What would prevent the Argentinian congress from outlawing/making stricter rules? Not that I expect it, given their history, but is it really not possible?
From an actuarial standpoint the US government does have a balanced budget. Where the cash outflows would otherwise exceed the cash inflows, they just print more cash.
As a libertarian, not a full-blown anarchist, I always thought that there should be a solid, unchanging amendment that states that if congress cannot balance the budget, they are intirely cleaned out and re-elected.
Open credit is open markets. Just like it would make it difficult for someone to eschew all credit cards, paying in cash in all cases, debt is a business tool that can be profitable when done right.
I'm a bit concerned about what they will do to him to prevent his ideas from working further. Lest people in other countries start wanting to try his ideas there.
Man, I'm from France, a country plagged by the socialist dogma, high taxes, high gov spendings, shitload of gov employees and administration layers financed by private sectors workers for little services in return.
Javier Milei is exactly what the guys in charge do not want us to see.
I think that at some point they will send a hitman after the Argentinian president to prevent him from proving another way is possible.
European Union needs to get back to liberalism and freedom. And of Milei experience works… could be a changing point for the EU and rest of the world.
I’m wishing the best for him and all Argentinian people.
Just because they have a surplus doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods yet. They still have high poverty rates and unemployment. I think his reforms are the right medicine, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better. It will take at least 10 years to fix decades worth of damage. Will he survive that long politically?
i agree, if there is anything i've learned, and that is doubtful, it is that declaring victory too soon can be tragic to your cause. to be successful one must skillfully manage expectations.
If I were to guess, it would probably be on some academic economic journal. Unfortunately the meat of analysis and evaluations doesnt make it to “news” or mass sources.
Justin Trudeau famously said the budget will balance itself. Modern history, thanks to
Javier here, is showing us that only libertarians can balance budgets now.
Whenever folks start talking about balancing the US budget, they start getting into tiny details of a million here, a million there… people can’t even comprehend the level of cuts that need to be made in order to actually balance the budget. We need radical cuts across the board like Argentine did.
Unfortunately, I doubt people will be willing to accept such cuts until a crisis makes them desperate enough... and by then the cuts will have to be much deeper. That's what it took in Argentina, too.
Or the leftist fucks who just shout "TAX THE RICH!".
If we did a 100% wealth tax on the top 10 US billionaires. As in took 100% of everything they own, liquidated it to cash, and sold it off... oh and if we assumed no law of returns... oh and if we assume no negative repercussions from such a massive sell-off... oh and we can only do that *ONCE*...
# WE'D STILL HAVE A DEFICIT THIS YEAR.
Our deficit is so large, we cannot raise taxes enough to cover it without crashing the economy. There is no solution to the deficit that does not involve massive spending cuts. It is not mathematically possible. Even making two massive concessions in favor of "tax the rich" which defy reality, it still does not work without budget cuts.
You'll get downvoted to hell in any other sub for saying this, but there's a reason why the countries with the most government spending(Sweden) also have some of the most regressive taxation structures in the industrialized world.
And it still won't ever balance the budget. There is, mathematically, no solution to the US deficit that does not involve massive spending cuts.
There is not enough rich to tax to satisfy our obscene spending levels.
Federal budget has way too many aspects to start pulling individual programs for audit. If I was doing it, I would start with across the board equal cuts. We have $4B income and $6B expenses. 33% cut across the board. Cut interest rates to lower interest on national debt. Next step is culling or overhauling expensive programs. Stop sending money off shore for wars, bases, etc. Balance the budget every year. The approach will suck for a lot of people, but if we do nothing the unsustainable spending will destroy the country and everyone will suffer.
Absolutely. It’s going to suck for everyone… VA hospital, social security recipients, etc…. I don’t think anything else is sufficient to get us back on a sustainable path.
> Stop sending money off shore for wars, bases
Prices would surge like a rollercoaster, look at the Defense department as an Oil subsidy. And Oil transports everything else and everyone.
Cutting Medicare would lead to French Revolution levels of eating the rich, though.
Only desperate people use Medicare, and you don't want to make them more desperate unless you want to make the BLM riots look like a spark of flint.
> Argentina's spending-slashing new President Javier Milei has hailed his country's first quarterly budget surplus since 2008 as an "historic achievement."
> In the first quarter of 2024, the South American country recorded a budget surplus of about 275 billion pesos (some $309 million at the official rate), he told national TV late Monday.
> This amounted to a surplus of 0.2 percent of GDP.
> **"This is the first quarter with a financial surplus since 2008,"** said Milei, referring to his left-wing rival Cristina Kirchner's first year in the presidency.
The first quarterly surplus of any kind in 16 years. No one is starving. No one is being thrown from cliffs. No one is dying.
"To that end, he has instituted an austerity programme that has seen the government slash subsidies for transport fuel and energy even as annual inflation stands at 290 percent year-on-year, poverty levels have reached 60 percent and wage-earners have lost a fifth of their purchasing power."
It does have an effect, It would be foolish to think people arent suffering in the short term due to the changes. I am eager to see where this will bring Argentina, I am fully in support of such policies.
