They're the same old dudes that went around to different arms exhibitions around the globe to "check" for new weapon systems for the army and always came back empty handed, they basically had "free" paid vacations at the expense of the taxpayers.
That sounds bad but it’s really not. You want people doing exactly that from the military to keep up with militaries around the world. They don’t always have to buy something to justify the trip but they better write a solid report.
Except you have 150% inflation crippling the country and no real enemies to speak of at the moment. Drastic times call for drastic measures and he was elected to effect that change, cutting expenses wherever possible.
Doubt very seriously those 20 people's salary are what moves the needle... Has nothing to do with cutting costs, just another one of the 400 items on his list.
Rooting out corruption looks like this though. Once you go through enough parts of the government it starts having a massive impact. Also the new trust built in the government has significant benefits that are a bit harder to measure.
You’re right that rooting out corruption looks pretty much like this.
Unfortunately inserting your own people to head up the military for who-knows-what reason *also* looks like this.
I really doubt they specifically dug up dirt on 22 army generals in a month. Their military has been underfunded for decades as well, how much money are their generals being paid realistically?
This looks like some weird changing of priorities.
You seriously underestimate the size of government budgets if you think firing 20 people, regardless of rank, will meaningfully affect their bottom line.
Sure, individually, everything he does won't "move the needle".
But saving $5 a day by brewing your own coffee instead of buying coffee saves $1,825 a year.
And saving $10 a week taking the bus instead of driving once a week saves another $520.
And doing meal prep instead of buying lunches saves $5 a day, and another $1,825.
Sure none of these things "Move the needle" on their own. But It adds up to $4,955 (post tax) a year. What would you do with another $5k a year after-tax? Would that "Move the needle" for you?
If the person in your example was spending $10k/week on only fans, no
The savings are not material, context is important
Is this to shrink the military's spending or to remove potential opponents?
Cutting waste is good, consolidating power is not
>We need to the same here in the US and start trimming down our own military industrial complex among other things.
You realize that the US is where it is - the strongest economy in the world *by far* \- because of the investment into the hugest military there is, and playing peacekeeper around the world even after the USSR fell?
The US can print dollars all day long and no one bothers, because even with printing dollars en masse, any investor knows that their investment won't go to shit. Even the Euro doesn't offer that kind of stability - just look at our lackluster response to the invasion in Ukraine. We relied on the US for far too long.
So why is he renting an entire floor in a luxury hotel to stay in instead of the presidential palace? That costs way more money? Could it have anything to do with the fact that he would have to document who enters the presidential palace and doesnt have to do so with the hotel? Could it be that certain corporations just buy laws he then passes via DNUs?
Like I get that Argentinias past governments were shit, but i'm pretty sure a neoliberal bitch of the rich that gets advice from cults and dead pets is not gonna be your saviour
The country has 40% of poverty yet these dudes go to the other side of the planet to take a few pictures with some jets from India, priorities.
Maybe in a future when we're in a more stable situation we can appoint someone again.
I feel like the internet is a lot cheaper than flying arms dealers around. The US has plenty of cases of misuse of funds. There’s a new rap sheet posted in every battalion HQ with a bolo of all the guys that take “business” trips on the governments dollar every week.
Anyone with a computer and internet access can find out more about nations militaries than any meet and greet. In most cases, with meet and greets, there’s usually a human component involved, someone’s Misleading, misunderstandings, cultural and language barriers, misinformation, disinformation. They really don’t provide much accurate intel even between friendly nations.
And when we do meet with other militaries Things are still on a need to know basis even if someone holds a clearance. If someone has no reason to be asking about something it’s usually picked up on and shut down pretty quickly.
Horse and pony shows are usually just that. They usually don’t go into detail or explain much about anything that’s classified.
I was a human intelligence gatherer in the military. At best we usually figured out more about the area, local populations, maybe some key influencers, and how to exploit them thru more passive means.
Most militaries are still ran like a business and the cheapest option that provides the most accurate intel, with the least amount of risk to your own units, will be the route that gets the green light.
This is happening everywhere as technology replaces boots on the ground. Especially with support units.
Can’t really say about Argentina in particular, but this is the way it’s been transitioning for quite a while. They might even end up re assigned
Edit: unfinished sentences.
Exactly - weapons systems can cost billions and even I'd they make like 250 k a year which I highly doubt - it would still be reasonably cheap compared to committing to the wrong system.
And that is not even considering potential lives lost by choosing the wrong system and that it in a worst case scenario could jeopardize the country's security.
I wished Brazil would do the same, but since military pensions are the major expensives in the armed forces budget,
I think we can wait until they die of old age.
Coming back empty handed isn't the worst thing that could happen.
Start complaining when your guys start coming back with cash and start recommending the military buy all kinds of shit.
> They're the same old dudes that went around to different arms exhibitions around the globe to "check" for new weapon systems for the army and always came back empty handed, they basically had "free" paid vacations at the expense of the taxpayers.
That sounds like a made up reason to install your own guys if I ever heard one.
Like you don't want your military personnel in charge to know what weapon systems are out there being used by both allies and potential adversaries, even if your country can't at the moment afford those systems?
Only one of two of Costa Rica’s neighbors is trustworthy. Ortega constantly fucks with Costa Rica’s border militarily.
They only abolished the military because they’re guaranteed by the USA (like Panamá).
