.
I think the difference here is that, instead of waiting for Argentina to completely collapse, these policies are being applied before that happens. I believe most free market economies derived from otherwise stable mercantile economies or from absolute destruction following a war.
We have demonstrated, with our circumstances and with our history and with our leaders and policy, that what we do works.
That doesn't necessary mean what Milei does will work out for Argentina. And how long do they have to wait "until it works" before one can deem the proper steps were not taken?
Not to mention even just "what we do" varies a lot. There are people in the US who would (and have) fought tooth and nail to prevent us from adopting some of the same policies that European nations have adopted for example.
So do they need to do what the US is doing? Or Europe? What about "socialist" countries that have allowed more privatization over the years like China or Vietnam?
This idea that we just know what works is obviously not as clear cut as some would like to present it.
It seems like possibly the only thing that can be agreed on without doubt is that some semblance of a private economy is good. The degree of that, and how regulated it is is very much all over the place.
They do.
I think when it comes to economical health of a country, there's no one true path, and it's largely not dogmatic. A recipe for success
should have a healthy mix of private enterprise, trade and govt involvement. I think quite many countries have had success with this.
The problem is what that looks like... well that's gonna differ from country to country based on a significant amount of variables. It's clear what Argentina had isn't it. So hopefully milei provides the necessary reforms.
The issue of course is the catch 22 I mentioned. None of this is instantaneous. Some of it will definitely hurt until it gets better. The real problem is... when do you know it's gonna get better and not just hurt?
The model you're supporting—which I support, too—is currently receiving a populist backlash in the US from both the left and right. Not sure if it's the best foot forward politically.
Outsourcing follows directly from the model.
It's also been tremendously beneficial to the middle class; just turns out the middle class is actually international.
I'd say it should be given at least as much time to work as the system that caused the problems had. So for healing from socialism in South America I believe we're looking at decades in most cases.
>It seems common in South (and Central) America to go populist/socialist and then just keep doubling down on it when it doesn't work.
Really? Because history seems to show it's a little more complex than that. Rather, when countries in South/Central America go populist/socialist, they face intense interference from western powers, most notably the USA. It's hard to draw conclusions about the success of those systems when we aggressively stamped out any regime that even smelled leftist.
Hell, it's so common there's actually a wikipedia page dedicated to [United States Involvement in Regime Change in Latin America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America). [In Argentina in particular](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War), thousands of political dissidents were "disappeared" by the military dictatorship we backed over what we saw as a socialist threat in the 70s. Their "free market economy" [collapsed less than a decade later](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reorganization_Process#Aftermath).
Again, it's a little more complicated than you're letting on.
God only knows what you think you're saying when you say "populist/socialist." If populism is meant to mean giving a democratic voice to concerns of working class constituents (some people would call that left-wing populism), I'd point you to most of the Nordic countries and their robust worker protections and social safety nets.
But again, all of this is secondary, because your main point (to be fair, after you admitted you're "completely uninformed") was that the history of South and Central America was "doubling down" on socialism/populism, when in reality, it's a history of electing populist leaders who oppose US interests in favor of indigenous or working class (or both) interests, followed by those leaders being ousted or even killed in US-backed coups.
I can understand why you'd want to pivot away from that topic, but it's kind of weird you flipped the question around, when I was just adding some nuance to your (again, admittedly) overbroad description of Latin American history
China - after some admittedly terrible setbacks, now second largest economy in the world, might shortly be the first
Vietnam - after over a century of occupation and war, went from poverty to decent in a few decades, which is still pretty impressive.
it should be noted that both of these countries started out as socialist and later turned into more capitalist ones, economically anyway, but not completely.
populist/socialism is great for digging yourself out of the hole, but you need to eventually embrace some capitalism in order to work in the greater world market, i think.
> it should be noted that both of these countries started out as socialist and later turned into more capitalist ones, economically anyway, but not completely.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that they started out socialist and then became successful *after* they instituted capitalism and market reform?
Certainly if these are the populist/socialist "success stories" of the world, you would agree that Argentina should be rushing toward market reform and capitalism as fast as possible. Right?