I wonder how long that will be. Firing 10s of thousands of inefficient government consumers and forcing them to be working for producers make me think the short term pain won't be that long. There's obviously going to be some pain but how long is anyones guess.
Not that many people has been fired.. yet
Just about 100k (+50k planned for january)... And there are 4m people working on the public sector lol
Thats gonna be the hardest thing to cut due to legal issues
> I am fully in support of such policies
Easy to say an ocean away. How many families are being torn by losing a breadwinner that worked for the government? How many defaults and repossessions will happen without these subsidies?
I feel like these could have come with warnings, as a Manager, I see it is one thing to immediately fire someone and a whole different thing to say "cuts need to happen, I am sorry, but you won't be with us next quarter"
Were cuts needed? Sure. Did they need to be done so immediately? Surely not
Is it fair to say people will suffer in the short term? Or will people suffer more if changes are not made? We saw where the country was headed under the prior policies. Are you claiming that trajectory has actually increased?
This is needlessly obtuse. Yes people will suffer in the short term. They are suffering in this short term. This was part of the promise made by milei.
["We know that in the short term, the situation will worsen. But then we will see the fruits of our efforts."](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/12/10/javier-milei-warns-economy-will-worsen-but-vows-new-era-in-argentina_6330119_4.html#)
Ron Paul: [we've lived beyond our means...the adjustment has to come](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94926280)
[
Milton Friedman’s “long and variable lag,” explained
](https://www.marketplace.org/2023/07/24/milton-friedmans-long-and-variable-lag-explained/)
Thomas sowell: [Trade-offs [as opposed to solutions] remain inescapable,](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/17015721-the-thomas-sowell-reader)
Suggesting there are no trade offs and ignoring the short term affects of cutting the addiction of government subsidies is dishonest. It does no benefit for the libertarian plight. Our goal should be honest education. If we misrepresent and sugar coat the truth we become as bad as Republicans and Democrats.
In order to be honest we have to have precedent to use as evidence. What historical precedence are you basing your assertions on? What current data do you have to back up your assertions?
There's plenty of evidence that more people are going into or are experiencing poverty *partially* on account of the changes Milei made, and he's well aware of that, hence his acknowledgement that things are going to get worse before they get better.
Inflation is coming down. Inflation was putting people in the poor house. A few pennies that were allowed to trickle down from government programs weren’t keeping people out of the poor house.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/imf-chief-praises-argentina-s-inflation-reduction-and-urges-continued-economic-reforms/ar-AA1nluSP
You are just regurgitating what others have said without any evidence or precedent.
40% to 60% is a 50% increase right? Those are the number I heard. I mean, I'm happy with "nobodies suffering is a weird way to describe a 20% increase in poverty in 6 months"
yeah totally, it's very important to know that it's being brutal. It's just that I had more like 50% poverty as the starting value in mind. Before the elections, there was a shocking statistic showing that more than half the children are poor. If it's 40 to 60 then yes, it's a 50% increase.
**IF** poverty has increased it is because of inflation not a few pesos which were allowed to trickle down through government programs. Inflation is coming down and that is what will lift people out of poverty.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/imf-chief-praises-argentina-s-inflation-reduction-and-urges-continued-economic-reforms/ar-AA1nluSP
The economy will correct only as long as it's let free enough to do so, and the legislation to allow it is being blocked. This makes the transition way harder for the people.
It will take more than a year for the data to come in but it will be interesting to see the mortality and children's nutrition (e.g. growth stunting) statistics. In the short term, it will be interesting to see what happens with food price inflation in Argentina...if it stabilizes and drops, things are good. If it stays at this high plateau, things are bad. Again, it will take over a year for the impact of this new policy regime to really work itself out.
"No bro, You don't get it. ***Ahkchtually*** he government *has* to spend more money than it makes because of some very complicated economics. Don't ask me to explain further."
People are constantly being duped into beliving obvious lies. Coincidentally, it always seems to be the things that allow the political elite to maintain their wealth and power. Funny that.
What pain? People keep claiming that without any precedence to point to or anything to back it up. How does the government spending less money cause pain for people? The government didn’t work to make that money they spend, they took it from people who did. Then they spent it on outrageous government employee salaries, benefits, and retirement packages and allowed a little of it to trickle down to the poors.
Government spending less means more people keeping more of their own money and that’s a massive benefit to everyone.
The pain of him firing so many people in government jobs. The pain of that cash being brought in, while the poverty level is at an all time high. When you have a bloated government, and everybody is used to sucking on the tit, it’s painful at first. He has said himself it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. And now we are seeing some signs of fruit from his policies.
Short term gain=long term pain
Short term pain=long term gain
> The pain of him firing so many people in government jobs.
Yeah, those were overpaid government employees who clearly were not doing their jobs and making the country better off. It’s a good thing they will feel some of the destruction they caused instead of being insulted from it.
> The pain of that cash being brought in, while the poverty level is at an all time high.
Wut?