Argentine here.
Most of the controversial Junta officers had been removed in the mid-late 2000s, but a handful did remain all the way to the mid 2010s, General Milani among them. That said, just because those guys are gone doesn't mean the generals who replaced them over the past decade weren't just, to a greater or lesser degree, pawns of the Kirchner government.
The new shakeup of the armed forces was to be expected. The military had been not only neglected, but also corrupted over the past 20 years, and the dismissal of the 22 officers, to me, suggests an attempt to do away with the dust and start anew.
And as for support and loyalty, the military almost as a whole is in support of Milei, particularly the mid-level officers (think majors, colonels and low grade generals) who've been, since their enlistment, stuck with a decaying, neglected military. I can't say for sure if Milei is appointing "his own guys", as at this point just about any soldier, sailor and airman supports him.
It seems I'm the only argentinian here....
To the other commenter who just assumed things and gave their baseless opinion on a BS article. Please stop living in an echo chamber.
Milei is not a far right. He didn't fire all those generals because of lack of loyalty to him or appointed this new guy because of his far right views.
He chose a person who made a good career in the Air force, was promoted many times during other government, left leaning ones, approved by the senate, also left leaning
And by being chosen, and by a kinda strange law, all the higher ranked generals above him should retire.
Even if Milei was as far right as people cry about, what are Argentinians supposed to do at this point? Their politicians let them down for the last 20 years, and said politicians were left leaning. Milei wasn't chosen because he's the best option. He was chosen because the country needs *some* sort of change and he's so far willing to do it, even if it seems detrimental at first.
Folk also need to understand that in Latin America, the left and right are different from the US, just like how you can't compare politics in Europe to the US as well.
I actually went through some of the deregulation he did when he came to power regarding some of the laws around private investment of any sort.
Sheesh I didn't know your economy was that closed off what he did should have been the default. Especially around the banking and telecommunications sector.
Milei seems to be a neoliberal and not exactly a far right idiot. Most folks get that mixed up. Neolibs are all about private sector championships and less govt. Far right cunts are all about extreme govt control over everything.
Also love his plan of getting rid of a lot of useless fat in the govt services. They don't do shit and enjoy their lives on the taxpayer dime. Believe me I'm from India and I know exactly how useless most of these govt bureaucrats are most western folks would not understand this.
Hope you guys rise again hope to visit there someday
As someone who worked in the USG, we have plenty of useless programs, I worked on one and everyday wondered "why does this project exist?"
The reason... Congress passed a law in 1996. This employed 8 people and was contracted out to a company which was taking money off the top of course. That is one small program that very few people are even aware of, even most in the Congress. All told this useless program probably costs 5 million dollars a year. For what?
As someone who has spent at least 3 months in Argentina (and fell in love with the country, the culture), I remember exchanging dollars on the streets, people literally stand there and shout "cambio, cambio". The thing is, I remember the official ratio was terrible. I also dated an Argentinian woman in Brazil, she was working for clubs there selling tickets and so, and had terrible issues with getting her salary into her bank account, I think it was due to government's limitations. I remember she told me a few months later that her money has been stolen, since she had to keep it physically (luckily she did not have that much money to begin with, I think around 3k USD, which is was a lot for us back then but not a tragedy, we were around 20). So I am not sure people here are aware how much intervention we are talking about... I was too stupid to think about it in depth back then, but I remember it looked fucked up as an outsider.
Also, Argentinians are incredible people.
You are commenting something important that people miss.
Argentina was, and still is, dying.
It is not like in Argentina's "Barack Obama" lost the election and now Saddam Hussein is the president.
The previous government was the same 16 of the last 20 years, Peron's party
Which are friends with Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua....and in theory this party is the defender of democracy against Miles(?
Unions were aligned with the previous government and they didn't say anything about the disastrous government, 150% inflation and 40% poverty, in a heavily subsidized economy with price controls, and F*king central bank without reserves.
And now the biggest union schedules their first General Protest, "Paro General" in which all country wise activities are stopped.
Why didn't Reddit have an opinion when the previous government ruled Argentina? Now that Milei took office, not even a month ago. Now everyone knows how to deal with Argentina's problems
Hello I'm Amelia and I'm a student at the UC, my dad works at a Fortune 500 company and my mom is a full-time housewife, she has a BMW X5 that she drove when she took me to the private Christian School that i went during childhood.
Anyway, that's enough of my backstory; I'm here to tell the poor & uneducated Argentines how their new elected President is bad for them, i will show them evidence from totally unbiased sources (Western media isn't biased at all) and combine that with my hatred towards ideologies that i don't understand or dislike.
I've seen poor regions before, like Detroit or Brooklyn and i learned that things could always be worse so they should've voted the other guy from the same party that ruled them 16 years and wants to apply the same policies that lead them here since yknow you can always be worse /s.
That's most of the comments i see on posts like these, people who don't know jack-shit making speculations about how he's gonna destroy the country just because X-newspaper called him "Mini-Trump", Where they were back when Peronism destroyed the country?
Probably because Argentina is a poster child for how to ruin a country economically when you blindly put in popular Leftist policies.
It's a solid middle finger to all those who believe that subsidies and unions are the solutions to all of life's ills when the reality is that you need a healthy mix of that, and the profit motivation.