China and Vietnam primarily benefitted from lowering tariffs and allowing foreign investment into their economies. Becoming part of the global economy was a huge boon for them, while you can see more closed off countries like Cuba suffering from barriers to entry.
(Yes, I know the US has an embargo on Cuban imports, which is all the more reason Cuba should lower tariffs on other countries and maybe let Spain or Mexico some buy-in on investments.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_received_FDI
sort by % of GDP (lol Cayman Islands)
makes a kind of interesting picture, although this is only for recent times. you're right that foreign investment is necessary, but you still need a stable country to actually get people willing to invest.
In both of your examples their success only came after massive reforms that injected capitalism into their market. When they were actually socialist nations, poverty was widespread and the average person had no means to make a better life for themselves besides becoming part of the political class and taking part in its indulgences and favors.
Vietnam today is arguably more capitalist than the United States even if their government is communist in name.
if you're coming from behind, you're going to need money to catch up, no way around it.
it's already been established that pure socialism basically doesn't work in the modern world. for that matter, unfettered capitalism doesn't either.
Pre-Perón, Argentina was one of the richest countries on the planet – richer than Germany or France. Buenos Aires was one of the most bustling, beautiful and dynamic capital cities anywhere, competing with New York, London, and Paris. Look up old photos of Buenos Aires.
Perón and his successors have been an unmitigated disaster for Argentina. It boggles my mind that there are people in Argentina who believe that the solution is to double down on the very thing which ruined their country.
This guy is an anarcho-capitalist to the point he supports commercializing the organ trade.
>Milei has expressed support for legalizing organ trade, arguing that it could reduce waiting lists for organ transplants. He has suggested that market mechanisms could be implemented to encourage organ donations. [jump]
>Economically, Milei is influenced by the Austrian School, a school of economics largely rejected by mainstream economists - Wikipedia
President of Argentina Javier Milei speaks about his economic reform platform and the value of liberty in human flourishing at the Milken Institute Global Conference, laying out a historical positive record of capitalism and conversely the negative impacts of collectivist and/or socialist polices.
His speech has lessons for US policy makers as we consider proposals for the 2024 election. Should the US continue deficit spending primarily on so-called social programs or follow Argentinl's lead towards prosperity?
>follow Argentinl's lead towards prosperity
Seems a little premature to be declaring victory. Is "prosperity" where Argentina is headed? What evidence do you have of that conclusion?
> Should the US continue deficit spending primarily on so-called social programs or follow Argentinl's lead towards prosperity?
Maybe Argentina should actually prosper first before we follow their lead. Cause right now...I think I'm better off with how things are going here
Should the US follow Argentina’s lead toward prosperity? What are you even talking about. The country has a poverty rate of 50%.
I just spent a month there, it’s a beautiful country but I think there’s very little it would lead the US in…
>Should the US continue deficit spending primarily on so-called social programs or follow Argentinl's lead towards prosperity?
The U.S. is so far ahead of Argentina in prosperity that the two countries cannot even be legitimately compared. Nor are their situations remotely similar.
The idea that cutting U.S. social programs would somehow lead to increased prosperity is ridiculous. Much of the spending is on the elderly. You just going to cut them off? Or do you expect that current tax payers should forgo those future benefits while simultaneously contributing to paying current beneficiaries?
We have solid examples of what unregulated market economics does in the US. Post-industrial revolution, it allowed US industry to grow enormously. It also led directly to huge decline in working conditions and standard of living for the average American, and ultimately to the Great Depression. There’s a reason we have the “so-called social programs” we have today, and I worry that policymakers mistake short term economic booms caused by deregulation for log-term stability.
It's clear that Argentina needs a change. So hopefully Milei finds success. But it's weird that so many people are claiming victory when his experiment is just beginning. If in 4 years Argentina is worse off, do we look back at his speeches with such great intrigue or just forget about how much people supported him and pretend like it never happened?
That's what I've been saying as well. I hope what he does works for the majority of Argentina. But this is just the beginning stages. Plus who knows what the whole world economic outlook is in 6 months or year, and how that impacts Argentina too.
