Tag: Argentina

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general freedom international affairs

Denial Is a River in Argentina?

“In the history of the Earth, there is a cycle of temperatures,” said Javier Milei during a presidential debate in 2023. “We are not going to adhere to the 2030 Agenda [a United Nations list of dozens of goals for curtailing countries’ use of resources]. We do not adhere to cultural Marxism. We do not adhere to decadence.”

Now Argentina’s President Milei is acting to formally withdraw from accords requiring countries to become poorer in order to “save the planet,” etc.

Although Milei has axed many government departments, his government still has a chief environmental officer. This personage had been leading the Argentine delegation attending the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, happening November 11 – 22, 2024. But Argentina had told the delegation not to participate.

Now Milei has pulled them from the summit. Why? That was not immediately announced. But “Milei has consistently denied the existence of a climate crisis,” moans the Buenos Aires Herald.

Denialist Milei doubtless recognizes hurricanes, tornadoes, and other incidents of drastic weather. He’d probably add, though, that planet earth has seen plenty of crisis-​level weather before carbon-​emitting industry arrived to take the blame.

Milei’s decision to exit COP29 came a day after his meeting with President-​elect Donald Trump, of like mind on environmental and other questions.

Trump is expected to re-​withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris agreement, another anti-​industrial environmental accord. We don’t know yet whether Argentina will also withdraw. 

But if you’re betting Yes, I like your chances.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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inflation and inflationism international affairs too much government

Is Milei Making It?

After libertarian economist Javier Milei surprised the rest of the world by winning the presidency of Argentina in 2023, the question became whether — or how quickly — he could slash government programs, privatize nationalized firms, and set free a flatlining government-​controlled economy.

A president can do some things on his own. But Milei requires the cooperation of the legislature to institute many substantial reforms. And for months his legislative agenda has stalled.

Now some of it is being enacted. On June 28, the Chamber of Deputies passed a sweeping package of bills that Reuters dubbed Milei’s “first big legislative win” and Bloomberg’s Manuela Tobias characterized as “deregulat[ing] vast swaths of the economy and boost government revenues.…”

The enacted reforms include provisions to make it easier for employers to fire workers and to deregulate the oil and gas industry. Milei was able to privatize only a few of the dozens of state firms that he wanted the government to unload.

Tobias notes that the passage of Milei’s reform package, “albeit significantly watered down,” is impressive considering that members of Milei’s own party constitute less than 15 percent of the lower chamber.

Milei’s most obvious success has been fighting inflation, which according to Deutsche Welle is “down from around 25 percent per month last December to 4.2 percent this May.” This is a major achievement for a figure outside the mainstream of globalist standard opinion, who has called himself an “anarcho-​capitalist” (of all things) and was labeled by the German paper “right-​wing populist and economically liberal.”

Terms mean different things in different countries: it’s pretty obvious that Milei’s program has nothing to do with that of American “liberals” such as President Biden and his partisans.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets international affairs repeal

The Milei Option

Argentina, socialism, communism, Milei, president, economy

Argentina’s new president promised to take a chainsaw to the high taxes and controls that have been killing the country’s freedom and prosperity.

He has had successes. One of his decrees removed rent controls, and as a result the supply of rentals has jumped and rents have dropped.

But Milei cannot simply issue decrees to free up markets. He’s got to go through the legislature. And Argentina’s Senate recently rejected a mammoth Milei-​issued emergency decree to deregulate the economy apparently in one fell swoop — revising or killing some 300 regulations.

The Financial Times reports that Milei’s coalition, La Libertad Avanza, “controls less than 10 per cent of Senate seats.” Many of the “centrist” senators could have helped pass Milei’s reforms over the objections of the adamantly leftist members. But these centrists profess to have constitutional reservations about the decree.

The real problem is probably that there is still a very large constituency for the subsidies and grift that have impoverished so many Argentinians.

The decree remains in effect until the House votes on it too. Milei’s administration is negotiating with the lawmakers of that chamber and with others who may have an impact on their vote.