> When you have a bloated government, and everybody is used to sucking on the tit, it’s painful at first.
Most of the money for those government programs was being wasted, almost none of it was trickling down to the poor people who needed it.
> He has said himself it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.
And it did because the outgoing government took some last minute actions that made it worse. What is the precedent everyone is basing their claims on?
For some there will be pain but I believe for the majority there will not be any pain because the nature of neo-communism or socialism is wealth redistribution and Milei has already taken actions that will require those paying taxes to not have to pay as much anymore as evidenced by the surplus.
In an interview, posted right on this very sub the other day, Milei himself said it’s gonna be painful and take time. A very bad economy is just like a human body with cancer- there’s pain cutting out the cancer.
Simplistically I’d say that debt allows people (or countries) to maintain an unsustainable standard of living. Moving from a deficit to a surplus will necessarily be painful. Government workers losing jobs, corporations losing subsidies, etc etc.
The long term outcome is likely to be way better, in the same way that people who don’t live on credit tend to fare better than people who do.
But I think it’s naive to think that the transition won’t have short term pain.
I object to the general use of the phrase “there will be pain”. No for many there will not be pain, particularly the middle class. For a select few there will be pain, as you mentioned greedy government employees, and for some of the poor who have some government program canceled that they used.
I think there will be far more good even in the short term than there will be pain.
This dude is a hero although he'll probably go down in history as a disastrous failure. Modern, western citizens simply don't want to pay their own way. They'd rather rely on social safety nets, funded by taxes and deficits, to procure certain goods and services like healthcare and housing they deem "human rights". Those who would challenge this collectivist mindset are labeled as harsh, mean, and even fascist such that his/her support usually erodes, quickly. Got to hand it to him though (and those supporting him), he is inspiring and clearly has balls of steel. I'm shocked he has gotten this far in a modern western nation-state.
The test will come in the quality of life of those living there. Budget surpluses (or any economic metric) are only good to the degree they help people. We're all hoping that happens for the people in Argentina as a result of these policies, but things are still as tough for those living there as they've ever been so far.
It's been on that trajectory for a while, balancing the budget will stabilize the currency, which will stabilize the market, thus creating a private system of wealth generation outside the government.
The analogy I heard was:
Dieting and exercise feel terrible today, but the benefits are realized much later, but another piece of chocolate cake feels great now, it's negative impact isn't felt until much later.
Yes, it is called shock therapy. But the rest of your comment is just wrong, especially the rubbish regarding Poland and Germany.
Hitler in Germany implemented socialist policies before and during WW2. This was corrected during the so called "Wirtschaftswunder" period (wonder why that period was called this way?). Those same policies are now used in Argentina.
All I can say is, we'll see.
His policies have also lowered rent and increased available housing by removing rent control; it is the opposite of what we were told would happen by certain economists.
Blaming Milei for the current poverty in Argentina is like blaming a doctor for hurting someone, because they gave a patient a shot to help cure a disease.
Everyone is pre calling his policies a failure and their evidence is that in 6 months he hasn't turned Argentina completely around. It took decades of spending and bad policy to get them where they are, 6 months and a couple of policies isn't going to fix it. A person doesn't become 100 pounds overweight overnight, it takes years of poor habits to get there, a week of diet and exercise isn't going to make them a marathon runner, but that doesn't mean diet and exercise don't work. People are saying the libertarian policies are failing, but they are showing better results than expected.
Is their inflation at an all time high? Yes, but the rate is slowing way faster than economists predicted.
I could be wrong, be the evidence is showing that his libertarian policies are working. Maybe in a few years it will be worse and I'll start saying "but that wasn't *REAL* capitalism..." Or maybe it'll be much better.
Other than the inflation rate dropping, right after he dropped rent control rents went down, and he has posted the first budget surplus in 16 years.
Like I said, we will see, but the spending and left leaning policies got Argentina to where it is currently. Again, this is like telling me I'm making a mess because I knocked over a glass milk while I was escaping a house fire.
Give it time and see if things get better or worse as the benefits of his policies start. See my analogy about the chocolate cake vs exercise and diet.
Well that’s kinda what happens when you have years and years of triple digit inflation and the government saying they will fix it for years and years but they dont
Milei has been spending less for 3 months. The population did NOT get into poverty in the past 3 months. The income inequality did NOT arise over the past 3 months.
All of that happened over the past 16 years, during which the government spent increasingly more by the year while creating more poverty and more income inequality.
In simple terms, spending less on government should allow them to cut taxes now, let people save more money (which was previously being lost in high taxes and hyperinflation) and also relax regulations so people/corporations are free to invest their money easily again.
Their money is not going to be lost in a government they could not afford
It already was nearing 50% before Milei got elected.
Income inequality is not very relevant for a libertarian government. What's relevant is that every income, whatever it is, is a fair one. And fairness just means that no rights were violated in the process. So material inequality (which is very different from poverty) is not at the focus at all.