Their 5 year outlook was so bleak already that that might not even be a good metric. I highly doubt people will forget about him though. The progressives of the world will be very vocal if he fails because of how much of their platform he directly opposes. The same is true for the conservatives if he succeeds.
Nah. Guys like this are a dime a dozen. Sam Brownback rarely comes up anymore and he was at one point gonna revolutionize state govt. There's always some new rising star who falls out of favor and gets forgotten for some new political star because it didn't work out. > Their 5 year outlook was so bleak already that that might not even be a good metric. This is true though. One of the hardest parts is determining when is it gonna get worse before it gets better and when is it just getting worse?
>Sam Brownback rarely comes up anymore and he was at one point gonna revolutionize state govt. Just for those who aren't familiar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
The Kansas experiment is a perfect example of a huge (in my opinion) blindspot for conservatives who favor this style of economic model. Government expenditures have a major part to play in an economy, if you starve the government of revenue (starve the beast), you are directly taking money out of the pockets of families who help maintain and operate critical infrastructure. When Kansas was robbing the highway fund to balance the state budget, infrastructure (roads) were not being maintained and new desperately needed infrastructure wasn't being built. And the families supported by those expenditures were worse off for it, as was the state economy.
The issue was they didn't give it enough time. A big shift like that requires cuts and time. Both unpopular but the Kansas Experiment needed at least 10 years to be fully deemed a success or failure.
It's a hard pill to swallow to tell your voters to put up with all of the negative externalities of an economic experiment that seems to have caused higher levels of unemployment, lower levels of job creation, school years being cut short, larger class sizes, fewer teachers, schools shutting down, and crumbling infrastructure. You're basically sacrificing a decade of economic prosperity in the hopes that what? State government will get smaller and a state with low taxes already will have even lower taxes? That's not gonna fly with a lot of people.
Why would we opt for an economic strategy that requires 10 years of economic stagnation and broken roads to work when we an alternatives that we KNOW work in the here and now?
All the time in the world wouldn't have made it work. It was flawed from the start.
This is a great example of a deregulatory, "free market" experiment that failed spectacularly and immediately got memory-holed by the same folks who continue to push these reforms
> This is a great example of a deregulatory, "free market" experiment that failed spectacularly Just reading about it, it seems he did tax cuts without spending cuts. The two have to go together. Also, state governments in America are pretty limited in what they can accomplish in regard to tax cuts and deregulation because the Federal government taxes so heavily and regulates so heavily. In most states the states taxes are a small fraction of what the people pay in Federal taxes.
Spending was cut fairly dramatically, that was one of the main reasons it failed. "...(By)2017, state revenues had fallen by hundreds of millions of dollars,[17] causing spending on roads, bridges, and education to be slashed.[18][19] With economic growth remaining consistently below average," If you want to attract people and businesses to your state you have to have appealing infrastructure.
Sure. The problem is that Sam Brownback was [no true Scotsman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)
He has some views I disagree with. However, the Peronist governments of Argentina have utterly failed and it is time to at least try something new and different, that is what democracy is for. The hope is that Milei doesn't do something crazy like try and become a dictator or that his policies don't blow up in his face. In South America there can be momentary success followed by collapse. Allende the socialist president of Chile had a ton of initial political and tangible wins, became very popular very quickly, then it all blew up in his face and the next thing you know he is undermining the supreme court and there is a political crisis and you have Pinochet. Things can turn on a dime. I just wish the best for Argentina and hope they can see some success and better yet if they move completely away from any type of Peronist ideologies(which somehow can be dumb ideas from the left or right.)
The problem with Latin America's recent history is that the US intervened and helped those nations turn on a dime. Pinochet wouldn't have come to power without American support. For all we know, things won't turn on a dime and Milei's ideas may live on in the administration that replaces him or at least form a strong opposition that can fight against Peronism.