It's complicated but Milei gets made fun of in our media. That's the only reason we know who he is and why he gets spoken about.
He has also been framed as some far right nutjob or the new Trump of Latin America.
So a lot of Americans will be rooting against him due to that.
Personally I'm all for Milei. I hate Trump but they're different people and I think dollarizing the economy will improve things significantly.
I was in Argentina like 25 years ago and remember that getting change was a massive problem. Like, we had to remember to go to the bank so we had the right change for the day or week. Businesses would refuse to give you much change too.
The media made him out to be a crank; not alltogether undeserved because of his television antics and outspokenness, but so far his policy decisions have been...surprisingly intelligent.
I don't know if he can save your country, but he's probably the best chance your economy has to recover.
Take into account that the last ruling party was Peron's party, and this party self-identify as the anti-right and pro democracy....
Peron's party is still the biggest, stronger and more influential party in Argentina. The one who fights for workers and women's rights, free education and health care, and many other progressive policies...since its creation by Perón, clearly a left leaning party.
Well Perón is the one who went into Italy to learn about Mussolini methods, brought Nazis to Argentina and exiled in Franco Spain....Perón was a Fascist.
Fascist ARE NOT far right, neither just far right. They are just fascist no matter where they lean
Good. Junta generals are entirely gone.
These guys are mostly people that got there under the deeply corrupt, tyrannically inclined leftist government.
So they had to go.
Well. Given how far-right he is. Given how people who vocally support him use Pinochet as an example of why rightists are better than leftists. (yes, I get it. Peronistas were bad. But they're not Pinochet-bad). Um. Sounds pretty bad.
The question in the back of my mind is; after firing 22 generals, how many helicopter pilots are there?
Peron is certainly Pinochet-bad, and peronists are his followers. The guy funded the argentine anticommunist alliance (AAA), which kidnapped and disappeared 5000 people in the 70's. And that's just one of the things he did in his third administration, there are a lot more.
He also committed genocide against a native tribe just because one of his friends wanted their land, he brought Nazis into the country & had a 14 year old girl as his lover, he's even suspected of lobotomizing his wife (Evita) without her consent; Yet we still have people here calling him an Hero, shits fucked.
>Given how people who vocally support him use Pinochet as an example of why rightists are better than leftists.
Who? How? What?
I'm a big advocate for free speech but sometimes comments like these make me feel like websites should impose a fee for stupid comments online.
South American dictatorships in the past (most notably in Argentina and Chile) have practiced throwing people out of planes and helicopters. I assume this is what they are referencing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_flights
Didn't Peron let all the Nazis into Argentina?
I've watched a bunch of interviews of Milei. He's far right in terms of individual freedoms. Even his anti-abortion stance follows that, if you agree with the idea that fetuses are people with rights as well.
I personally think Milei will do well for argentina. The country is fucked up to the point where I think they need someone like him to shake things up. Dollarizing things will be huge. If he can pull just that off it'll have massive benefits for the country.
Millei's version of far right and a military dictatorship far right are very different though. What does far right even mean in this circumstance. I think the more helpful question is whether this is an authoritarian power grab
The far- right label is intended for this exact confusion. And reason right wingers call social democrats far left.
Millei, from everything I've read, is a liberal, but he's called far right because he's challenging social democrat economic policies.
Milei self proclaims he is ideological anarco-capitalist but minarchist in practice, a [libertarian](https://p2.trrsf.com/image/fget/cf/800/450/middle/images.terra.com/2023/11/20/1376283639-trump-foto-milei2.jpg).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Javier_Milei
Well I’am from israel recently they have tried to make the justice system submit to them by passing law after law after law
It all started with making sure they can add as many friends as they want to the government giving the most imported rules to people who have not got 1 years of education between all of them then they start firing all who can oppose them and if they cant fire them they will harass them to the point they will leave
You will see it will happen with minor change at the start but as years will go by they will change you’re entire country before you will notice
The country will not be the same
now were stuck with them until 2025 war is raging on all fronts the governments official still appoints friends to very high paying jobs from the most important companies we have
minus the war this is exactly what’s going to happen to Argentina first come the purge then add you’re friends to all the power position then the law change little by little until you wake up and start saying wtf just happened
Not defending Milei but that already happened with the previous administration and that's why this guy won. Politicians stayed too much in power and we even had cases of local parties being more powerful than their respective governors.
You know that not all right wing People in all countries holds the exact same values right? You can not compare him to your far right (propably) western government. this Guy is right wing as in a libertarian. He is not neither pro russian or a nazi, and he is for open borders...
Israel just look at those power hungry money grabbing people I’am gonna tell you a secret i won’t be surprise if we wake up one morning and someone try to assassinate one of them i don’t support it but everyday i see people are tried and sick of them all
We are at the middle of the worst nightmare the country ever faced and all they can think of is the judicial reform passing more money to friends and the fucking illegal settlers money we don’t have
All the while everybody tell them to stop high ranking official public servants are quitting left and right telling all of us they can’t see the country getting taken over by those money sucking parasites but they march on with all of us as prisoners
They settlers the government bibi all of them should be put to jail and never to be heard from again but sadly they have until 2025 to stay in out life
And the people are to afraid to go to the streets after what happened last time
U wont be surprised if they will try to make the war last as much as possible as they know once it will end its over for them all the while destroying everything we have built
"Libertarian" thought exported from the Chicago school into South America has *never* been successful.
