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For those not keeping up with the news, Argentina used to be an extremely wealthy country, but went the reverse route many decades ago and has embraced peronism
by 7thaccount 3y ago
For those not keeping up with the news, Argentina used to be an extremely wealthy country, but went the reverse route many decades ago and has embraced peronism for awhile (kind of a mixture of socialism and fascism) that has led to rampant inflation.
They recently elected Javier Milei (an economist and former sex guru) who although some media claim is a radical rightwing candidate, center-right Libertarian might be more descriptive. He essentially wants to radically reduce government's role and put the country through (economic shock therapy) in the short term so they can have a chance of making a turn around. He has fired a huge amount of government staff he calls the "parasitic class" and I think they just recently actually balanced the budget for the first time in a decade. We'll see how things go. He's trying to get the country on the dollar and off the peso, so they'd just have to deal with the more sensible American inflation rate. It also makes some sense as everyone wants to use the dollar anyway and are basically doing it illegally. He is also removing a lot of government red tape for businesses.
He recently flew to Davos and basically told off those in attendance. Some of the things he says I agree with, but many others not so much. He seems to take a lot of Austrian economics views and if you're not familiar with this, it is essentially the ideology that folks like Ron Paul and a lot of the libertarian think tanks (e.g. Cato institute) proclaim. He said a lot of things that are counter to basic economics like "market failures don't exist". I think he believes that given no regulations, things would always sort themselves out, but zero regulations brings about another kind of hell IMO. He also pulled Argentina out of the BRICS negotiations (kind of a very loose federation of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) as he didn't want to get involved with communists. Only time will tell if this will be a huge failure or just what the country needs.
- ramblerman 3y agoI think this is a pretty fair assessment of Milei. Do you feel the sex guru part adds much though? Maybe he is in an open relationship, or actually gay, or xyz... does it matter in his economic reform plans for Argentina?
- 7thaccount 3y agoHe isn't a lifelong politician, so when the media describes him, they refer to his career in the private sector which as far as I'm aware includes two jobs. One was as an economist and the other as a "sex guru" of some kind. I have no idea what all that involved (mainly been following the economic reforms). If he had been an electrician beforehand they would have said economist and electrician. Some may try to use it to try to throw shade i suppose. I was using it in the sense of being complete.
- kragen 3y agotantric sex instructor
- ramblerman 3y ago> they refer to his career in the private sector which as far as I'm aware includes two jobs. One was as an economist and the other as a "sex guru" of some kind. He was an economics professor for more than 20 years. And he has also been a semi pro football player, played in a rock band, and been a tantric sex instructor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javier_Milei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javier_Milei
- aaronrobinson 3y agoI think it expresses the depth of his character. He’s been good at a few things - one of them just happens to be sex guru. It’s also about as far away as you get from economists (sorry economists).
- nova22033 3y agoit is essentially the ideology that folks like Ron Paul and a lot of the libertarian think tanks (e.g. Cato institute) proclaim That's unfair to Milei. He actually practices what he preaches. Ron Paul would talk the talk but when it came to saying no to pork... https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/top-of-the-ticket/story/2009-03-11/opinion-ron-paul-defends-earmarks-says-anti-pork-mccain-is-just-grandstanding https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/top-of-the-ticket/sto... His son is the senator from Kentucky...a state that wouldn't survive without "handouts" from the federal government... Also..BRICS is a joke. It was made up by Goldman Sachs.. https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/archive/building-better.html https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/archive/building-b...
- lr4444lr 3y agoSound fiat central bank managed monetary policy is now libertarianism? Sheesh...
- 7thaccount 3y agoI mean I guess he could talk about floating a gold standard, but dollars seems like 1.) Something people already use there and understand, and 2.) The Fed has inflation, but it's far far more stable than what they're used to. So it's a decision of practicality.
- hobs 3y agoHe has no interest in his own central bank, so no, we wouldn't say that's sound central bank monetary policy.
- lr4444lr 3y agoBut he wants to move to a dollar standard? Sounds like a lot of faith in _our_ central bank, even if he doesn't want one in Argentina.