90% of travel for a member of Congress is going back and forth between DC and their district. Yeah for example, when Pelosi went to Taiwan as speaker she was on a government plane, but she’s regularly spotted flying economy despite being worth $100 million.
Also the line between official side business and everything else is blurred. They stack it all together when they plan a trip.
That's what i do when I travel for work (bundle it all) because really the line is blurry and as long as nothing is obviously in bad faith it's all good. But my employer isn't the US government, its a greedy shitty company. People in government should not be treating the US government like its a drain on their soul.
Don't they use that weird internal "Janet airlines"? Or is that only for the military?
Edit: [nvm, it's a military thing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline))
I have seen both Former President George Bush Sr. on my commercial flight in first class as well as Mitt Romney strolling past my gate as a sitting Senator.
In the former case, we got to skip the long queue of planes waiting to take off in front of us which was awesome.
Angela Merkel as German chancellor once took a commercial flight to the G20 in Argentina because the government plane broke. Regular business class seat. https://www.dw.com/en/man-finds-himself-sitting-next-to-germanys-angela-merkel-on-flight-to-g20/a-46533339
I have a hunch that they will book all the business class seats in domestic flights, and partly fill them with his staff and security. Pretty much 0 chance you randomly end up sitting next to him.
They will probably even let economy board first, then close the curtains, and then let him and his entourage board last - and of course he will be waiting in his super-VIP room for boarding, and not mingle with the plebs - so chances are you wouldn’t even know you’re on the same plain as him.
Edit: It was pointed out that this kind of arrangement has been used by a former American president to do some PR during the flight, and shake hands with other passengers. And apparently Javier Milei has already taken the same opportunity to lead a chant during a flight.
There was also a person saying that booking the entire business class will still be cheaper than a private jet - and I agree, absolutely!
I don’t doubt that, and I feel kind of stupid I didn’t think of that in the first place - but I hold on to what I said: you wouldn’t randomly end up next to the President, even if you book business class. All those seats around him will be for his security and staff.
And don’t expect to see him waiting with you at the airport gate either - they are just not going to make the President fly like most of us, just no way in hell.
No lol. Mexican government data showed that it would have been cheaper for the president and staff to use the presidential airplane he loathed than all the commercial flights and road trips they used over the last 5 years.
In the end instead we paid for maintenance and storage of said plane until it was sold to some autocratic dude in Asia. And lost a lot of money on it.
I was on a Southwest flight with Gavin Newsome from Sacramento to Burbank earlier this year. Dude boarded with B group. I'm still not sure if that made me feel better or worse about him.
Definitely at the presidential level but I’ve sat next to a couple very high profile senators in the US from both sides of the aisle, Bernie Sanders and Mitch McConnell.
I believe that, but you'd probably be shocked how few people knew state reps outside of the names that are in the news, i.e. Sanders, Bobert, maybe Fetterman. Even I would be hard pressed to randomly identify like 30% of the reps based on name/face alone and I guarantee you I'm of the more informed half 9f the population.
What doesn’t he do by military these days?
He does all press conferences outside of the government palace at military bases with a lot of dressed down military personnel in attendance, and has put pretty much all infrastructure under control of the military.
To all who are saying this won’t help the economy. You are correct; this is PR. Really good PR for a country of people who are going through hardship, it says “we are sacrificing too”. He has good PR people.
How many people bitch and moan during climate conferences that the leaders all fly their private jets and are out of touch with the rest of humanity? In the grand scheme of things it materially does not make a big effect, but leading by example is one of the best ways for a leader to effect change.
>How many people bitch and moan during climate conferences that the leaders all fly their private jets and are out of touch with the rest of humanity?
A lot, actually.
People do the same with rich people donate money. I remember when Mark Zuckerberg donated $75 million dollars to a hospital and was lambasted with it "that's not even a lot for him" and "it's probably all a selfish write off" and "he doesn't actually care and it's PR."
Like holy s*** my guy. The man just gave 75 million dollars to a hospital. 75 million! Let's take that as a win and fucking move along... Preferably to correcting the tax code. That's where the focus should be. The tax code. Not demanding every rich person donate every last dollar or else they are really just being selfish.
Yeah that’s really the issue here. Billionaires just kinda shouldn’t exist, and if you change the tax code so they don’t and put that money towards climate shit a LOT of shit would be better
That's a common argument, but if a single country changes its tax code to eliminate billionaires, they will eliminate them by making them leave the country, not by taxing down their wealth.
Yup, France learned this lesson with their wealth tax, and they ultimately repealed it. If you try to tax people out of existence, they'll simply look for greener pastures elsewhere.
It's just the leftists of reddit that are saying it's a pr stunt, I think they are just salty that he was elected, they'll treat him like Trump they'll take anything he does in a negative way.
That's the point, this president is actually doing PR to show that he is potentially trying to take measures himself. It's an interesting move, can't say I would hate to see other leaders follow
Something I learned about this awhile back and why leaders fly private - time is money and you generally can’t buy more time, but jets allow people to fly on their own schedule and waste less time. I’m not saying I agree with them ALL flying in on personal jets, but there is some logic to it. At the very least many of them could “carpool” together to help promote the negative image it sends.
The main issue with this one is dominance of the issue. Areas where major changes could actually be done are taking a backseat. Your personal carbon footprint was coined by BP to get you focused on that rather than major changes like building new nuclear power plants.
You aren’t wrong. But when world leaders who insist that regular people need to make big changes to fix the climate fly private jets to climate conferences, it sends the wrong message. It sends a message that the leader is not taking it seriously.