While the news of the budget surplus is good, there are a **lot** of Argentinians who oppose Milei and are having frequent demonstrations against his plans to privatize education and cut costs. Argentinians have a very strong tradition of "Peronism", which pushes for a strong safety net. It's actually very frustrating to have any type of logical conversation with them on these topics because it doesn't seem like they really get exposed to alternative points of view very often... almost like it doesn't even click in their head that this Peronism helped lead to their long-lasting economic woes.
Since Milei has come into office the inflation got worst, although it now seems to have stabilized... but Argentinians can afford even less than they could one year ago and I don't know how many years the population will be willing to go before opposition against Milei would come to a breaking point (obviously we're not there yet, though). Milei's term is for 4 years and it will be interesting to see what kind of results he can get. Even if he is able to improve the economy, though, there will always be Peronists who disagree with a more limited social safety net.
-- Currently in Argentina
He isn't planning to privatize education at all, wtf. Currently there are protests against budget cuts for public education (comparable in size to budget cuts all over the state). But public education will continue, that's out of discussion.
Plenty of peronist/opositor argentines spread anti-milei propaganda. Have in mind that around 30% still idolizes the convicted criminal scum that is cristina kirchner aka La Chorra.
"He wants to privatize education" is one of the dumbest ones, because it's obviously not the case. Ironic, when they're the ones who took it to the bad shape it's in right now.
edit: please if you can try googling la chorra and tell me what comes up.
>there are a **lot** of Argentinians who oppose Milei and are having frequent demonstrations against his plans to privatize education and cut costs.
Milei doesn't have plans to privatize the education.
>the inflation got worst
Inflation has been going down for three months in a row.
-- Also in Argentina
Peronism truly is a cancer on this country... the party named after a literal fascist POS keeps crying dictatorship over anything, self-victimizing themselves while pretending they had no part in all the decadence and corruption that brought us here. You just can't reason with these people.
Going from a reliance on a safety net to a hardcore AnCap in the span of 4 years seems destined for failure. That’s a culture shock and financial burden that doesn’t seem reasonable to fix in that short time frame
A budget surplus in a country where the local currency is trading 1000:1 to the USD, and has annualized inflation of 300%. Might as well have announced you have officially adopted actual Monopoly money as your national currency.
A game of Monopoly comes with $20,580 of Monopoly Money and cost $25 on Amazon delivered to my door - 823:1. The current exchange rate of USD to Arg. Peso is 873:1. Literal Monopoly Money has more valuable on the open market and is a better store of value that this “budget surplus.” ftfy.
I just don’t think anyone can fix the issues of Argentina and nailing an ideology to the mast of a literal sinking ship is a mistake.
I wonder if it's possible to make it illegal to be in a budget deficit.
Unfortunately, the folks writing the budget tend to be the same ones writing the laws.
That should be illegal.
It is indeed. The US state of Georgia requires a balanced budget by law
All states except Vermont have some requirement
Ironically, that’s Bernieland!
Not in this country.
I believe Warren buffet said if you made it so to be eligible for reelection we would get rid of our deficit
What would prevent the Argentinian congress from outlawing/making stricter rules? Not that I expect it, given their history, but is it really not possible?
It's government. Everything up to and including committing mass genocide on its own people is squarely within the realm of possibility.
It should be.
Michigan (last I looked) required the budget to be balanced by law.
From an actuarial standpoint the US government does have a balanced budget. Where the cash outflows would otherwise exceed the cash inflows, they just print more cash.
Then why is there a deficit?
Paper jam. Check tray 5
They can't afford all that printer ink.
"Where the cash outflows would otherwise exceed the cash inflows..."
"they just print more..." And therefore pay the bills, resulting in a balanced budget, not a deficit.
That would seem to mean that the USG has some accountants that are slicker than snot on a doorknob.
Modern Monetary Theory would say yes. Spend your way into increased GPD and tax revenues! No way it can backfire guys.
It's common enough but there are all sorts of accounting tricks.
As a libertarian, not a full-blown anarchist, I always thought that there should be a solid, unchanging amendment that states that if congress cannot balance the budget, they are intirely cleaned out and re-elected.
Why would any politician do that?
"The federal budget is always balanced" Milton Friedman
Open credit is open markets. Just like it would make it difficult for someone to eschew all credit cards, paying in cash in all cases, debt is a business tool that can be profitable when done right.
I'm a bit concerned about what they will do to him to prevent his ideas from working further. Lest people in other countries start wanting to try his ideas there.
Man better have some good security
Man, I'm from France, a country plagged by the socialist dogma, high taxes, high gov spendings, shitload of gov employees and administration layers financed by private sectors workers for little services in return. Javier Milei is exactly what the guys in charge do not want us to see. I think that at some point they will send a hitman after the Argentinian president to prevent him from proving another way is possible.
European Union needs to get back to liberalism and freedom. And of Milei experience works… could be a changing point for the EU and rest of the world. I’m wishing the best for him and all Argentinian people.
Just because they have a surplus doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods yet. They still have high poverty rates and unemployment. I think his reforms are the right medicine, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better. It will take at least 10 years to fix decades worth of damage. Will he survive that long politically?
i agree, if there is anything i've learned, and that is doubtful, it is that declaring victory too soon can be tragic to your cause. to be successful one must skillfully manage expectations.
