Posted on 07/27/2024 6:14:00 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
“State intervention is always bad, because it’s based on coercion, on force, and nothing based on coercion can be good.”
~ Javier Milei, speaking at The Hoover Institution in May, 2024
Today we take a break from our road-tripping adventure to offer a quick update from the other End of the World...
Long time readers will recall our fascination over what we’ve been calling, with immodest grandiloquence, The Greatest Political Experiment of Our Age.
The story so far is that, down at the southern end of the Americas, in our chosen country of self-exile, Argentina, the locals have sensibly chosen to “throw the bums out.”
That is, in November of last year, the gauchos voted for a man who promised to finally cut their overfed Peronist government down to size. (He even campaigned with a chainsaw, to avoid confusion among the nuance-averse.)
Javier Milei was elected in a landslide and has since taken his motosierra to the thorny brambles of the State with admirable gusto (though, rather to this observer’s disappointment, the nation’s Banco Central, which Milei promised to burn to the ground, remains standing. Still, one lives in hope...)
The Argentine experiment is particularly interesting in that it represents the first time in modern history that a sizable population (Argentina is home to ~45 million mostly-carnivorous human beings) voluntarily, peacefully, voted to “cancel” their own state. Nor did El Presidente renege on his promise to do just that.
On day one in office, Sr. Milei abolished or consolidated half the federal ministries, laying off tens of thousands of government parasites in the process and promising more of the same in the days ahead. And just last month, in a major legislative victory, his so-called “Ley de Bases” and fiscal reform package was signed into law, paving the way for sweeping privatization across multiple key industries along with much needed labor market deregulation.
Needless to say, bed-wetting nanny statists around the planet, from Buenos Aires to the DC Beltway to Brussels and beyond, promptly set about prophesying a doomsday scenario, whereby the proud republic of Argentina would shortly descend into a Dantean hellscape the likes of which the civilized world has never known.
It is to their great and enduring dismay that such a scene has not materialized, though that hasn’t stopped them painting the picture in their newspaper columns just the same. Here’s the latest from our lease-mongering colleagues over in the popular presses...
The worst economic crisis in decades puts Argentine ingenuity to the test under President Milei ~ The Associated Press
Milei’s market honeymoon ends as investors question economic plan ~ The Financial Times
Milei’s Austerity Plan Pushes Argentina Into Recession in First Quarter ~ Bloomberg
And yet, despite having been bequeathed a raging currency conflagration, in which the hot potato peso was inflating at the fastest rate in the world, Milei has been able to avert that all-too-familiar path to catastrophe. Both general and core inflation have collapsed since Milei took office in December, with the latter plummeting from over 30% month-over-month to just 2.3% on a four week rolling basis (through July).
Not only that, but workers in the private sector are faring far better under Milei than when Sergio Massa (his main opponent in the presidential election) was serving as finance minister under the previous administration.
In the first five months of last year, inflation handily surpassed private-sector wage growth (42.2% to 39.4%). Even as inflation rocketed in the back half of last year, wage growth now outpaces inflation (81.7% versus 71.9%). Here’s the chart:
(Tip ‘o the Hat to @OppenheimerAR)
Here is another look at the trajectory of real salaries – that is, adjusted for inflation – on the rise across the economy. (Milei assumed office on Dec. 9, 2023):
(Source: Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics)
Meanwhile, despite Argentina having the worst projected economic growth of any major economy this year (at least according to the IMF), it nonetheless continues to defy expert forecasts.
Economic activity rose 1.3% for the month of July, the first month of positive GDP data since Milei assumed office and well above the 0.1% median growth estimates from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Year over year economic activity likewise surprised to the upside, shooting 2.3% higher and far exceeding the negative –2.5% expected by those same analysts.
And here’s unconventional (shale) oil and gas production in the Vaca Muerta oil fields, reaching an all time record...
(Source: Secretaría de Energía, Argentina)
[Translation: Unconventional oil and gas production in Vaca Muerta registered a historical record in June. In that month, 372 thousand barrels of oil and 78 million m3 of gas were obtained per day.]
Of course, you’re unlikely to hear about any of this in the mainstream news. And that’s hardly surprising...
That Argentina’s success proceeds to the chagrin of rabid interventionists and meddling do-gooders around the world serves only to underscore just how important this experiment in free markets and free people truly is. Long may it continue.
¡Viva la libertad, carajo!
An ex is a has-been and a spert is a drip under pressure.
We need a return to the 1950s mentality of hunting down communists and exposing them and arresting them as necessary. Now, the communists are running virtually every american institution.
I agree, sir.
I have been following Argentina on a daily basis for more than four months. I can say from my vantage point Bloomburg, AP (America’s Pravda), and all the British reporting has been almost uniformally negative. Although the man is working small miracles I can only assume the phony Western business press must be in the pay of the Marxist Internationale.
Pinochet killed people. He had to. It was only a few thousand the left will inflate. Trump won’t have to do that. We’re more civilized. Prosecuting the bad guys is called for but it may not be possible. So what do we do in the course of downsizing the government? Beat heads in the riots sure to follow his victory?
If and when Trump wins he should say go ahead-do your rioting before he takes office. After that no Mr. Nice Guy.
Yeah, that’s because reality has a bad habit of defying “experts” and exposing them for the clueless frauds that they are.
May the Milei Wave sweep the planet.
What’s going on in Argentina today has nothing to do with Pinochet.
Experts, can’t live with them.
I watched the interview of Milei by Tucker Carlson and it was excellent.
*What’s going on in Argentina today has nothing to do with Pinochet.*
I’m just looking at his pic.
For later.
L
“...laying off tens of thousands of government parasites...”
Coming to the USA in 2025. This is just the start. Trump is going to take out the trash and burn the waste. It’s going to be glorious.
The pic is in post #5. You responded to #6, which may cause confusion.
I think of that too once in a while. I think we are beyond the point of no return (to that era of commie hunting).
We, as American citizens, have allowed it to happen. As we know here at FR the commies have the MSM, education system, Hollywood and the government.
Simply getting the MSM to tell the truth would be a good start, why this has never happened is beyond me. The majority of the country believes little they say.
Coming to the USA in 2025. This is just the start. Trump is going to take out the trash and burn the waste. It’s going to be glorious.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That’s certainly his intention and that of all MAGA folks, but it will be nearly impossible unless the House and Senate is firmly under conservative Republican control because the RATS and the RINOS will surely attempt to crush that agenda.
Thanks for clearing that up. I had no idea why he posted what he said to me.
Didn’t even think about the pic.
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