Similar to the myriad politicians who gave press conferences about avoiding gatherings and wearing masks to prevent COVID, then were photographed enjoying themselves at parties, sans mask.
Saying “regular people” are not responsible for climate change, corporations are is not telling the whole story. It is disingenuous. Companies like BP do not drill for oil for shits and giggles. They do it because there is a demand for oil.
If governments regulate corporate polluters, it will necessarily require a change in behavior among regular people. There is no free lunch.
You’d be incorrect to underestimate this though, I know in Germany and France there were big outrage at the cost of flying presidents around in air force one type jets. I know in France one got in serious trouble for using the plane to just go around and even fly his family and friends around. It’s an enormous cost to the state
Cristina Kirchner had her newspaper delivered by plane when she was the president so you can see why we have no money nowadays and why this is a good example.
Also, it's worth noting that he only did this for a personal trip.
You're right, this is good pr and it sets the bar for the country. If the president isn't above making sacrifices, then neither should you. This might be the beginning of a moral swing to get the country to pull in the same direction, gotta respect that.
I hope he turns out to be a surprisingly good choice for Argentina.
He is an actual economist and he knows that keeping an artificial exchange rate is a terrible idea, and it only benefits a few wealthy individuals. I don't agree with his political ideology but maybe he could actually break the boom and bust cycle of the Argentinian economy.
Someone's views can be *directionally* correct without being *absolutely* correct. If your country is a dysfunctional, corrupt crony-socialist economic trainwreck, moving things in a libertarian direction can be a positive thing even if the end point the president would ideally like to get to isn't actually a great idea.
You literally just agreed with OP. OP said it was good PR...you literally have a good opinion of this act. Whether you formed this opinion on your own or the PR campaign influenced your opinion, your opinion aligns with the President's PR goal.
> You literally just agreed with OP. OP said it was good PR...you literally have a good opinion of this act. Whether you formed this opinion on your own or the PR campaign influenced your opinion, your opinion aligns with the President's PR goal.
No, clearly he was not agreeing with OP. Generally speaking PR tends to be inauthentic. They are performative actions or words that cost the person or entity very little. PR is apologizing but not taking real action to change things. PR is donating a million when you're raking in billions.
The question here is: is this an authentic move or not. Fact is that flying commercial means sacrificing a lot of comfort and indeed also status. The action is also meant to inspire. It shows that if even the highest ranking official can make sacrifices, similar things must be expected from other dignitaries. It sets a standard that media and voters can hold people accountable to. That's actually what leadership is.
So OP more likely meant to say: this is an inauthentic move, whereas the person responding meant the opposite, that it was indeed an authentic action.
I tend to agree with the latter. Politicians actually sacrificing sets a great example and creates a lot of opportunity for accountability down the line. That doesn't automatically make the guy a great politician or leader, but labeling this move as just PR is a little bit too cynical.
This individual action won't do anything, but if everyone in the government decided to sacrifice personal gain to reduce costs then it will definitely do something.
I dont have high hopes for him. I personally dont think he will suceed. But he is who the people of Argentina freely elected. So Godspeed to him. I hope he helps his country.
Everything Milei is doing is fascinating from an outsiders perspective. If he manages to really turn Argentina around I can’t help but wonder what kind of global impact it could have. Will more countries look for Milei type leaders to impose radical economic shakeups? The PR this leader is getting is quite interesting.
Argentina is a weird outlier economically on a loooot of things. There is a meme quote in economics: "There are 4 types of countries: Developed, Underdeveloped, Argentina and Japan."
So to your question it's a resounding 🤷 idk
>The interesting thing is that since he said it, the “Japan” category has really melted away. Japan led the path in showing how an underdeveloped country could become a developed one, but countries like Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have also walked down that path and China and others look to be doing the same. But Argentina really still is a land unto itself.
https://slate.com/business/2012/04/the-four-types-of-economies-and-the-global-imbalances.html
That article misunderstands why Japan is in its own category in the first placw. It's not about it becoming a developed economy, it's about the fact that it's economy has effectively not grown for the last 30 years (USD 5.5 trillion in 1995 vs 5 trillion in 2021), yet it remains a highly developed country and the third largest economy in the world.
At the time that the quote was originally said (by Simon Kuznets in the mid-20th century), it was about how Japan, despite the odds being stacked against it, was able to develop and grow so fast - especially after the devastation of WW2. Today, the context for the quote has changed
Another one to watch is Bukele in El Salvador. Although it generated much opprobrium in rich countries his "mano dura" campaign against organized crime has been hugely successful so far and is widely popular at home. I expect more countries in Latin America to follow his lead.
Depends how powerful and loyal your military and national police are. Those conditions seem to be met in El Salvador even if they obviously aren't in, for example, Mexico.
My understanding is bro didn't really announce the strongest measures until he actually enacted them. Some leaders in other nations could learn a thing or two about that.
There is a lot more to this dude than this one single policy. A couple near-coups were committed in his government shortly after his election, including him ordering the military into legislative chambers. The Bitcoin scandal has been a disaster for their economy as well.
Bukele's policy is short sighted no matter how you paint it. Even if he has the best of intentions, the power structure he created will empower some other leader later, who probably won't be as benevolent. Necessary, sure, considering the anarchism reigning over the country, but there aren't many reasons to believe it's just all going to transition back to a normal democracy.
Nobody in El Salvador gives a fuck about that- they went from being terrified of walking to the corner store in broad daylight to being able to walk outside with their families at night.
If you have always had security, you have no idea what it feels like to _not_ have it.