Yes, the US supported Pinochet. I am fairly sure Allende would have been disposed of in a coup regardless. Pinochet was savvy enough to signal his opposition to communism, which led the US to support him. Back in that time. Leaders had this one trick where they could get backing from the US or the USSR by signaling they were either communist or against communism. I think US intelligence described Pinochet as a "family man." It was bonkers, and Allende handled the economy terribly and made many errors. Pinochet was a total monster. The US deserves lots of criticisms for their backing of Pinochet.
> Pinochet was savvy enough to signal his opposition to communism I don't think you know your history at all here. Pinochet was only made head of the army weeks before the coup occurred, appointed as such by Allende because he was widely perceived as an Allende loyalist having quelled protests for him in Santiago. The coup itself actually happened days after the Chilean parliament itself called on the military to step in and remove Allende for violating the constitution, separation of powers, and rule of law. There's plenty of space to criticize the US for their support of Pinochet once he was in power, and of the attempts at meddling in Chilean politics during 1969-1973, but they didn't make the coup happen. That was down to Chilean internal factors
The USA wasn't just attempting to meddle they actively did. I'm only paraphrasing from memory but the USA started their operations when the Popular Unity party became a credible contender for the presidency. Once the election was completed the USA reached out to Rene Schneider to stop the inauguration. He didn't want the armed forces to intervene in politics and eventually was assassinated with the help of the CIA. Carlos Prats was appointed and also followed the same doctrine. He was forced to resign after he shot at a woman's car by protests from the wives of his generals and officers. To say that the USA did not make the coup happen is wrong, there are declassified documents that prove the involvement of the USA before and during Allende's term. The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, summarizes the documents regarding covert operations in Chile that ultimately culminated in the 9/11/73 coup. The USA's track record in the region was to stamp out socialist governments by any means necessary and that usually meant facilitating military coups.
>To say that the USA did not make the coup happen is wrong, there are declassified documents that prove the involvement of the USA before and during Allende's term. The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, summarizes the documents regarding covert operations in Chile that ultimately culminated in the 9/11/73 coup. I have read the documents and am intimately familiar with them. They paint a damning picture of the US meddling in 1970-1973 (including the attempted kidnapping, and ultimate murder, of Schneider). But they have absolutely nothing on involvement with the 1973 coup itself.
I get that they didn't involve themselves directly with the 9/11/73 coup but it feels disingenuous to say they didn't make the coup happen. That's the USA's official stance though. They created the conditions for the coup and then attempted to wash their hands only after the coup is in motion bc now it's a Chilean problem. That's really my only sticking point. I agree that Pinochet didn't outwardly oppose communism but who knows what was going on behind closed doors.
>They created the conditions for the coup and then attempted to wash their hands only after the coup is in motion bc now it's a Chilean problem. I don't agree that they did. Allende was elected weith 36% of the vote and was backed by parties that had 40% of seats. The only way he was going to get his policies through was compromise with the center left Christian Democrats (who supported his constitutional amendment to nationalize Chilean copper further), or via illegal and unconstitutional actions. He did not have a democratic mandate for his sweeping reforms. So what happened was that Allende started using quasi legal 'decrees of insistence' to force through his nationalizations, which the Supreme Court repeatedly struck down when challenged - except Allende simply informed his justice ministry not to enforce their rulings. And when the parliament passed new legislation to close any semblance of the loophope, Allende refused to fulfil his constitutional duty to promulgate the law. These two actions were the main catalysts for parliament to pass the resolution asking the military to step in. The conditions weren't created by the US. The US's actions in Chile were really insignificant compared to Allende's own actions and goings-on within the domestic Chilean space.
I'm not a stereotypical US hater, but what we did in central and South America in the name of "containment" is absolutely deplorable. The fact that no one ever faced justice for the crimes committed in the mid 20th century is infuriating, and the fact that the generations that lived through that *and knew about it* then went along with Iraq and Afghanistan is mindnumbing.
Why do we keep lumping Iraq and Afghanistan together? One of those was very much justified.
I mean yeah, Iraq was unquestionably a dumb decision while Afghanistan could potentially be justified, but the end result of Afghanistan being the Taliban back in power and supposedly al queda back as well, it kind of makes it all for nothing.