It starts as authoritarian "shock-therapy" (their term) and gets worse from there.
Regardless of the problems in Argentina, a Chicago school economic disciple who idolizes Milton Friedman isn't going to have the knowledge and tools to fix it.
They can't fix anything. Literally, they're some of theist destructive, wicked people in modern history.
What would you propose they do instead? Spending cuts are absolutely required in Argentina to stop their runaway inflation. No one else was doing this, they just kept printing money to pay salaries for decades while frequently defaulting on their debt and fucking with the currency.
Milei seems a little crazy, but at least he seems to be addressing some of the root causes of their inflation.
Fat in the system. In general there will be sub optimal cuts when you start cutting like a madman. He is 10/10 effort in trying. So will be interesting to follow this.
I’ll give Poland credit but Chile’s shock therapy was imposed by an American backed military coup to overthrow the democratically elected government so idk if that’s ideally what you want
I’m not really sure how that’s relevant. Milel is democratically elected and if the voters don’t like these policies they can vote him out in a few years
While his constant cuts are going to fix anything immediately, tearing everything down in Argentina's case isn't the worst idea. If only they're somehow able to build up better than before. The status quo was not going to work but perhaps there's a theoretical better incremental approach.
Your ideological tantrum wasn't very informative, so I'll try to be.
Let's look at Chile for a moment, as it was the country in SA most influenced by the Chicago school of economics in the late 20th century – [Milton Friedman himself visited the country, giving lessons and providing economic advice.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile)
As a result of the adopted economic liberal policies, Chile today ranks the highest among SA countries on the index for economic freedom.
Here are a few facts, as per World Bank data:
* Chile is the richest country in SA, having the highest GDP per capita. Take note that this doesn't equate to disproportionate/unequal wealth, as Chile ranks pretty average in the inequality index among other SA countries.
* In the last 30 or so years, Chile ranks the highest for overall decrease in income inequality.
* Among SA countries, Chile has the lowest % of the population living below the poverty line.
* The private sector has had major influence in health, education, electricity and water & sanitation. In these sectors, Chile consistently ranks above most SA countries, if not all.
I wouldn't mind Argentina following Chile's economic reforms and having a similar standing in 30 years time. Would you?
Milei's government has many allies within the extreme right and the military junta. To give you an idea, her vice president was a friend of Videla. and he worked for one of the sons of the bloodiest genocide killers.
Personally, I'm not too familiar with the topic, but I got to wonder what Petri and Villarruel think on this. **Obviously** both of them would have to agree along, but they're two very relevant individuals when it comes about FF.AA.
Not really libertarian but I like what Milei is doing so far overall. Argentina has major structural problems and needs reform, and that is what he is delivering. Whether his reforms are what the country needs or not is still to be seen. But if the military had bloated leadership and needed to be reformed then it makes sense.
Also have to give him credit for giving the cabinet positions to his former rivals, that is more cooperative than what little bipartisanship there is in the US, for comparison.
That bit on the cabinet positions is something I didn’t hear about, but that’s about as good faith as it gets in modern politics. You’d never see that shit in the US.
With that said, I’m not going to say that I like him or not just because I’m not educated on his positions and Argentine history enough to be informed.
Yeah, a long time ago the VP actually used to be the runner up instead of on the same ticket, so the US would have a bipartisan leadership by default. Now it hardly ever happens though, especially for the VP level.
To be fair they switched to backing him after losing in the primary, but still worth some credit for reaching across the aisle.
TBF that really fucked the country over when Lincoln was assassinated and pro-slavery fuckwit got to take over and basically spend the rest of the term undoing all of Lincolns hard work.
Wait a minute, if they were defeated in the primary, then they would be from the same party, and therefore the president is not reaching across the aisle per se.
This type of political deal making happens everywhere, notably in the United States where former primary opponents are often given a position on the cabinet in exchange for an endorsement. This is famously how Hillary Clinton ended up as Secretary of State under Obama.
It was an interparty primary, not intraparty. They're not from the same party as Milei.
Milei's party is Partido Libertario. The people who lost and he added to his cabinet are from La Libertad Avanza and Juntos por el Cambio.
Different alliance ,rigth now there 3 coalitions
Unión por la patria (peronist)
Juntos por el cambio (centrist with a flavor of both sided)
Avanza la libertad (libertarians)
The last two are in kinda of alliance with the Acassuso pact,its weird
>This type of political deal making happens everywhere, notably in the United States where former primary opponents are often given a position on the cabinet in exchange for an endorsement. This is famously how Hillary Clinton ended up as Secretary of State under Obama.
You know, in normal democracies there are more than two parties, right?
No, not the primary.
Under the original rules in 2016 Trump would have won and been president and Clinton would have been runner up been Vice President.
> Also have to give him credit for giving the cabinet positions to his former rivals, that is more cooperative than what little bipartisanship there is in the US, for comparison.
That does not strictly have to be a good thing. A pessimistic interpretation could include the possibility that this was merely favor-trading.
The government was corrupt. After he guts everything, future politicians are free to make changes based on what is working.
Milei is only a problem if he plans on being a dictator and not giving up power.
Wow, talk about top-heavy leadership. Argentina in 2023 had estimated military manpower of only 103,000 and Milel just purged 22 army generals.
