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Celebrates with 1 million people protesting against the budget cuts for education system. Not quite the achievement.

by smnm 2y ago

chmod600 2y ago
Sometimes hard choices need to be made. What's your alternative proposal?
- Daishiman 2y ago
  The cuts Milei is doing are purely ideological and not even the most reticent of budget hawks )including the IMF) ever considered these cuts necessary or sustainable. The man is mentally insane and despises every public institution. What they’re not saying here is that tax revenue is dropping and will wipe out any of these gains and that installed industrial activity dropped by over 30% since he assumed office.
  - totetsu 2y ago
    Yeah, how do you become a wealthy country with a strong tax base if your citizens don’t get education?
    - argentinian 2y ago
      The educational level was declining lately, as seen in the PISA tests. Milei is not to blame for that.
  - StevePerkins 2y ago
    The point is not to balance a budget. The point is to rein in persistently triple-digit inflation. Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too, but the reality is that you fight inflation by cooling economic activity for a period.
    - Daishiman 2y ago
      A 30-40% real drop in economic activity and a reduction by half in purchases of medical consumer items isn't "cooling"; it is an active destruction of the real economy that has absolutely no rationale.
      - iraqmtpizza 2y ago
        You literally just made that up. You probably think that everyone's salary got cut in half when the government stopped lying about the value of their currency.
  - nradov 2y ago
    What specifically would you propose to balance the budget?
bawolff 2y ago
For better or worse, if it was easy and everyone agreed, it wouldn't be an achievement. There isn't always a path forward that leaves everyone happy.
IncreasePosts 2y ago
If they didn't like it they should have fought harder to avoid his election. He was quite clear what he was going to do.
slashdev 2y ago
You do what you have to do. There was no way out that doesn’t involve pain. The US should pay attention, it’s on the same path right now. If they don’t get the spending under control, it will end in pain. The bill eventually comes due.
- nocoiner 2y ago
  I wouldn’t bet against the United States growing its way out of the current debt-to-GDP ratio (which, while mildly alarming, is far from unprecedented either here or elsewhere at various stages in history). The current revenue/spending mismatch could be solved with modest tax increases.
  - slashdev 2y ago
    It’s not the ratio which is alarming, although it isn’t great. It’s the rate of growth. It’s not sustainable at all.
  - hackeraccount 2y ago
    I'm a bit disturbed by state of the US finances. I'm really disturbed by the political response to those finances. Nominally the Democratic party is committed to modest tax increases in the same way that the Republican party is committed to modest spending cuts. It would be nice to see either party advance in any way towards those commitments. Whenever either party has the opportunity (i.e. control of Congress and the Executive) to do anything they invariably either cut taxes (GOP) or increase spending (Democrats) or both. Fiscally only a divided government moves closer to fiscal sensibility.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > The bill eventually comes due. No, it does not. The (e.g.) UK has, over its history, been in far "worse" financial shape than the US is or ever was. The UK was over 150% debt-to-GDP multiple occasions, as well as over 200%, and at one point (post-WW2) almost 250%: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_debt_as_GDP_percent.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_debt_as_GDP_percent.pn... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt#Modern_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt#M... There were times when just interest was 10% of GDP: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_National_Debt_interest.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_National_Debt_interest... The UK has bonds dating back to South Sea Bubble crisis of 1720, the Napoleonic and Crimean wars, the Irish potato famine, and World War 1: * https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/31/uk-first-world-war-bonds-redeemed https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/31/uk-first-wo... And yet they've managed to survive and be a pretty decent place to live. Most of the economic troubles they've gone through were either global in scale (Great Depression, GFC) or self-inflicted (Gold Standard post-WW1 (too high a peg), Thatcherism, Brexit), that had little/nothing to do with debt. One does have to be mindful that debt servicing costs don't crowd out more important spending (education, health), but to think there's some magic number that causes issues has not been born out by the historical record; see Reinhart and Rogoff retraction: * https://archive.ph/PtwWF https://archive.ph/PtwWF / https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-reinhart-and-rogoff-controversy-a-summing-up https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-reinhart-and...