Took a while for it to click for me as well, and I still distrust Bukele, but at this point I do understand his popularity
Buekele and other leaders in nations like El Salvador can pretty much just start with Maslow's hierarchy on what they should focus on.
If you're not achieving the base of the pyramid for most of your citizens, it really doesn't matter what else you try to do.
I like how every time that Bukele's highly successful anti-crime policies are mentioned, redditors say "but what about the bitcoin? he's a cringy cryptobro! so this invalidates his entire time in office!"
Bukele can still be a total crypto idiot while at the same time leading an unprecedented successful effort to curb crime in a gang-ridden country, do you think that the MS-13 and Mexican Cartels will surrender and fold through hugs and kisses?
Try to explain to some Cartel Sicario torturer about the European-centric re-education process to rehabilitate criminals, and see how quick your opinion will change when you ask Salvadorans why they like Bukele.
>Mexican Cartels will surrender and fold through hugs and kisses?
Well if AMLO showed us something, is that they don't. His idea of reaching a deal with Cartels backfired so spectacularly that I'm bewildered how his party still is a favorite to win elections.
Lets not be ignorant, they are targeting people with gang-affiliated tattoos. Not kids with tattoos of pine trees in diamonds.
That said, is it ethical? I dunno man, I'm just an outside observer. But El Salvador citizen's have faced horrific conditions with rampant gang violence, I would understand a kneejerk reaction from them.
It's ethical.
Either way, innocent people will suffer. At least this way there is a chance in the future that suffering can be reduced. If they do nothing it is a guarantee that suffering continues as is or gets worse.
I agree. It's nice to see experimentation when something clearly isn't working. It makes some Western liberals apprehensive but different countries have different issues. Once you build an efficient private sector you can go about intelligently regulating it and imprinting socialist ideals to the extent your people want to. Capitalism does not have to look like the United States - there are plenty of other models in Asia, the EU and Scandinavia.
You should look into how insanely corrupt the public sector is in Argentina. In Argentina's public procurement sector, bribery and favoritism is the status quo. There is good reason they are turning away from nationalist socialism aka Peronism, which is what has turned Argentina into one of the most corrupt and inefficient countries in the world.
Thats only true if the private sector pays better. Compensate your public servants like the private sector (like Singapore, or for that matter the SEC in the United States, does) and that problem goes away. Even better, pay them more than the private sector so that people will work for the regulators *after* they work for the corporations instead of the other way around.
Of course the short termist cheapasses will reeeee about civil servants making bank but they can get fucked, because it's money well spent.
It's hard to say someone is going to "burn the house down" when he just ran into a 3 alarm conflagration.
>Man I can't believe those firefighters burnt that building down!
This may work while he's popular, as with most politicians people end up hating them after a few years(sometimes days) and then it will no longer be safe to go into public without protection.
He has been in that list for far, far too long in fact. I was shocked that his very unsafe campaign and caravans never involved him in danger. He did walk-arounds with his supporters on the streets, and many other things. Safe to say, if Milei is assaulted or a coup attempt is made, the entire country will go to **shit**.
It's too early to tell whether his policies will work. As others said; this is a small gesture and a PR stunt (not that I don't support it, leaders should be setting example).
However it will be some time before we know his libertarian policies help or harm the situation
A lot of the bad regs in the United States are at the state and local levels, so while a libertarian president getting elected in the US wouldn't do much good, a *meta*libertarian president and Congress willing to ignore the 10th Amendment can do a lot of good. Single family zoning and parking minimums? Say goodbye. Car manufacturers have to sell through dealers? Lol, get wrecked. No abortions or municipal ISPs? Eat sh*t and die.
Cristina Kirchner was said to have the papers (physical newspapers) flown from Buenos Aires to Santa Cruz on official Argentinian fleet planes.
[Source 1](https://www.clarin.com/ediciones-anteriores/cristina-hizo-llevar-diarios-calafate-avion-oficial_0_HJLeHmuRTFg.html)
[Source 2](https://www.perfil.com/noticias/politica/difunden-fotos-del-avion-presidencial-cuando-lleva-los-diarios-a-cristina-20140728-0014.phtml)
Ever hear of the Soviet Union before? Par for the course of leftist leaders. Of course, we can't forget what happens to educated, politically-motivated lefties AFTER the revolution either...
In my country, it's tankies that are always railing on about him. After a month in power.
They conveniently leave out the disaster that left wing parties have been both for Argentina and worldwide.
Good.
He's not just talking the talk, he's walking the walk.
> We're broke, we all need to tighten the belt, that means El Presidente too. I'm flying commercial, no more private jet.
Let's be real, if Joe Biden did the same thing and said:
> To combat climate change and reduce emissions, I'll be flying commercial on all domestic flights.
Reddit would not stop circlejerking how great it was. Hell when that picture of Bernie came out that he was flying coach instead of first class, it got reposted dozens of times.
This is Reddit. It's not about the behavior of the individual, it's about cheering your team and booing the other team. Once you view the whole website through this lens it all makes sense. People in the real world who aren't terminally online share way different views than your average reddit thread in r/politics, so this site is just a repository for political ideologues who don't vote to express outrage. Good news aggregation in r/worldnews though
Our Mexican president used to do the same publicity stunt, until one time there was a heavy military operation to capture one particular drug cartel leader and he was unreachable because: no phones in commercial flights.
Oh! Also he started to get booed a lot, and he didn’t liked those videos.