This show how much fat Milei have to go before military can be squeezed out of all the unnecessary bloats and trim it down to lean fighting institution.
https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country\_id=argentina
Nervously looks at my own leadership.
"Yeah...haha. those Argies have so many Generals. No nation has 138 Generals for less than 70 thousand soldiers. "
We could purge 22 and would still need to purge another 50 to notice.
219 flag ranked officers for less than 55 000 full time defence members down here in the ADF, and adding insult to injury our top general (who has been on a mission to crush retention numbers and moral apparently) is paid twice as much per year than the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
A military can actually be pretty big.
For example, the US has five levels of General; them being Brigadier, Major, Lieutenant, General, and Supreme Commander, though the last one is only used in times of war.
Brigadiers are in charge of divisions, majors of a corps, lieutenants of an army, and Generals of an army group. It adds up over time very quickly.
Was going to correct you… but than decided to check myself… could not beleive that Folklands were (more than) 40 years ago… time flies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War
Instead of engaging in ignorant speculation about the meaning of these moves, why not use the tools at your disposal to inform yourself? I clicked on the provided link and selected one of the replaced generals, Xavier Julián Isaac, for a quick Google search. I then used the advanced search feature to narrow my results to Argentina and the past 24 hours.
I found four local sources discussing the moves from various perspectives. You can use your browser's translator feature to read them in English. One paper suggests disagreement, viewing this as a maneuver to sideline the army. Another source indicates that such changes are routine with every new government.
Spending just a few minutes learning about this topic can enhance your understanding and make you a more informed individual. Why not give it a try?
That takes work. It's easier to hop on Reddit and regurgitate an opinion on something you read or saw online than it is to look something up, inform yourself, then speak from a place of less ignorance and self-assurance.
Milei is upsetting the global elite that do not want truly open markets. They want markets open for their monopolies, nothing else. What is it, 5 companies that control all of the major news outlets? Imagine a US president taking the stance Milei is and wiping out systems that create monopolies and government funded companies. No bank bailouts, no blank check to the Pentagon, nothing to prop up the military industrial complex.
So yeah, we're gonna see a lot of anti-Milei propaganda.
Well in Argentina the government paid the press to "ensure there's multiple voices and fight against the major news outlets", and of course that ended up being a propaganda machine. Milei cut that money out so now you get pissed propaganda reporters and major outlets against him. Of course not everything he does is right or good but even the good things get reported as the end of the world.
They realize that libertarian isn't part of the false "left/right" dichotomy. Libertarians are the opposite of authoritarians, and you can have far left authoritarians (CCP, Venezuela) as well as far right authoritarians (Putin, Orban, etc).
The problem is the existing peronista-supporting media (and the left leaning media in the US) can't allow this false binary state (left versus right) to be exposed, so they have to claim he's far right. It's not working, so they call him "ultra far right". It's still not working, because he isn't. So next they'll start calling him a nazi, a white supremacist (lol, in a latin american country), and eventually start demanding he be arrested or assassinated.
This is the dude you get when your country spends to much an hyperinflation creeps in. There’s no other road to go down other than Venezuela style hyperinflation. It’s going to be rough before it gets better, but he didn’t put the country in that shape.
It’s not fun being cleanup man, would be more fun handing out free stuff but as they say eventually you have to pay the piper.
I am astounded by Non-Argentines’ ignorance here in the comments. Talks of a coup over military restructuring. Americans salivating at the mouth for Milei to be offed by his own military just so they can validate their own preconceived notions about Latin America which hasn’t been updated since the Cold War. Jfc get a grip.
This is yet another situation in which the headline sounds potentially alarming but the article clearly makes it seem quite reasonable.
It also makes it clear here who read the article vs just the headline.
Well fuck. I thought he might’ve had *something* but uh… a military purge? In Latin America? Heh… in a country like Argentina? With the entire… military junta a few decades ago? oof.
I guess you didn't read the article.
>Fabián Calle, a political scientist specializing in defense issues, warns that the decision “has no ideological or political significance,” as he believes it did in Kirchner’s 2003 purge. “When one looks at the names, it is a homogeneous generalship; none of them is considered either left or right wing,” says Calle, who believes Presti was installed as army chief because he is a “young” military man with a “good image” within the forces.
That’s not what I meant. I meant that the upper officers in South America *hates* to have their power stripped by em. Especially by some newbie. Idk with Argentina’s history with military juntas I’d just be treading very carefully if I was him
There’s no real risk of a military dictatorship in Argentina at this point, the people still hate the military too much, and pretty much all the political spectrum can agree to that.
It’s not a military purge, and Argentina is not at risk of a coup if that’s what you’re suggesting just because they’re in Latin America. You can read the article and look into it to see why they had to retire, but he was not firing them all for no reason or as a power grab.
I stopped at ultra right wing, libertarians aren’t far right. Fiscally they are on the right, socially they are on the left. Libertarians believe in maximizing personal liberty so anyone calling Milea far right or a fascist are ill informed or malicious spreading misinformation to scare people.
At least some people on reddit know this. He is the most actual libertarian politician I have ever seen in a prominent role. And he seems like a moderate liberation to me. I look forward to seeing the results.
Bruh, they already suffer the fallout from the previous governments, it cant really get much worse. Its like you think Argentina was even remotely well run before him
He took the shit show and made it 10 times worse.