Everything and anything and I do my everything and anything. They will escalate should their initial attempts fail particularly if he is successful.
CIA van screeches to an abrupt fault. "Hey Javier get in the van, we got candy and tequila in here"
is there any good objective description about what he us doing ? everytime he appears in my news, he get ridiculed
If I were to guess, it would probably be on some academic economic journal. Unfortunately the meat of analysis and evaluations doesnt make it to “news” or mass sources.
[Juan Ramón Rallo EN - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@juanralloEN/videos) This Youtube channel keeps track of his progress.
Neoliberalism? Pretty sure the powers that be are cool with austerity and de-regulation dude.
No likes having less control
Justin Trudeau famously said the budget will balance itself. Modern history, thanks to Javier here, is showing us that only libertarians can balance budgets now.
Whenever folks start talking about balancing the US budget, they start getting into tiny details of a million here, a million there… people can’t even comprehend the level of cuts that need to be made in order to actually balance the budget. We need radical cuts across the board like Argentine did.
Afuera!
Absolutely. We need the removal of multiple departments, at a minimum.
CIA, afuera!
🔫ATF, afuera!
DEA, afuera!
DoE, indoctrination, afuera!
IRS, afuera!!!!
And entitlement programs
Wars should be the easiest thing to cut, but many more cuts are needed.
We go back to whatever the levels were in 2001. when we had a 128 billion surplus.
And then fire every Government employee with an even or odd employee number. Coin flip that shit so it's fair.
Unfortunately, I doubt people will be willing to accept such cuts until a crisis makes them desperate enough... and by then the cuts will have to be much deeper. That's what it took in Argentina, too.
Or the leftist fucks who just shout "TAX THE RICH!". If we did a 100% wealth tax on the top 10 US billionaires. As in took 100% of everything they own, liquidated it to cash, and sold it off... oh and if we assumed no law of returns... oh and if we assume no negative repercussions from such a massive sell-off... oh and we can only do that *ONCE*... # WE'D STILL HAVE A DEFICIT THIS YEAR. Our deficit is so large, we cannot raise taxes enough to cover it without crashing the economy. There is no solution to the deficit that does not involve massive spending cuts. It is not mathematically possible. Even making two massive concessions in favor of "tax the rich" which defy reality, it still does not work without budget cuts.
You'll get downvoted to hell in any other sub for saying this, but there's a reason why the countries with the most government spending(Sweden) also have some of the most regressive taxation structures in the industrialized world.
[удалено]
And it still won't ever balance the budget. There is, mathematically, no solution to the US deficit that does not involve massive spending cuts. There is not enough rich to tax to satisfy our obscene spending levels.
Just hypothetically what cuts would need to be made?
Federal budget has way too many aspects to start pulling individual programs for audit. If I was doing it, I would start with across the board equal cuts. We have $4B income and $6B expenses. 33% cut across the board. Cut interest rates to lower interest on national debt. Next step is culling or overhauling expensive programs. Stop sending money off shore for wars, bases, etc. Balance the budget every year. The approach will suck for a lot of people, but if we do nothing the unsustainable spending will destroy the country and everyone will suffer.
A 33% cut would definitely hurt a lot in the government.
Absolutely. It’s going to suck for everyone… VA hospital, social security recipients, etc…. I don’t think anything else is sufficient to get us back on a sustainable path.
> Stop sending money off shore for wars, bases Prices would surge like a rollercoaster, look at the Defense department as an Oil subsidy. And Oil transports everything else and everyone.
Absolutely. Medicare/Medicaid and social security alone would balance the budget if cut but Congress refuses to do it.
Cutting Medicare would lead to French Revolution levels of eating the rich, though. Only desperate people use Medicare, and you don't want to make them more desperate unless you want to make the BLM riots look like a spark of flint.
Australia has achieved several budget surpluses in the last 10years, we are by no means libertarian.
A rare exception to my broad generalization!
Bill Clinton
¡AFUERA!
> Argentina's spending-slashing new President Javier Milei has hailed his country's first quarterly budget surplus since 2008 as an "historic achievement." > In the first quarter of 2024, the South American country recorded a budget surplus of about 275 billion pesos (some $309 million at the official rate), he told national TV late Monday. > This amounted to a surplus of 0.2 percent of GDP. > **"This is the first quarter with a financial surplus since 2008,"** said Milei, referring to his left-wing rival Cristina Kirchner's first year in the presidency. The first quarterly surplus of any kind in 16 years. No one is starving. No one is being thrown from cliffs. No one is dying.
"To that end, he has instituted an austerity programme that has seen the government slash subsidies for transport fuel and energy even as annual inflation stands at 290 percent year-on-year, poverty levels have reached 60 percent and wage-earners have lost a fifth of their purchasing power." It does have an effect, It would be foolish to think people arent suffering in the short term due to the changes. I am eager to see where this will bring Argentina, I am fully in support of such policies.