If President Milei loses this fight in the near term, he must keep reminding voters why he can’t do more to lift them out of poverty and serfdom. His election to the presidency was a huge political change. But it’s not the only one Argentina needs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability deficits and debt international affairs

The Shock of Surplus

Rooting for Argentina and President Milei

The current president of Argentina is an avowed “anarcho-​capitalist.” He isn’t really — but close enough for government work.

It’s more accurate to say that Javier Milei is a capitalist and libertarian. He has taken on the job of extricating the Argentinian economy from the mire of socialism and corruption — unleashing outlawed market processes.

He seeks to do it not by pushing for micro-​changes around the edges of the margins of government spending and intrusions but by figuratively wielding the chainsaw that he literally wielded during his election campaign.

One sign of the success of his “shock therapy” cited by The New York Sun is the “first budget surplus in more than a decade.” A monthly surplus of almost $600 million is the first surplus since the summer of 2012.

But, the Sun quickly adds, Milei’s various radical proposals still face an uphill battle in the legislature. All those people who created the mire are still around.

There are hopeful signs. The lower chamber has already passed a preliminary or framework agreement to make various basic reforms. These include privatizing of currently state-​operated companies, deregulation, and revamping of criminal and environmental laws.

The lawmakers “chose to end the privileges of the caste and the corporate republic, in favor of the people,” Milei says.

Meanwhile, though, egged on by unions, thousands of Argentinians have taken to the streets in a general strike to protest the reforms. Milei can win, but it won’t be easy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PREVIOUS COMMENTARIES ON JAVIER MILEI

Milei Defends Capitalism
January 24, 2024

Market Rents Work in Argentina
January 23, 2024

Milei’s Chainsaw
January 6, 2024

To End the Great Declension
December 13, 2023

The Outsider Who Won
November 20, 2023

The Ultimate Outsider
October 24, 2023

Two Libertarians, North and South
September 19, 2023

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free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture

Milei Defends Capitalism

Argentina, Javier Milei, Capitalism, WEF

Capitalism is better than socialism.

The new libertarian president of Argentina, Javier Milei, recently explained the virtues of the free market to attendees of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Milei said that capitalism generates “an explosion of wealth,” that capitalism and the industrial revolution “lifted 90 percent of the world’s population out of poverty,” that a free market society is both practical and just.

“Far from being the cause of our problems, free enterprise capitalism as an economic system is the only tool we have to end hunger, poverty, and destitution across the planet. The empirical evidence is unquestionable.”

As its answer to the practicality and justice of a capitalist social system, the left proposes the injustice of “social justice,” according to which “capitalism is bad because it is individualistic” and “collectivism is good because it is altruistic.”

Collectivism hobbles the entrepreneur and “makes it impossible for him to produce better goods and offer better services at a better price.” Which only impoverishes us. This is neither practical nor moral.

The West is in danger because it is allowing capitalism to be destroyed. We need to remember why we need it.

Will any of the dignitaries who heard Milei’s talk learn its lessons? Maybe not if they’re like WEF’s founder, Klaus Schwab, who looks at the international predations of the Chinese Communist Party and sees a “responsible, responsive” state.

But maybe a few others will. And then a few more.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Market Rents Work in Argentina

Argentina, housing, flag, freedom

Markets work and markets for housing work.

This is what the new president of Argentina, Javier Milei, has sought to confirm by means of radically free-​market economic policies. He is going as far as he can as fast as he can to make Argentina a freer and more prosperous country.

Can he succeed in the long run?

Many exploiters of the socialist status quo ante are bitterly opposed to his reforms and hope to undo them. We’ve seen before how quickly a relatively anticapitalist administration can kill the freedom-​expanding reforms of a relatively procapitalist one.

But at least for now, Milei is proving his point, as witness the market for apartments in Buenos Aires.

The Buenos Aires newspaper El Cronista reports (with the help of Google Translate) that with the end of rent controls, the supply of rental units in Buenos Aires has doubled and prices for units have fallen by around 20%. The paper cites data by the Argentine Real Estate Chamber and the reports of brokers.

Under rent control, by 2023 the supply of rentals had shrunk to just 400 units. “Today we have a stock of more than 800 apartments, and it is growing day by day,” says Alejandro Bennazar, a director at the Chamber.

Eight hundred units is still low given the size of the capital city, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Getting rid of the controls caused supply to double instantly. An excellent start.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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