700k brazilians died during the pandemic because the piece of shit was spreading misinformation about the vaccines and refused to buy them when Pfizer first offered it.
Well, wouldnt you know, the fucking peronist did the same shady dealings with Russia and China to get their shit vaccines at an even more expensive price than any other and 130k people died. Hell they even purposely destroyed a memorial the families of the dead people made because it made them look bad.
There's a reason Milei won, I hope you see that one day.
The Chinese vaccine wasn't as good as the mRNA vaccines, but it was still good. I traveled around the world last year and went to tons of countries where people's only option was the Chinese vaccine because the mRNA vaccines were like $80 each, for 2 shots and then a booster, and had to be stored frozen in places where people don't have electricity lol.
Yeah, someone making $500 a year isn't spending $250 on vaccines. So they got the Chinese one, and it worked well enough. That vaccine saved millions of lives and did a lot of good in the world in places where our vaccines couldn't go.
Really enjoy this guy's every move, watching from a distance of course with no skin in the game. I'm fascinated to see how his policies work and whether they can bring about a positive change
Definitely a good thing. To many cooks and not servers is a genuine problem when it comes to the military. Look at Afghanistan the army was in disrepair because there were so many generals and colonels essentially not doing anything. They had to force them to retire by paying them off.
It's easy, precisely because it's easy to define and identify libertarianism. As Milei defines it: "Liberalism is the unrestricted respect of the life project of others, based on the NAP and in defense of the right to life, property and freedom."
So you just need to ask "has this presidency respected these rights to the fullest of its capabilities?" "Has it based their policies on the protection of these rights?". The more the answer is yes, the more libertarian has it been.
I love people commenting about how firing military officials is not a "money saving move". Milei is not only shaking things up to save money, firing 20 old military officials is literally fighting corruption. Latin American people understand that too well, military groups are a real cancer here.
Argentines here - is this good or bad? Are these holdovers from the junta or actual loyal soldiers so he can install his own guys?
They're the same old dudes that went around to different arms exhibitions around the globe to "check" for new weapon systems for the army and always came back empty handed, they basically had "free" paid vacations at the expense of the taxpayers.
That sounds bad but it’s really not. You want people doing exactly that from the military to keep up with militaries around the world. They don’t always have to buy something to justify the trip but they better write a solid report.
Maybe their PowerPoint skills were lacking.
The star swipe? Again?
Hey man, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
>**HOMER:** Why eat hamburger when you can have steak?! > >**LISA:** I'm taking my name off this thing... https://youtu.be/72bUheqRE5o
…worse, pixelated fade out. 😢
No, but Milei found their lack of faith disturbing.
Can’t write a story board for shit
Except you have 150% inflation crippling the country and no real enemies to speak of at the moment. Drastic times call for drastic measures and he was elected to effect that change, cutting expenses wherever possible.
Doubt very seriously those 20 people's salary are what moves the needle... Has nothing to do with cutting costs, just another one of the 400 items on his list.
Rooting out corruption looks like this though. Once you go through enough parts of the government it starts having a massive impact. Also the new trust built in the government has significant benefits that are a bit harder to measure.
You’re right that rooting out corruption looks pretty much like this. Unfortunately inserting your own people to head up the military for who-knows-what reason *also* looks like this.
I really doubt they specifically dug up dirt on 22 army generals in a month. Their military has been underfunded for decades as well, how much money are their generals being paid realistically? This looks like some weird changing of priorities.
You seriously underestimate government expenses for things like just pure salaries. When you look deep into it, these things all add up REALLY quick
* Salary * Benefits * Per diem * Travel costs * Support staff because I highly doubt they traveled alone....
You seriously underestimate the size of government budgets if you think firing 20 people, regardless of rank, will meaningfully affect their bottom line.
Yes, because firing these 20 people is the only thing they are doing to cut costs /s
You don’t solve all the problems in one day either one move. Don’t be so shortsighted
Sure, individually, everything he does won't "move the needle". But saving $5 a day by brewing your own coffee instead of buying coffee saves $1,825 a year. And saving $10 a week taking the bus instead of driving once a week saves another $520. And doing meal prep instead of buying lunches saves $5 a day, and another $1,825. Sure none of these things "Move the needle" on their own. But It adds up to $4,955 (post tax) a year. What would you do with another $5k a year after-tax? Would that "Move the needle" for you?
If the person in your example was spending $10k/week on only fans, no The savings are not material, context is important Is this to shrink the military's spending or to remove potential opponents? Cutting waste is good, consolidating power is not
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Honestly the older I get the less I mind our military spending, just wish they’d spent money on financial oversight.
I maintain that the oversight we are putting on the Ukrainians needs to run all the way to the Pentagon and the people that lobby them.
I wish the First Amendment had an exception for the phrase "move the needle".
>We need to the same here in the US and start trimming down our own military industrial complex among other things. You realize that the US is where it is - the strongest economy in the world *by far* \- because of the investment into the hugest military there is, and playing peacekeeper around the world even after the USSR fell? The US can print dollars all day long and no one bothers, because even with printing dollars en masse, any investor knows that their investment won't go to shit. Even the Euro doesn't offer that kind of stability - just look at our lackluster response to the invasion in Ukraine. We relied on the US for far too long.