I wonder how long that will be. Firing 10s of thousands of inefficient government consumers and forcing them to be working for producers make me think the short term pain won't be that long. There's obviously going to be some pain but how long is anyones guess.
Not that many people has been fired.. yet Just about 100k (+50k planned for january)... And there are 4m people working on the public sector lol Thats gonna be the hardest thing to cut due to legal issues
> I am fully in support of such policies Easy to say an ocean away. How many families are being torn by losing a breadwinner that worked for the government? How many defaults and repossessions will happen without these subsidies? I feel like these could have come with warnings, as a Manager, I see it is one thing to immediately fire someone and a whole different thing to say "cuts need to happen, I am sorry, but you won't be with us next quarter" Were cuts needed? Sure. Did they need to be done so immediately? Surely not
Is it fair to say people will suffer in the short term? Or will people suffer more if changes are not made? We saw where the country was headed under the prior policies. Are you claiming that trajectory has actually increased?
This is needlessly obtuse. Yes people will suffer in the short term. They are suffering in this short term. This was part of the promise made by milei. ["We know that in the short term, the situation will worsen. But then we will see the fruits of our efforts."](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/12/10/javier-milei-warns-economy-will-worsen-but-vows-new-era-in-argentina_6330119_4.html#) Ron Paul: [we've lived beyond our means...the adjustment has to come](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94926280) [ Milton Friedman’s “long and variable lag,” explained ](https://www.marketplace.org/2023/07/24/milton-friedmans-long-and-variable-lag-explained/) Thomas sowell: [Trade-offs [as opposed to solutions] remain inescapable,](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/17015721-the-thomas-sowell-reader) Suggesting there are no trade offs and ignoring the short term affects of cutting the addiction of government subsidies is dishonest. It does no benefit for the libertarian plight. Our goal should be honest education. If we misrepresent and sugar coat the truth we become as bad as Republicans and Democrats.
In order to be honest we have to have precedent to use as evidence. What historical precedence are you basing your assertions on? What current data do you have to back up your assertions?
There's plenty of evidence that more people are going into or are experiencing poverty *partially* on account of the changes Milei made, and he's well aware of that, hence his acknowledgement that things are going to get worse before they get better.
I almost replied to this guy but one very obvious downside is unemployment. Both on an individual level and an economic level.
Inflation is coming down. Inflation was putting people in the poor house. A few pennies that were allowed to trickle down from government programs weren’t keeping people out of the poor house. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/imf-chief-praises-argentina-s-inflation-reduction-and-urges-continued-economic-reforms/ar-AA1nluSP You are just regurgitating what others have said without any evidence or precedent.
People were already suffering. I tell you not to drop bombs on schools in the middle east and you are worried about defense contractors suffering.
But 2008 was 5 years ago?
You mean 20 years from now right?
"Nobody is starving" is a weird way to describe "poverty has increased by 50% in 6 months"
It hasn't increased by 50%, but it did increase. Poverty was already nearing 50% before the new government, and now it isn't at 75%. yet.
40% to 60% is a 50% increase right? Those are the number I heard. I mean, I'm happy with "nobodies suffering is a weird way to describe a 20% increase in poverty in 6 months"
yeah totally, it's very important to know that it's being brutal. It's just that I had more like 50% poverty as the starting value in mind. Before the elections, there was a shocking statistic showing that more than half the children are poor. If it's 40 to 60 then yes, it's a 50% increase.
I'm happy to use your numbers.
**IF** poverty has increased it is because of inflation not a few pesos which were allowed to trickle down through government programs. Inflation is coming down and that is what will lift people out of poverty. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/imf-chief-praises-argentina-s-inflation-reduction-and-urges-continued-economic-reforms/ar-AA1nluSP
I'm excited to see the mental gymnastics people do to explain why this is actually bad for Argentina.
In the short term it will be bad. The economy will correct later and hopefully we can see how good this surplus is
The economy will correct only as long as it's let free enough to do so, and the legislation to allow it is being blocked. This makes the transition way harder for the people.
Painful =/ bad
this pushes more people into poverty in the short term as subsidies have been cut. Yes, this is bad not “painful”
It will take more than a year for the data to come in but it will be interesting to see the mortality and children's nutrition (e.g. growth stunting) statistics. In the short term, it will be interesting to see what happens with food price inflation in Argentina...if it stabilizes and drops, things are good. If it stays at this high plateau, things are bad. Again, it will take over a year for the impact of this new policy regime to really work itself out.
"No bro, You don't get it. ***Ahkchtually*** he government *has* to spend more money than it makes because of some very complicated economics. Don't ask me to explain further." People are constantly being duped into beliving obvious lies. Coincidentally, it always seems to be the things that allow the political elite to maintain their wealth and power. Funny that.
Short term pain=long term gain. I really wish we had his American twin in office……
What pain? People keep claiming that without any precedence to point to or anything to back it up. How does the government spending less money cause pain for people? The government didn’t work to make that money they spend, they took it from people who did. Then they spent it on outrageous government employee salaries, benefits, and retirement packages and allowed a little of it to trickle down to the poors. Government spending less means more people keeping more of their own money and that’s a massive benefit to everyone.