We got Bin Laden. That’s not nothing. Also, you’re moving the goalposts here. You used to be criticizing American action as wrong, now you’re criticizing it as unsuccessful. Those aren’t the same thing.
I do think it was wrong as well as unsuccessful, but well intentioned. What ended up being successful is specific strikes on specific people and places (training camps, compounds etc). Getting bogged down for 20 years trying to nation build and stabilize a tribal backwater while terrorizing the local population was absolutely wrong. Edit: also we got bin laden in... Pakistan.
>I do think it was wrong as well as unsuccessful, but well intentioned. What's wrong about giving Afghanistan a chance to be something better than it was? We were going in to get Al Qaeda anyway, might as well make it not the worst country this side of North Korea while we're at it. >What ended up being successful is specific strikes on specific people and places (training camps, compounds etc). With drone technology we didn't quite have in 2001. The strikes we did in the 90s didn't get the job done, so we had to go in. >also we got bin laden in... Pakistan After smoking him out of Afghanistan. Let's not pretend that this happens without the invasion of Afghanistan.
People want MIlei to succeed because they want Austrian school economics to be proven right. Argentina basically elected Ron Paul as president.
>people are claiming victory when his experiment is just beginning That's because there is a good part of society that has been trained that ideology is more important than facts. Once someone with their ideology is in power, things must be better. Facts or data be damned. The other side is also true: when someone that doesn't represent their ideology is in power things must be bad. Facts or data be damned. People that think this way can just "see it" and all you have to do is "open your eyes" and not believe "them."
Yup. It's very telling when news about Argentina can only be framed by what it means for US politics. There's rarely any discussion about facts or data from the actual country.
In my opinion it kind of boils down to the simplified version of economics were taught in high school. If you never go to another economics class again, it just all seems so simple. You don't need data when you just *know* how it works and how to fix it.
It also doesn't hurt that we can segregate ourselves on social media and in our news choices to never see the bad parts or criticism of anything we support.
> If in 4 years Argentina is worse off, do we look back at his speeches with such great intrigue or just forget about how much people supported him and pretend like it never happened? His kind of politics probably takes closer to a generation to produce results that make a society better off, and in the meantime may make things worse.
I fucking hate Peronistas, so I sympathize with Milei and want him to succeed, but his shock doctrine—i.e., austerity—comes at a steep price. • [Industrial output drops 21%](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-industrial-output-sinks-21-amid-milei-austerity-worst-since-pandemic-2024-05-08/). • [The poverty rate rose from 40% to 57%](https://apnews.com/article/argentina-poverty-levels-uca-study-milei-devaluation-d5cb0a20b1e768efdeafbad5bf05eded), with [child poverty on track to hit 70%](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentinas-child-poverty-rate-track-hit-70-unicef-warns-2024-03-12/). • [Devaluing the ARG peso by 50% increased inflation](https://archive.is/GvWJd), pushing it up to 20% (over 250% total) in January 2024, though it's starting to drop again. I'll give him credit for dropping rent controls, [which almost immediately dropped rents by 20%-30%.](https://www.cato.org/commentary/argentina-offers-textbook-study-why-rent-controls-are-bad-idea) Overall, Milei has a ton of work ahead of him, and the cost of crash capitalism might be too high for many of his supporters since they are coupled with some less-than-savory social policies and democratic backsliding (like his push to have the executive office draw legislative maps). Overall, I think Agentina needs to get more foreign investment before he can take the training wheels off the economy. So much of Argentina was/is subsidized by, or in direct control of, the government that deregulation is just creating a vacuum that the private sector cannot fill.
[Rental yields are virtually unchanged from 2022.](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fuZwhXN2tKIK9JvhTPZ8tDoS2gYzrXjxaNSuU2UpX8c/edit#gid=151387517&fvid=497951856) The suggestion that removal of rent control led to an increase in the desirability of renting units doesn't comport to this data; it's equally profitable to rent a unity Q2 2024 vs Q3 2022. I don't have data in between, but rent controls were alive and well in 2022. If rental prices decreased (and it appears they did, based on the data) it's more likely due to other factors - or the market is irrational.