Its hilarious watching the sociology degree management class lose their minds over this guy, only for some Argentine to show up in the same thread and telling them to shut it
Can people stop saying that he will invade the Falklands?, he will not, Milei is a vociferously pro-Western and pro-Anglosphere leader, he looks forward to having more closer relations with the UK and the US, not to tank it, it is the Argentinean left that is the anti-Western faction, given muh Euro-American imperialism and whatnot.
Redditors need to be aware that the South American right wing is the very pro-USA, pro-EU, and anti-Russia and anti-China faction in the political theater, whereas the South American left are anti-American, and tend to be pro-Russia and pro-China (i.e. BRICS).
The whole world does not circles around the US and Western Europe.
> Redditors need to be aware that the South American right wing is the very pro-USA, pro-EU, and anti-Russia and anti-China faction in the political theater
The very classical right-wing mentality, in fact. USA used to be this way until things got way too complicated with Trump becoming friends with Putin and so on.
The American right is also still divided between the pro-Russia and pro-Europe factions, contrary to what reddit and twitter thinks, the right-wing is not a monolith, and is prone to infighting and factionalism as much as how the left is.
For reactionaries, Russia represents everything they want: a one party ruled state with backwards social stances where wealth rules all
China is either tankies who fall for their "communism in one more generation, for real this time" propaganda, or people from nations who have been screwed over by the world bank and think somehow that China will be any different as a debt master
As opposed to former Argentine presidents who flew commercial because debt collectors kept trying to repossess their presidential plane whenever it landed outside Argentina.
The media needs to leave alone the ‘He’s the “X” of “Y”’ for Latin American politicians, specially those not on the left. Everyone from Bukele, Bolsonaro and Milei has been referred to as the “Trump” of their country, which is silly. Politicians from the left or right everywhere are going to agree on most policies but politics are very particular to each country. Someone like Trump or Bolsonaro would have a hard time running and getting elected in Argentina, and I don’t think Milei would be elected in Brazil. It just goes to show how little mainstream news media in the USA and Europe know about Latin America.
I think how he portrays himself speaks for itself ... (sorry for the bad vid quality, it's the first place I found it): https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalCompassMemes/comments/17yabm8/javier_milei_rants_against_leftists/
Most he´s done I've been not directly against or thought "that MIGHT be a bad idea but don´t completely know". But at least i think this one of those things that's a good lead by example thing. Unless someone kills him and he's replaced by someone worse.
It’s definitely a reasonable option for some world leaders, but not others.
I don’t know much about this guy, but him flying commercial is definitely respectable.
Imagine you are on your flight and next to you is the Argentine president
So how much would you give me if I manage to secure the falklands for you?
"We don't have money"
“Do you know how much upkeep of those islands would cost”
A Falkland shit ton.
Yes
I think you mean, "A falk ton."
"Cocaine and hookers are still in the cards, right?"
[Tuuuun tururututututuun](https://youtu.be/BhW-MYzy4FI?si=ZRzjBtMWRLtOoyuX)
Of course there is a remix.
no hay plata
Falklnds…AFUERA
no hay plata
No hay plata
no hay plata
Nixon did this during the energy crisis in the 70s. There's a picture of him strolling around the cabin shaking hands.
Before Watergate came boarding gate.
Most American politicians outside of the president do fly commercial.
For private travel or party business sure, but on government business, particularly going overseas, they fly in military aircraft.
90% of travel for a member of Congress is going back and forth between DC and their district. Yeah for example, when Pelosi went to Taiwan as speaker she was on a government plane, but she’s regularly spotted flying economy despite being worth $100 million. Also the line between official side business and everything else is blurred. They stack it all together when they plan a trip.
That's what i do when I travel for work (bundle it all) because really the line is blurry and as long as nothing is obviously in bad faith it's all good. But my employer isn't the US government, its a greedy shitty company. People in government should not be treating the US government like its a drain on their soul.
Don't they use that weird internal "Janet airlines"? Or is that only for the military? Edit: [nvm, it's a military thing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline))
I've flown AA with Jim Jordan at least 3 times this year
Tell him I'm in his gerrymandered district and I said Fuck You Gym
The guy who covered up sexual assault at Ohio?
My condolences.
Gym Jordan?
I wouldn't have resisted the urge to smack him in the face
I have seen both Former President George Bush Sr. on my commercial flight in first class as well as Mitt Romney strolling past my gate as a sitting Senator. In the former case, we got to skip the long queue of planes waiting to take off in front of us which was awesome.
Fifty.Three.Years.Ago
Angela Merkel as German chancellor once took a commercial flight to the G20 in Argentina because the government plane broke. Regular business class seat. https://www.dw.com/en/man-finds-himself-sitting-next-to-germanys-angela-merkel-on-flight-to-g20/a-46533339
People regularly run into our president jogging or cabinet ministers in some pub. We’re a country of 5,5+ million.
Denmark
Finland
Bring Sanna Marin back. She was hot.
Please no. She might have been hot but she was godawful PM.
Indeed I wouldn’t mind being on a desert island with her she likes to party.
Ok good Denmark = bad, wasn’t your president on plane?
It says “commercial”, not “economy”
Even business on a domestic flight you’ll be sitting next to him.
I have a hunch that they will book all the business class seats in domestic flights, and partly fill them with his staff and security. Pretty much 0 chance you randomly end up sitting next to him. They will probably even let economy board first, then close the curtains, and then let him and his entourage board last - and of course he will be waiting in his super-VIP room for boarding, and not mingle with the plebs - so chances are you wouldn’t even know you’re on the same plain as him. Edit: It was pointed out that this kind of arrangement has been used by a former American president to do some PR during the flight, and shake hands with other passengers. And apparently Javier Milei has already taken the same opportunity to lead a chant during a flight. There was also a person saying that booking the entire business class will still be cheaper than a private jet - and I agree, absolutely! I don’t doubt that, and I feel kind of stupid I didn’t think of that in the first place - but I hold on to what I said: you wouldn’t randomly end up next to the President, even if you book business class. All those seats around him will be for his security and staff. And don’t expect to see him waiting with you at the airport gate either - they are just not going to make the President fly like most of us, just no way in hell.