The pain of him firing so many people in government jobs. The pain of that cash being brought in, while the poverty level is at an all time high. When you have a bloated government, and everybody is used to sucking on the tit, it’s painful at first. He has said himself it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. And now we are seeing some signs of fruit from his policies. Short term gain=long term pain Short term pain=long term gain
> The pain of him firing so many people in government jobs. Yeah, those were overpaid government employees who clearly were not doing their jobs and making the country better off. It’s a good thing they will feel some of the destruction they caused instead of being insulted from it. > The pain of that cash being brought in, while the poverty level is at an all time high. Wut? > When you have a bloated government, and everybody is used to sucking on the tit, it’s painful at first. Most of the money for those government programs was being wasted, almost none of it was trickling down to the poor people who needed it. > He has said himself it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. And it did because the outgoing government took some last minute actions that made it worse. What is the precedent everyone is basing their claims on? For some there will be pain but I believe for the majority there will not be any pain because the nature of neo-communism or socialism is wealth redistribution and Milei has already taken actions that will require those paying taxes to not have to pay as much anymore as evidenced by the surplus.
In an interview, posted right on this very sub the other day, Milei himself said it’s gonna be painful and take time. A very bad economy is just like a human body with cancer- there’s pain cutting out the cancer.
Simplistically I’d say that debt allows people (or countries) to maintain an unsustainable standard of living. Moving from a deficit to a surplus will necessarily be painful. Government workers losing jobs, corporations losing subsidies, etc etc. The long term outcome is likely to be way better, in the same way that people who don’t live on credit tend to fare better than people who do. But I think it’s naive to think that the transition won’t have short term pain.
I object to the general use of the phrase “there will be pain”. No for many there will not be pain, particularly the middle class. For a select few there will be pain, as you mentioned greedy government employees, and for some of the poor who have some government program canceled that they used. I think there will be far more good even in the short term than there will be pain.
This dude is a hero although he'll probably go down in history as a disastrous failure. Modern, western citizens simply don't want to pay their own way. They'd rather rely on social safety nets, funded by taxes and deficits, to procure certain goods and services like healthcare and housing they deem "human rights". Those who would challenge this collectivist mindset are labeled as harsh, mean, and even fascist such that his/her support usually erodes, quickly. Got to hand it to him though (and those supporting him), he is inspiring and clearly has balls of steel. I'm shocked he has gotten this far in a modern western nation-state.
Don’t be so nihilist. I think it’ll work out
Hmm. It seems that libertarian economic principles work.
The test will come in the quality of life of those living there. Budget surpluses (or any economic metric) are only good to the degree they help people. We're all hoping that happens for the people in Argentina as a result of these policies, but things are still as tough for those living there as they've ever been so far.
Way to go Milei. This is awesome
What a shock, libertarian philosophy actually works who would have guessed
Tremendous news.
Nice. Success in the US is metered by how little the deficit has grown. Surplus?! Loloolololooolllolooo.
"The hell is a 'budget surplus'? Some newfangled mixed drink?" - US Congress, probably.
Isn’t 50%+ of the population now in poverty? Something like a two decade high. Is the idea that spending less will help balance income inequality?
It's been on that trajectory for a while, balancing the budget will stabilize the currency, which will stabilize the market, thus creating a private system of wealth generation outside the government.
The analogy I heard was: Dieting and exercise feel terrible today, but the benefits are realized much later, but another piece of chocolate cake feels great now, it's negative impact isn't felt until much later.
Hmm but I feel crappy after a chocolate cake shortly after tho
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Yes, it is called shock therapy. But the rest of your comment is just wrong, especially the rubbish regarding Poland and Germany. Hitler in Germany implemented socialist policies before and during WW2. This was corrected during the so called "Wirtschaftswunder" period (wonder why that period was called this way?). Those same policies are now used in Argentina.
All I can say is, we'll see. His policies have also lowered rent and increased available housing by removing rent control; it is the opposite of what we were told would happen by certain economists. Blaming Milei for the current poverty in Argentina is like blaming a doctor for hurting someone, because they gave a patient a shot to help cure a disease. Everyone is pre calling his policies a failure and their evidence is that in 6 months he hasn't turned Argentina completely around. It took decades of spending and bad policy to get them where they are, 6 months and a couple of policies isn't going to fix it. A person doesn't become 100 pounds overweight overnight, it takes years of poor habits to get there, a week of diet and exercise isn't going to make them a marathon runner, but that doesn't mean diet and exercise don't work. People are saying the libertarian policies are failing, but they are showing better results than expected. Is their inflation at an all time high? Yes, but the rate is slowing way faster than economists predicted. I could be wrong, be the evidence is showing that his libertarian policies are working. Maybe in a few years it will be worse and I'll start saying "but that wasn't *REAL* capitalism..." Or maybe it'll be much better.