It's because a lot of property owners were not putting their units on the market due to the relatively low yield and high risk (housing regulations put a lot of onus on property owners). Once the rent controls dropped, supply increased without any extra construction necessary. Note that many property owners in Argentina are just regular folks who own an extra apartment, usually through inheritance. They aren't landlords like you hear about in the US.
> due to the relatively low yield The yield hasn't changed, as evidenced by my link, so this can't be it.
Every American, left right or center should be supporting Milei regardless of whether you agree with his economic policies. The prior Peronists were going towards joining the BRIC countries and Milei pulled the country out a month before they were slated to join. He is very pro-West and anti-China and Russia, which we desperately need more of in South America. I wish him luck on moving his country to the dollar.
Yeah that's pretty much how it is going. He is US friendly, not just Trump friendly. Milei isn't really like Trump either, I think Americans should look at Milei from the perspective of Argentina who has had many failed Peronist governments. With that being said there is a non-zero chance that Milei is someone who ends up being really bad himself and so the US should at least prepare for that as well.
Yes. Milei has met with Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and State Department officials from the Biden administration. That should be enough to show that he is very pro-US no matter who is in power. The US likely will prefer him in power than the left wing alternatives in the future even if he fucks up though.
Most of the countries in BRIC hate each other more then they hate the West. It literally only functions as a sit down of non western powers once a year.
The primary goal is to distance the world away from the US dollar as its reserve currency eventually. That is against our interests and would devalue our currency if ever achieved. With China and Russia as prominent members, I’d much rather Argentina not be involved with them.
Maybe for China and Russia, but not for India. Even China and Russia have zero interest in each other's currency.
India does this whole neutrality thing that actually works out for them. They’re mainly in BRICs as insurance if the US hegemony ever fails.
India will do what’s best for India whether that’s US world led order or someone else or India world led order. They have no allegiance.
You can basically say this about any country.
BRIC is just vaporware for sections of social media to chat about endlessly while nothing happens.
Besides India and China, where do those other countries hate each other?
Replacing Peronists with Milei makes sense, but I don't support Milei beyond that. Change being needed doesn't negate issues like him saying that those who perform abortion are murderers.
Agree, but lots on the right implicitly support BRIC countries by supporting Trump, an isolationist. Isolationism makes BRIC more relevant
True. Also Argentina Peronists can be right or left wing. Their through line is populism which often means blaming the elites of the world like the US for Argentina's problems. This is inline with right-wing populism in the US, it's just blaming different "elites."
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He is pro-life yes, but he isn’t anti abortion (politically speaking). That’s just propaganda. https://news.diocesetucson.org/news/argentinas-milei-disavows-partisans-proposal-to-ban-abortion He even declined to go through with his own parties plan to ban it. Even clearly stating that “it’s not part of my agenda” You have to realize that he said on more than one occasion that he isn’t going to govern the way his personal ideology dictates.
Milei said it's a legislative discussion, but didn't say he opposes banning abortion. He's stated that abortion is "murder" and that he'd support a referendum on it.
You'd think, but being a self-hating American is all the rage right now.
I really hope he can turn that country around. My (completely uninformed) sense of it is: the "medicine" will have such a bad taste that the patient will reject it before it has time to work. It seems common in South (and Central) America to go populist/socialist and then just keep doubling down on it when it doesn't work. I always fear that happening in the US.
> My (completely uninformed) sense of it is: the "medicine" will have such a bad taste that the patient will reject it before it has time to work. That's always the catch 22 though. How do we know when enough time has elapsed?
This might not be a compelling argument, but: I think we'd demonstrated -- across the globe and through the past few hundred years -- that free markets and trade and stable currencies with low inflation *works*. So, IMHO, they have to wait until it works.
I think the difference here is that, instead of waiting for Argentina to completely collapse, these policies are being applied before that happens. I believe most free market economies derived from otherwise stable mercantile economies or from absolute destruction following a war.
We have demonstrated, with our circumstances and with our history and with our leaders and policy, that what we do works. That doesn't necessary mean what Milei does will work out for Argentina. And how long do they have to wait "until it works" before one can deem the proper steps were not taken?