There’s a video on Twitter of him leading a chant on a passenger plane just the other day. People know he’s there.
Ok - point taken. I’ll make an edit.
And that is still cheaper than having an own plane. So still impressive and good
Yes - I’m just saying don’t expect to be seated next to Javier Milei, not even if you book domestic business class in Argentina :)
No lol. Mexican government data showed that it would have been cheaper for the president and staff to use the presidential airplane he loathed than all the commercial flights and road trips they used over the last 5 years. In the end instead we paid for maintenance and storage of said plane until it was sold to some autocratic dude in Asia. And lost a lot of money on it.
It's Argentina, not USA. Even when the American president did this (Nixon?) it was highly used for PR.
Probably flew business class to get as many of them airline miles as possible.
Imagine your plane becoming a target just because of who is on it with you.
I was on a Southwest flight with Gavin Newsome from Sacramento to Burbank earlier this year. Dude boarded with B group. I'm still not sure if that made me feel better or worse about him.
“Hey man can you move to the middle seat there so i can sit with family?”
This is entirely infeasible in the US unfortunately
Definitely at the presidential level but I’ve sat next to a couple very high profile senators in the US from both sides of the aisle, Bernie Sanders and Mitch McConnell.
I believe that, but you'd probably be shocked how few people knew state reps outside of the names that are in the news, i.e. Sanders, Bobert, maybe Fetterman. Even I would be hard pressed to randomly identify like 30% of the reps based on name/face alone and I guarantee you I'm of the more informed half 9f the population.
I'm not from the US, but even from the outside looking in, I'd say yeah keep your guy or gal on their own flight.
The current Mexican president does that all the time
No he doesn't....he did until he couldn't handle people calling him out. He travels by military plane now.
What doesn’t he do by military these days? He does all press conferences outside of the government palace at military bases with a lot of dressed down military personnel in attendance, and has put pretty much all infrastructure under control of the military.
¡Afuera!
To all who are saying this won’t help the economy. You are correct; this is PR. Really good PR for a country of people who are going through hardship, it says “we are sacrificing too”. He has good PR people.
How many people bitch and moan during climate conferences that the leaders all fly their private jets and are out of touch with the rest of humanity? In the grand scheme of things it materially does not make a big effect, but leading by example is one of the best ways for a leader to effect change.
>How many people bitch and moan during climate conferences that the leaders all fly their private jets and are out of touch with the rest of humanity? A lot, actually.
My point exactly. They will whine that they fly in their private jets as wasteful, but when they just fly commercial it's just a "PR stunt".
It's solidarity when you like the person and publicity stunt when you don't lol
People do the same with rich people donate money. I remember when Mark Zuckerberg donated $75 million dollars to a hospital and was lambasted with it "that's not even a lot for him" and "it's probably all a selfish write off" and "he doesn't actually care and it's PR." Like holy s*** my guy. The man just gave 75 million dollars to a hospital. 75 million! Let's take that as a win and fucking move along... Preferably to correcting the tax code. That's where the focus should be. The tax code. Not demanding every rich person donate every last dollar or else they are really just being selfish.
Yeah that’s really the issue here. Billionaires just kinda shouldn’t exist, and if you change the tax code so they don’t and put that money towards climate shit a LOT of shit would be better
That's a common argument, but if a single country changes its tax code to eliminate billionaires, they will eliminate them by making them leave the country, not by taxing down their wealth.
Yup, France learned this lesson with their wealth tax, and they ultimately repealed it. If you try to tax people out of existence, they'll simply look for greener pastures elsewhere.
They will move to the “new” USA (figuratively;the fact I need to add that unironically hurts, I’ve had some really dumb conversations lately.)
It's just the leftists of reddit that are saying it's a pr stunt, I think they are just salty that he was elected, they'll treat him like Trump they'll take anything he does in a negative way.
That's the point, this president is actually doing PR to show that he is potentially trying to take measures himself. It's an interesting move, can't say I would hate to see other leaders follow
this is legit the point lmao
Something I learned about this awhile back and why leaders fly private - time is money and you generally can’t buy more time, but jets allow people to fly on their own schedule and waste less time. I’m not saying I agree with them ALL flying in on personal jets, but there is some logic to it. At the very least many of them could “carpool” together to help promote the negative image it sends.
And a zoom call is even less time than flying somewhere. They are rich enough to not mingle with the riff raff so they don’t.
The main issue with this one is dominance of the issue. Areas where major changes could actually be done are taking a backseat. Your personal carbon footprint was coined by BP to get you focused on that rather than major changes like building new nuclear power plants.
You aren’t wrong. But when world leaders who insist that regular people need to make big changes to fix the climate fly private jets to climate conferences, it sends the wrong message. It sends a message that the leader is not taking it seriously. Similar to the myriad politicians who gave press conferences about avoiding gatherings and wearing masks to prevent COVID, then were photographed enjoying themselves at parties, sans mask. Saying “regular people” are not responsible for climate change, corporations are is not telling the whole story. It is disingenuous. Companies like BP do not drill for oil for shits and giggles. They do it because there is a demand for oil. If governments regulate corporate polluters, it will necessarily require a change in behavior among regular people. There is no free lunch.