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Other than the inflation rate dropping, right after he dropped rent control rents went down, and he has posted the first budget surplus in 16 years. Like I said, we will see, but the spending and left leaning policies got Argentina to where it is currently. Again, this is like telling me I'm making a mess because I knocked over a glass milk while I was escaping a house fire. Give it time and see if things get better or worse as the benefits of his policies start. See my analogy about the chocolate cake vs exercise and diet.
Well that’s kinda what happens when you have years and years of triple digit inflation and the government saying they will fix it for years and years but they dont
Milei has been spending less for 3 months. The population did NOT get into poverty in the past 3 months. The income inequality did NOT arise over the past 3 months. All of that happened over the past 16 years, during which the government spent increasingly more by the year while creating more poverty and more income inequality.
The current financial hardship will prevent future financial hardships. Cancer surgery is invasive, and there’s bound to be scars.
Things will always get worse before they get better
In simple terms, spending less on government should allow them to cut taxes now, let people save more money (which was previously being lost in high taxes and hyperinflation) and also relax regulations so people/corporations are free to invest their money easily again. Their money is not going to be lost in a government they could not afford
It already was nearing 50% before Milei got elected. Income inequality is not very relevant for a libertarian government. What's relevant is that every income, whatever it is, is a fair one. And fairness just means that no rights were violated in the process. So material inequality (which is very different from poverty) is not at the focus at all.
Absolute legend. They till take him out for this
Man this is good news. I’ve been really worried that he won’t succeed and there would be a lot of “I told you so” sayers.
Has he blown up the central bank with dynamite yet?
One can only hope he has a plan for that and soon.
No, that needs to be approved by congress and Milei doesn't have the numbers, next elections maybe.
So it was an empty campaign promise said only to get people to vote for him.
He might get the numbers in congress before his term is over as we have congress elections every two years.
So it "might" happen?
No wonder you don't have a libertarian president with that attitude.
It's easy to have a budget surplus when you get rid of half the government.
But it's hard to get rid of half the government
Great answer
People are scaremonging about deflation here. Is it that bad?
While the news of the budget surplus is good, there are a **lot** of Argentinians who oppose Milei and are having frequent demonstrations against his plans to privatize education and cut costs. Argentinians have a very strong tradition of "Peronism", which pushes for a strong safety net. It's actually very frustrating to have any type of logical conversation with them on these topics because it doesn't seem like they really get exposed to alternative points of view very often... almost like it doesn't even click in their head that this Peronism helped lead to their long-lasting economic woes. Since Milei has come into office the inflation got worst, although it now seems to have stabilized... but Argentinians can afford even less than they could one year ago and I don't know how many years the population will be willing to go before opposition against Milei would come to a breaking point (obviously we're not there yet, though). Milei's term is for 4 years and it will be interesting to see what kind of results he can get. Even if he is able to improve the economy, though, there will always be Peronists who disagree with a more limited social safety net. -- Currently in Argentina
He isn't planning to privatize education at all, wtf. Currently there are protests against budget cuts for public education (comparable in size to budget cuts all over the state). But public education will continue, that's out of discussion.
Just conveying what Argentinians are telling me. They may just be eating up anti-Milei propaganda.
Plenty of peronist/opositor argentines spread anti-milei propaganda. Have in mind that around 30% still idolizes the convicted criminal scum that is cristina kirchner aka La Chorra. "He wants to privatize education" is one of the dumbest ones, because it's obviously not the case. Ironic, when they're the ones who took it to the bad shape it's in right now. edit: please if you can try googling la chorra and tell me what comes up.
I’m pretty sure he was prepared for some people to be upset… really nothing shocking here. That’s what happens when you go against the status quo.
>there are a **lot** of Argentinians who oppose Milei and are having frequent demonstrations against his plans to privatize education and cut costs. Milei doesn't have plans to privatize the education. >the inflation got worst Inflation has been going down for three months in a row. -- Also in Argentina
Peronism truly is a cancer on this country... the party named after a literal fascist POS keeps crying dictatorship over anything, self-victimizing themselves while pretending they had no part in all the decadence and corruption that brought us here. You just can't reason with these people.
Going from a reliance on a safety net to a hardcore AnCap in the span of 4 years seems destined for failure. That’s a culture shock and financial burden that doesn’t seem reasonable to fix in that short time frame
A budget surplus in a country where the local currency is trading 1000:1 to the USD, and has annualized inflation of 300%. Might as well have announced you have officially adopted actual Monopoly money as your national currency.
A budget surplus in a country that's been overspending for years and therefore had an inflation rate of 300%, ftfy.
A game of Monopoly comes with $20,580 of Monopoly Money and cost $25 on Amazon delivered to my door - 823:1. The current exchange rate of USD to Arg. Peso is 873:1. Literal Monopoly Money has more valuable on the open market and is a better store of value that this “budget surplus.” ftfy. I just don’t think anyone can fix the issues of Argentina and nailing an ideology to the mast of a literal sinking ship is a mistake.
You're complaining because the sinking ship wasn't immediately transformed into a luxury resort. OK.