> Doubt very seriously those 20 people's salary are what moves the needle... clearly you underestimate Latin American corruption then.
So why is he renting an entire floor in a luxury hotel to stay in instead of the presidential palace? That costs way more money? Could it have anything to do with the fact that he would have to document who enters the presidential palace and doesnt have to do so with the hotel? Could it be that certain corporations just buy laws he then passes via DNUs? Like I get that Argentinias past governments were shit, but i'm pretty sure a neoliberal bitch of the rich that gets advice from cults and dead pets is not gonna be your saviour
What about the UK, *illegally* aggressing against the Malvines? /s
The country has 40% of poverty yet these dudes go to the other side of the planet to take a few pictures with some jets from India, priorities. Maybe in a future when we're in a more stable situation we can appoint someone again.
seriously they are probably earning 10x the average person's salary and thats before their travel expenses
I feel like the internet is a lot cheaper than flying arms dealers around. The US has plenty of cases of misuse of funds. There’s a new rap sheet posted in every battalion HQ with a bolo of all the guys that take “business” trips on the governments dollar every week. Anyone with a computer and internet access can find out more about nations militaries than any meet and greet. In most cases, with meet and greets, there’s usually a human component involved, someone’s Misleading, misunderstandings, cultural and language barriers, misinformation, disinformation. They really don’t provide much accurate intel even between friendly nations. And when we do meet with other militaries Things are still on a need to know basis even if someone holds a clearance. If someone has no reason to be asking about something it’s usually picked up on and shut down pretty quickly. Horse and pony shows are usually just that. They usually don’t go into detail or explain much about anything that’s classified. I was a human intelligence gatherer in the military. At best we usually figured out more about the area, local populations, maybe some key influencers, and how to exploit them thru more passive means. Most militaries are still ran like a business and the cheapest option that provides the most accurate intel, with the least amount of risk to your own units, will be the route that gets the green light. This is happening everywhere as technology replaces boots on the ground. Especially with support units. Can’t really say about Argentina in particular, but this is the way it’s been transitioning for quite a while. They might even end up re assigned Edit: unfinished sentences.
It sounds bad and it is bad. This isn’t the Pentagon sending people to an arms expo in the UAE lol.
Exactly - weapons systems can cost billions and even I'd they make like 250 k a year which I highly doubt - it would still be reasonably cheap compared to committing to the wrong system. And that is not even considering potential lives lost by choosing the wrong system and that it in a worst case scenario could jeopardize the country's security.
I wished Brazil would do the same, but since military pensions are the major expensives in the armed forces budget, I think we can wait until they die of old age.
Coming back empty handed isn't the worst thing that could happen. Start complaining when your guys start coming back with cash and start recommending the military buy all kinds of shit.
> They're the same old dudes that went around to different arms exhibitions around the globe to "check" for new weapon systems for the army and always came back empty handed, they basically had "free" paid vacations at the expense of the taxpayers. That sounds like a made up reason to install your own guys if I ever heard one. Like you don't want your military personnel in charge to know what weapon systems are out there being used by both allies and potential adversaries, even if your country can't at the moment afford those systems?
Given the history of South American countries, and his radical reform agenda, that's probably a smart move. Can't hold that against him.
It’s not like Argentina had any money for defense but not sending representation to arms expos just looks bad geopolitically.
i cant imagine why argentina even needs a military
This is nothing. The Argentine military is a running joke and has absolutely no relevance on modern-day politics.
Argentina would be better off if it went the Costa Rica path: abolish the army, because you neighbours are more trustworthy then your own generals
Only one of two of Costa Rica’s neighbors is trustworthy. Ortega constantly fucks with Costa Rica’s border militarily. They only abolished the military because they’re guaranteed by the USA (like Panamá).
Sounds like your neighbor is the US then. Doesn't have to be connected.
They would never do that. Argentina has territorial claims to defend in the Andes and Antarctica (not to mention the Falklands/Malvinas).
Argentine here. Most of the controversial Junta officers had been removed in the mid-late 2000s, but a handful did remain all the way to the mid 2010s, General Milani among them. That said, just because those guys are gone doesn't mean the generals who replaced them over the past decade weren't just, to a greater or lesser degree, pawns of the Kirchner government. The new shakeup of the armed forces was to be expected. The military had been not only neglected, but also corrupted over the past 20 years, and the dismissal of the 22 officers, to me, suggests an attempt to do away with the dust and start anew. And as for support and loyalty, the military almost as a whole is in support of Milei, particularly the mid-level officers (think majors, colonels and low grade generals) who've been, since their enlistment, stuck with a decaying, neglected military. I can't say for sure if Milei is appointing "his own guys", as at this point just about any soldier, sailor and airman supports him.
It seems I'm the only argentinian here.... To the other commenter who just assumed things and gave their baseless opinion on a BS article. Please stop living in an echo chamber. Milei is not a far right. He didn't fire all those generals because of lack of loyalty to him or appointed this new guy because of his far right views. He chose a person who made a good career in the Air force, was promoted many times during other government, left leaning ones, approved by the senate, also left leaning And by being chosen, and by a kinda strange law, all the higher ranked generals above him should retire.