Celebrates with 1 million people protesting against the budget cuts for education system. Not quite the achievement.

by smnm 2y ago

Celebrates with 1 million people protesting against the budget cuts for education system. Not quite the achievement.

chmod600 2y ago

Sometimes hard choices need to be made. What's your alternative proposal?

Daishiman 2y ago
The cuts Milei is doing are purely ideological and not even the most reticent of budget hawks )including the IMF) ever considered these cuts necessary or sustainable. The man is mentally insane and despises every public institution. What they’re not saying here is that tax revenue is dropping and will wipe out any of these gains and that installed industrial activity dropped by over 30% since he assumed office.
- totetsu 2y ago
  Yeah, how do you become a wealthy country with a strong tax base if your citizens don’t get education?
  - argentinian 2y ago
    The educational level was declining lately, as seen in the PISA tests. Milei is not to blame for that.
- StevePerkins 2y ago
  The point is not to balance a budget. The point is to rein in persistently triple-digit inflation. Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too, but the reality is that you fight inflation by cooling economic activity for a period.
  - Daishiman 2y ago
    A 30-40% real drop in economic activity and a reduction by half in purchases of medical consumer items isn't "cooling"; it is an active destruction of the real economy that has absolutely no rationale.
    - iraqmtpizza 2y ago
      You literally just made that up. You probably think that everyone's salary got cut in half when the government stopped lying about the value of their currency.
- nradov 2y ago
  What specifically would you propose to balance the budget?

bawolff 2y ago

For better or worse, if it was easy and everyone agreed, it wouldn't be an achievement. There isn't always a path forward that leaves everyone happy.

IncreasePosts 2y ago

If they didn't like it they should have fought harder to avoid his election. He was quite clear what he was going to do.

slashdev 2y ago

You do what you have to do. There was no way out that doesn’t involve pain. The US should pay attention, it’s on the same path right now. If they don’t get the spending under control, it will end in pain. The bill eventually comes due.

nocoiner 2y ago
I wouldn’t bet against the United States growing its way out of the current debt-to-GDP ratio (which, while mildly alarming, is far from unprecedented either here or elsewhere at various stages in history). The current revenue/spending mismatch could be solved with modest tax increases.
- slashdev 2y ago
  It’s not the ratio which is alarming, although it isn’t great. It’s the rate of growth. It’s not sustainable at all.
- hackeraccount 2y ago
  I'm a bit disturbed by state of the US finances. I'm really disturbed by the political response to those finances. Nominally the Democratic party is committed to modest tax increases in the same way that the Republican party is committed to modest spending cuts. It would be nice to see either party advance in any way towards those commitments. Whenever either party has the opportunity (i.e. control of Congress and the Executive) to do anything they invariably either cut taxes (GOP) or increase spending (Democrats) or both. Fiscally only a divided government moves closer to fiscal sensibility.
throw0101c 2y ago
> The bill eventually comes due. No, it does not. The (e.g.) UK has, over its history, been in far "worse" financial shape than the US is or ever was. The UK was over 150% debt-to-GDP multiple occasions, as well as over 200%, and at one point (post-WW2) almost 250%: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_debt_as_GDP_percent.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_debt_as_GDP_percent.pn... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt#Modern_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt#M... There were times when just interest was 10% of GDP: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_National_Debt_interest.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_National_Debt_interest... The UK has bonds dating back to South Sea Bubble crisis of 1720, the Napoleonic and Crimean wars, the Irish potato famine, and World War 1: * https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/31/uk-first-world-war-bonds-redeemed https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/31/uk-first-wo... And yet they've managed to survive and be a pretty decent place to live. Most of the economic troubles they've gone through were either global in scale (Great Depression, GFC) or self-inflicted (Gold Standard post-WW1 (too high a peg), Thatcherism, Brexit), that had little/nothing to do with debt. One does have to be mindful that debt servicing costs don't crowd out more important spending (education, health), but to think there's some magic number that causes issues has not been born out by the historical record; see Reinhart and Rogoff retraction: * https://archive.ph/PtwWF https://archive.ph/PtwWF / https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-reinhart-and-rogoff-controversy-a-summing-up https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-reinhart-and...