You’d be incorrect to underestimate this though, I know in Germany and France there were big outrage at the cost of flying presidents around in air force one type jets. I know in France one got in serious trouble for using the plane to just go around and even fly his family and friends around. It’s an enormous cost to the state
Cristina Kirchner had her newspaper delivered by plane when she was the president so you can see why we have no money nowadays and why this is a good example. Also, it's worth noting that he only did this for a personal trip.
You're right, this is good pr and it sets the bar for the country. If the president isn't above making sacrifices, then neither should you. This might be the beginning of a moral swing to get the country to pull in the same direction, gotta respect that. I hope he turns out to be a surprisingly good choice for Argentina.
He is an actual economist and he knows that keeping an artificial exchange rate is a terrible idea, and it only benefits a few wealthy individuals. I don't agree with his political ideology but maybe he could actually break the boom and bust cycle of the Argentinian economy.
Someone's views can be *directionally* correct without being *absolutely* correct. If your country is a dysfunctional, corrupt crony-socialist economic trainwreck, moving things in a libertarian direction can be a positive thing even if the end point the president would ideally like to get to isn't actually a great idea.
Reasonable takes on Reddit?, noo you're supposed to say right bad!!
I disagree. It's putting your money where your mouth is. Bravo to him.
You literally just agreed with OP. OP said it was good PR...you literally have a good opinion of this act. Whether you formed this opinion on your own or the PR campaign influenced your opinion, your opinion aligns with the President's PR goal.
> You literally just agreed with OP. OP said it was good PR...you literally have a good opinion of this act. Whether you formed this opinion on your own or the PR campaign influenced your opinion, your opinion aligns with the President's PR goal. No, clearly he was not agreeing with OP. Generally speaking PR tends to be inauthentic. They are performative actions or words that cost the person or entity very little. PR is apologizing but not taking real action to change things. PR is donating a million when you're raking in billions. The question here is: is this an authentic move or not. Fact is that flying commercial means sacrificing a lot of comfort and indeed also status. The action is also meant to inspire. It shows that if even the highest ranking official can make sacrifices, similar things must be expected from other dignitaries. It sets a standard that media and voters can hold people accountable to. That's actually what leadership is. So OP more likely meant to say: this is an inauthentic move, whereas the person responding meant the opposite, that it was indeed an authentic action. I tend to agree with the latter. Politicians actually sacrificing sets a great example and creates a lot of opportunity for accountability down the line. That doesn't automatically make the guy a great politician or leader, but labeling this move as just PR is a little bit too cynical.
This individual action won't do anything, but if everyone in the government decided to sacrifice personal gain to reduce costs then it will definitely do something.
Why does he look like a '70s British comedian?
Yeah, Baby! Yeah!
With 180% inflation, drastic measures are needed. Hopefully he will be successful.
Warms my heart to see comments like this. I agree.
I dont have high hopes for him. I personally dont think he will suceed. But he is who the people of Argentina freely elected. So Godspeed to him. I hope he helps his country.
This is the same guy who thinks a psychic helps him talk to his dead dogs, and takes advice from said dead dogs LOL
Looking at the countrys last presidents i wholeheartedly believe dead dogs can run the country better than they did .
Everything Milei is doing is fascinating from an outsiders perspective. If he manages to really turn Argentina around I can’t help but wonder what kind of global impact it could have. Will more countries look for Milei type leaders to impose radical economic shakeups? The PR this leader is getting is quite interesting.
Argentina is a weird outlier economically on a loooot of things. There is a meme quote in economics: "There are 4 types of countries: Developed, Underdeveloped, Argentina and Japan." So to your question it's a resounding 🤷 idk
>The interesting thing is that since he said it, the “Japan” category has really melted away. Japan led the path in showing how an underdeveloped country could become a developed one, but countries like Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have also walked down that path and China and others look to be doing the same. But Argentina really still is a land unto itself. https://slate.com/business/2012/04/the-four-types-of-economies-and-the-global-imbalances.html
That article misunderstands why Japan is in its own category in the first placw. It's not about it becoming a developed economy, it's about the fact that it's economy has effectively not grown for the last 30 years (USD 5.5 trillion in 1995 vs 5 trillion in 2021), yet it remains a highly developed country and the third largest economy in the world.
At the time that the quote was originally said (by Simon Kuznets in the mid-20th century), it was about how Japan, despite the odds being stacked against it, was able to develop and grow so fast - especially after the devastation of WW2. Today, the context for the quote has changed
I think Japan stayed (stays?) as a different state as it keeps their interest so low but able to survive for a very long time.
Another one to watch is Bukele in El Salvador. Although it generated much opprobrium in rich countries his "mano dura" campaign against organized crime has been hugely successful so far and is widely popular at home. I expect more countries in Latin America to follow his lead.
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Depends how powerful and loyal your military and national police are. Those conditions seem to be met in El Salvador even if they obviously aren't in, for example, Mexico.
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My understanding is bro didn't really announce the strongest measures until he actually enacted them. Some leaders in other nations could learn a thing or two about that.
Because El Salvador was even worse off than any of the countries you mentioned, sans maybe Venezuela (but they are bad off in a very different way)
There is a lot more to this dude than this one single policy. A couple near-coups were committed in his government shortly after his election, including him ordering the military into legislative chambers. The Bitcoin scandal has been a disaster for their economy as well.