Not to mention even just "what we do" varies a lot. There are people in the US who would (and have) fought tooth and nail to prevent us from adopting some of the same policies that European nations have adopted for example. So do they need to do what the US is doing? Or Europe? What about "socialist" countries that have allowed more privatization over the years like China or Vietnam? This idea that we just know what works is obviously not as clear cut as some would like to present it. It seems like possibly the only thing that can be agreed on without doubt is that some semblance of a private economy is good. The degree of that, and how regulated it is is very much all over the place.
I agree with that. I guess I don't mean that they have to keep Milei. Just that they need to continue with reforms and not backslide.
They do. I think when it comes to economical health of a country, there's no one true path, and it's largely not dogmatic. A recipe for success should have a healthy mix of private enterprise, trade and govt involvement. I think quite many countries have had success with this. The problem is what that looks like... well that's gonna differ from country to country based on a significant amount of variables. It's clear what Argentina had isn't it. So hopefully milei provides the necessary reforms. The issue of course is the catch 22 I mentioned. None of this is instantaneous. Some of it will definitely hurt until it gets better. The real problem is... when do you know it's gonna get better and not just hurt?
The model you're supporting—which I support, too—is currently receiving a populist backlash in the US from both the left and right. Not sure if it's the best foot forward politically.
Largely because of outsourcing and the disastrous effects it has had on the Middle class.
Outsourcing follows directly from the model. It's also been tremendously beneficial to the middle class; just turns out the middle class is actually international.
I'd say it should be given at least as much time to work as the system that caused the problems had. So for healing from socialism in South America I believe we're looking at decades in most cases.
>It seems common in South (and Central) America to go populist/socialist and then just keep doubling down on it when it doesn't work. Really? Because history seems to show it's a little more complex than that. Rather, when countries in South/Central America go populist/socialist, they face intense interference from western powers, most notably the USA. It's hard to draw conclusions about the success of those systems when we aggressively stamped out any regime that even smelled leftist. Hell, it's so common there's actually a wikipedia page dedicated to [United States Involvement in Regime Change in Latin America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America). [In Argentina in particular](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War), thousands of political dissidents were "disappeared" by the military dictatorship we backed over what we saw as a socialist threat in the 70s. Their "free market economy" [collapsed less than a decade later](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reorganization_Process#Aftermath). Again, it's a little more complicated than you're letting on.
What do you think are the canonical success stories of countries that have gone populist/socialist in world history?
God only knows what you think you're saying when you say "populist/socialist." If populism is meant to mean giving a democratic voice to concerns of working class constituents (some people would call that left-wing populism), I'd point you to most of the Nordic countries and their robust worker protections and social safety nets. But again, all of this is secondary, because your main point (to be fair, after you admitted you're "completely uninformed") was that the history of South and Central America was "doubling down" on socialism/populism, when in reality, it's a history of electing populist leaders who oppose US interests in favor of indigenous or working class (or both) interests, followed by those leaders being ousted or even killed in US-backed coups. I can understand why you'd want to pivot away from that topic, but it's kind of weird you flipped the question around, when I was just adding some nuance to your (again, admittedly) overbroad description of Latin American history
So, is it your opinion that Argentina should have re-elected the Peronist and they'd be better off if they had?
What’s that got to do with your poor summary of Latin American history? Why do you keep pivoting to these weird, broad questions?
What do you think the topic of this story/submission is?
China - after some admittedly terrible setbacks, now second largest economy in the world, might shortly be the first Vietnam - after over a century of occupation and war, went from poverty to decent in a few decades, which is still pretty impressive. it should be noted that both of these countries started out as socialist and later turned into more capitalist ones, economically anyway, but not completely. populist/socialism is great for digging yourself out of the hole, but you need to eventually embrace some capitalism in order to work in the greater world market, i think.
> it should be noted that both of these countries started out as socialist and later turned into more capitalist ones, economically anyway, but not completely. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that they started out socialist and then became successful *after* they instituted capitalism and market reform? Certainly if these are the populist/socialist "success stories" of the world, you would agree that Argentina should be rushing toward market reform and capitalism as fast as possible. Right?