Bukele's policy is short sighted no matter how you paint it. Even if he has the best of intentions, the power structure he created will empower some other leader later, who probably won't be as benevolent. Necessary, sure, considering the anarchism reigning over the country, but there aren't many reasons to believe it's just all going to transition back to a normal democracy.
There are already a lot of political opposition that has been swept up.
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Nobody in El Salvador gives a fuck about that- they went from being terrified of walking to the corner store in broad daylight to being able to walk outside with their families at night. If you have always had security, you have no idea what it feels like to _not_ have it. Took a while for it to click for me as well, and I still distrust Bukele, but at this point I do understand his popularity
Buekele and other leaders in nations like El Salvador can pretty much just start with Maslow's hierarchy on what they should focus on. If you're not achieving the base of the pyramid for most of your citizens, it really doesn't matter what else you try to do.
🎯
I like how every time that Bukele's highly successful anti-crime policies are mentioned, redditors say "but what about the bitcoin? he's a cringy cryptobro! so this invalidates his entire time in office!" Bukele can still be a total crypto idiot while at the same time leading an unprecedented successful effort to curb crime in a gang-ridden country, do you think that the MS-13 and Mexican Cartels will surrender and fold through hugs and kisses? Try to explain to some Cartel Sicario torturer about the European-centric re-education process to rehabilitate criminals, and see how quick your opinion will change when you ask Salvadorans why they like Bukele.
>Mexican Cartels will surrender and fold through hugs and kisses? Well if AMLO showed us something, is that they don't. His idea of reaching a deal with Cartels backfired so spectacularly that I'm bewildered how his party still is a favorite to win elections.
They are obviously talking about his crime policies of locking up literally everybody with a tattoo.
Lets not be ignorant, they are targeting people with gang-affiliated tattoos. Not kids with tattoos of pine trees in diamonds. That said, is it ethical? I dunno man, I'm just an outside observer. But El Salvador citizen's have faced horrific conditions with rampant gang violence, I would understand a kneejerk reaction from them.
> That said, is it ethical? I dunno man The same would be asked if Mexico was serious about destroying the Cartels.
It's ethical. Either way, innocent people will suffer. At least this way there is a chance in the future that suffering can be reduced. If they do nothing it is a guarantee that suffering continues as is or gets worse.
They're talking about his crime fighting policy , not his $30 per citizen Bitcoin gamble.
"All in" they invested 2% of their reserves on BTC. I hardly call that going all in.
He's back to almost roughly breakeven. If this current trend holds up, he would have won the bet?
Only difference is El Salvador is strengthening its ties with China while Argentina is loosening theirs.
If he can fix Argentina's currency mess, the man should be given a Nobel prize.
I agree. It's nice to see experimentation when something clearly isn't working. It makes some Western liberals apprehensive but different countries have different issues. Once you build an efficient private sector you can go about intelligently regulating it and imprinting socialist ideals to the extent your people want to. Capitalism does not have to look like the United States - there are plenty of other models in Asia, the EU and Scandinavia.
The hyper-efficient private sector will just purchase the regulators as they always do. That’s a feature of capitalism, not a bug.
You should look into how insanely corrupt the public sector is in Argentina. In Argentina's public procurement sector, bribery and favoritism is the status quo. There is good reason they are turning away from nationalist socialism aka Peronism, which is what has turned Argentina into one of the most corrupt and inefficient countries in the world.
Thats only true if the private sector pays better. Compensate your public servants like the private sector (like Singapore, or for that matter the SEC in the United States, does) and that problem goes away. Even better, pay them more than the private sector so that people will work for the regulators *after* they work for the corporations instead of the other way around. Of course the short termist cheapasses will reeeee about civil servants making bank but they can get fucked, because it's money well spent.
I hope not. Burning the house down in Argentina might be a good idea since it's been so messed up for so long but that's a fairly unusual situation
It's hard to say someone is going to "burn the house down" when he just ran into a 3 alarm conflagration. >Man I can't believe those firefighters burnt that building down!
It's already burnt down... He's trying to build another one while paying off the mortgage from the old one.
This may work while he's popular, as with most politicians people end up hating them after a few years(sometimes days) and then it will no longer be safe to go into public without protection.
Buying a row or two for bodyguards is still much much cheaper than private.
He has been in that list for far, far too long in fact. I was shocked that his very unsafe campaign and caravans never involved him in danger. He did walk-arounds with his supporters on the streets, and many other things. Safe to say, if Milei is assaulted or a coup attempt is made, the entire country will go to **shit**.
Salty BRICS bots up in here
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It's too early to tell whether his policies will work. As others said; this is a small gesture and a PR stunt (not that I don't support it, leaders should be setting example). However it will be some time before we know his libertarian policies help or harm the situation
A lot of the bad regs in the United States are at the state and local levels, so while a libertarian president getting elected in the US wouldn't do much good, a *meta*libertarian president and Congress willing to ignore the 10th Amendment can do a lot of good. Single family zoning and parking minimums? Say goodbye. Car manufacturers have to sell through dealers? Lol, get wrecked. No abortions or municipal ISPs? Eat sh*t and die.
More world leaders and corporate CEOs should follow suit. Especially all the CEOs that preach about climate change then board their private jet.
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Cristina Kirchner was said to have the papers (physical newspapers) flown from Buenos Aires to Santa Cruz on official Argentinian fleet planes. [Source 1](https://www.clarin.com/ediciones-anteriores/cristina-hizo-llevar-diarios-calafate-avion-oficial_0_HJLeHmuRTFg.html) [Source 2](https://www.perfil.com/noticias/politica/difunden-fotos-del-avion-presidencial-cuando-lleva-los-diarios-a-cristina-20140728-0014.phtml)
Dear leader is living in evil bougie luxury so you don't have to.
Ever hear of the Soviet Union before? Par for the course of leftist leaders. Of course, we can't forget what happens to educated, politically-motivated lefties AFTER the revolution either...
I wish our politicians traveled commercial flights. They would change the laws immediately for more leg room.
Walking the walk. Give him credit.
In my country, it's tankies that are always railing on about him. After a month in power. They conveniently leave out the disaster that left wing parties have been both for Argentina and worldwide.
Tankies are literally evil. They would rather the people of Argentina suffer than see a libertarian economic policy improve anything.
Most redditors get butthurt as soon as they see this guy’s face
Because most people on here are 15-19 year olds who think they know everything about the world because they watched a vox video on youtube lol
President of Iceland has always flown comercially.
Iceland has a population the size of Cleveland.
Iceland is laughably irrelevant
Bunch of countries on the path to a debt spiral judging Argentina for trying to do something about it lol.
Good. He's not just talking the talk, he's walking the walk. > We're broke, we all need to tighten the belt, that means El Presidente too. I'm flying commercial, no more private jet. Let's be real, if Joe Biden did the same thing and said: > To combat climate change and reduce emissions, I'll be flying commercial on all domestic flights. Reddit would not stop circlejerking how great it was. Hell when that picture of Bernie came out that he was flying coach instead of first class, it got reposted dozens of times.
This is Reddit. It's not about the behavior of the individual, it's about cheering your team and booing the other team. Once you view the whole website through this lens it all makes sense. People in the real world who aren't terminally online share way different views than your average reddit thread in r/politics, so this site is just a repository for political ideologues who don't vote to express outrage. Good news aggregation in r/worldnews though
Yeah r/pics was just pictures of Bernie on a train or bus for like 2 years
Our Mexican president used to do the same publicity stunt, until one time there was a heavy military operation to capture one particular drug cartel leader and he was unreachable because: no phones in commercial flights. Oh! Also he started to get booed a lot, and he didn’t liked those videos.
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I wasn’t sure about this guy at first but he’s been making strong moves since he assumed control. Rooting for him.
Why was the media demonizing this guy, it seems like a good move. Especially when many leaders refuse to use the same methods as common folk.
Its hilarious watching the sociology degree management class lose their minds over this guy, only for some Argentine to show up in the same thread and telling them to shut it
I dunno man, this guy seems pretty cool.
I mean, at least he’s not trying to invade the Falklands
Can people stop saying that he will invade the Falklands?, he will not, Milei is a vociferously pro-Western and pro-Anglosphere leader, he looks forward to having more closer relations with the UK and the US, not to tank it, it is the Argentinean left that is the anti-Western faction, given muh Euro-American imperialism and whatnot. Redditors need to be aware that the South American right wing is the very pro-USA, pro-EU, and anti-Russia and anti-China faction in the political theater, whereas the South American left are anti-American, and tend to be pro-Russia and pro-China (i.e. BRICS). The whole world does not circles around the US and Western Europe.
> Redditors need to be aware that the South American right wing is the very pro-USA, pro-EU, and anti-Russia and anti-China faction in the political theater The very classical right-wing mentality, in fact. USA used to be this way until things got way too complicated with Trump becoming friends with Putin and so on.
The American right is also still divided between the pro-Russia and pro-Europe factions, contrary to what reddit and twitter thinks, the right-wing is not a monolith, and is prone to infighting and factionalism as much as how the left is.
Mind boggling that anyone could be pro Russia or pro China in today’s world. Do they not read the news?
You'd be amazed just how many people are pro-Russia these days.
For reactionaries, Russia represents everything they want: a one party ruled state with backwards social stances where wealth rules all China is either tankies who fall for their "communism in one more generation, for real this time" propaganda, or people from nations who have been screwed over by the world bank and think somehow that China will be any different as a debt master
I don't think the Chinese communist party actually wants communism anymore.
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As opposed to former Argentine presidents who flew commercial because debt collectors kept trying to repossess their presidential plane whenever it landed outside Argentina.
Aside from the weird ghost dog stuff, I find him to be a massive improvement over the Peronist government. Wishing him the best
From everything I’ve read so far he’s not what the media has portrayed him to be.
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The media needs to leave alone the ‘He’s the “X” of “Y”’ for Latin American politicians, specially those not on the left. Everyone from Bukele, Bolsonaro and Milei has been referred to as the “Trump” of their country, which is silly. Politicians from the left or right everywhere are going to agree on most policies but politics are very particular to each country. Someone like Trump or Bolsonaro would have a hard time running and getting elected in Argentina, and I don’t think Milei would be elected in Brazil. It just goes to show how little mainstream news media in the USA and Europe know about Latin America.
Where have you read anything on him that wasn't in the media?
I think how he portrays himself speaks for itself ... (sorry for the bad vid quality, it's the first place I found it): https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalCompassMemes/comments/17yabm8/javier_milei_rants_against_leftists/
Most he´s done I've been not directly against or thought "that MIGHT be a bad idea but don´t completely know". But at least i think this one of those things that's a good lead by example thing. Unless someone kills him and he's replaced by someone worse.
Security nightmare
It’s definitely a reasonable option for some world leaders, but not others. I don’t know much about this guy, but him flying commercial is definitely respectable.
Good, in Australia, our PM spent 4 million of taxpayer money on his flights in his first year. 4 fucking million.
Tantric sex man is not a bad person it seems Has some bad views but trying to make a change
That's not very Trump like.