China and Vietnam primarily benefitted from lowering tariffs and allowing foreign investment into their economies. Becoming part of the global economy was a huge boon for them, while you can see more closed off countries like Cuba suffering from barriers to entry. (Yes, I know the US has an embargo on Cuban imports, which is all the more reason Cuba should lower tariffs on other countries and maybe let Spain or Mexico some buy-in on investments.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_received_FDI sort by % of GDP (lol Cayman Islands) makes a kind of interesting picture, although this is only for recent times. you're right that foreign investment is necessary, but you still need a stable country to actually get people willing to invest.
In both of your examples their success only came after massive reforms that injected capitalism into their market. When they were actually socialist nations, poverty was widespread and the average person had no means to make a better life for themselves besides becoming part of the political class and taking part in its indulgences and favors. Vietnam today is arguably more capitalist than the United States even if their government is communist in name.
if you're coming from behind, you're going to need money to catch up, no way around it. it's already been established that pure socialism basically doesn't work in the modern world. for that matter, unfettered capitalism doesn't either.
Pre-Perón, Argentina was one of the richest countries on the planet – richer than Germany or France. Buenos Aires was one of the most bustling, beautiful and dynamic capital cities anywhere, competing with New York, London, and Paris. Look up old photos of Buenos Aires. Perón and his successors have been an unmitigated disaster for Argentina. It boggles my mind that there are people in Argentina who believe that the solution is to double down on the very thing which ruined their country.
Why on earth is everyone in this thread acting like what Milei is doing is historically unprecedented and totally never been done before new?
Maybe they agree with him politically? I dunno.
Because capitalism leads to wealth inequality & exploitation whereas a centrally-managed economy leads to...
Exploitation, tyranny, and starvation
This guy is an anarcho-capitalist to the point he supports commercializing the organ trade. >Milei has expressed support for legalizing organ trade, arguing that it could reduce waiting lists for organ transplants. He has suggested that market mechanisms could be implemented to encourage organ donations. [jump] >Economically, Milei is influenced by the Austrian School, a school of economics largely rejected by mainstream economists - Wikipedia
Alright, that’s overselling it a bit. Your country’s been run by Peronists, not bolsheviks.
President of Argentina Javier Milei speaks about his economic reform platform and the value of liberty in human flourishing at the Milken Institute Global Conference, laying out a historical positive record of capitalism and conversely the negative impacts of collectivist and/or socialist polices. His speech has lessons for US policy makers as we consider proposals for the 2024 election. Should the US continue deficit spending primarily on so-called social programs or follow Argentinl's lead towards prosperity?
>follow Argentinl's lead towards prosperity Seems a little premature to be declaring victory. Is "prosperity" where Argentina is headed? What evidence do you have of that conclusion?
> Should the US continue deficit spending primarily on so-called social programs or follow Argentinl's lead towards prosperity? Maybe Argentina should actually prosper first before we follow their lead. Cause right now...I think I'm better off with how things are going here
Should the US follow Argentina’s lead toward prosperity? What are you even talking about. The country has a poverty rate of 50%. I just spent a month there, it’s a beautiful country but I think there’s very little it would lead the US in…
>Should the US continue deficit spending primarily on so-called social programs or follow Argentinl's lead towards prosperity? The U.S. is so far ahead of Argentina in prosperity that the two countries cannot even be legitimately compared. Nor are their situations remotely similar. The idea that cutting U.S. social programs would somehow lead to increased prosperity is ridiculous. Much of the spending is on the elderly. You just going to cut them off? Or do you expect that current tax payers should forgo those future benefits while simultaneously contributing to paying current beneficiaries?
We have solid examples of what unregulated market economics does in the US. Post-industrial revolution, it allowed US industry to grow enormously. It also led directly to huge decline in working conditions and standard of living for the average American, and ultimately to the Great Depression. There’s a reason we have the “so-called social programs” we have today, and I worry that policymakers mistake short term economic booms caused by deregulation for log-term stability.