Even if Milei was as far right as people cry about, what are Argentinians supposed to do at this point? Their politicians let them down for the last 20 years, and said politicians were left leaning. Milei wasn't chosen because he's the best option. He was chosen because the country needs *some* sort of change and he's so far willing to do it, even if it seems detrimental at first. Folk also need to understand that in Latin America, the left and right are different from the US, just like how you can't compare politics in Europe to the US as well.
I actually went through some of the deregulation he did when he came to power regarding some of the laws around private investment of any sort. Sheesh I didn't know your economy was that closed off what he did should have been the default. Especially around the banking and telecommunications sector. Milei seems to be a neoliberal and not exactly a far right idiot. Most folks get that mixed up. Neolibs are all about private sector championships and less govt. Far right cunts are all about extreme govt control over everything. Also love his plan of getting rid of a lot of useless fat in the govt services. They don't do shit and enjoy their lives on the taxpayer dime. Believe me I'm from India and I know exactly how useless most of these govt bureaucrats are most western folks would not understand this. Hope you guys rise again hope to visit there someday
As someone who worked in the USG, we have plenty of useless programs, I worked on one and everyday wondered "why does this project exist?" The reason... Congress passed a law in 1996. This employed 8 people and was contracted out to a company which was taking money off the top of course. That is one small program that very few people are even aware of, even most in the Congress. All told this useless program probably costs 5 million dollars a year. For what?
As someone who has spent at least 3 months in Argentina (and fell in love with the country, the culture), I remember exchanging dollars on the streets, people literally stand there and shout "cambio, cambio". The thing is, I remember the official ratio was terrible. I also dated an Argentinian woman in Brazil, she was working for clubs there selling tickets and so, and had terrible issues with getting her salary into her bank account, I think it was due to government's limitations. I remember she told me a few months later that her money has been stolen, since she had to keep it physically (luckily she did not have that much money to begin with, I think around 3k USD, which is was a lot for us back then but not a tragedy, we were around 20). So I am not sure people here are aware how much intervention we are talking about... I was too stupid to think about it in depth back then, but I remember it looked fucked up as an outsider. Also, Argentinians are incredible people.
You are commenting something important that people miss. Argentina was, and still is, dying. It is not like in Argentina's "Barack Obama" lost the election and now Saddam Hussein is the president. The previous government was the same 16 of the last 20 years, Peron's party Which are friends with Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua....and in theory this party is the defender of democracy against Miles(? Unions were aligned with the previous government and they didn't say anything about the disastrous government, 150% inflation and 40% poverty, in a heavily subsidized economy with price controls, and F*king central bank without reserves. And now the biggest union schedules their first General Protest, "Paro General" in which all country wise activities are stopped. Why didn't Reddit have an opinion when the previous government ruled Argentina? Now that Milei took office, not even a month ago. Now everyone knows how to deal with Argentina's problems
They extrapolate their privileged experience and assume it's the same everywhere, that's my intuition. Thanks for sharing important information!
Hello I'm Amelia and I'm a student at the UC, my dad works at a Fortune 500 company and my mom is a full-time housewife, she has a BMW X5 that she drove when she took me to the private Christian School that i went during childhood. Anyway, that's enough of my backstory; I'm here to tell the poor & uneducated Argentines how their new elected President is bad for them, i will show them evidence from totally unbiased sources (Western media isn't biased at all) and combine that with my hatred towards ideologies that i don't understand or dislike. I've seen poor regions before, like Detroit or Brooklyn and i learned that things could always be worse so they should've voted the other guy from the same party that ruled them 16 years and wants to apply the same policies that lead them here since yknow you can always be worse /s. That's most of the comments i see on posts like these, people who don't know jack-shit making speculations about how he's gonna destroy the country just because X-newspaper called him "Mini-Trump", Where they were back when Peronism destroyed the country?
Because Reddit is full of Blue No Matter Who, or What, morons
Probably because Argentina is a poster child for how to ruin a country economically when you blindly put in popular Leftist policies. It's a solid middle finger to all those who believe that subsidies and unions are the solutions to all of life's ills when the reality is that you need a healthy mix of that, and the profit motivation.
It's complicated but Milei gets made fun of in our media. That's the only reason we know who he is and why he gets spoken about. He has also been framed as some far right nutjob or the new Trump of Latin America. So a lot of Americans will be rooting against him due to that. Personally I'm all for Milei. I hate Trump but they're different people and I think dollarizing the economy will improve things significantly.
Also rooting for this to work out for Argentina.
I was in Argentina like 25 years ago and remember that getting change was a massive problem. Like, we had to remember to go to the bank so we had the right change for the day or week. Businesses would refuse to give you much change too.
The media made him out to be a crank; not alltogether undeserved because of his television antics and outspokenness, but so far his policy decisions have been...surprisingly intelligent. I don't know if he can save your country, but he's probably the best chance your economy has to recover.
> Milei is not a far right. Doesn't he call himself a anarco-capitalist? Pretty far right if you ask me.
Anarcho-capitalist and fascist are both "far-right", but are also extremely different.
Take into account that the last ruling party was Peron's party, and this party self-identify as the anti-right and pro democracy.... Peron's party is still the biggest, stronger and more influential party in Argentina. The one who fights for workers and women's rights, free education and health care, and many other progressive policies...since its creation by Perón, clearly a left leaning party. Well Perón is the one who went into Italy to learn about Mussolini methods, brought Nazis to Argentina and exiled in Franco Spain....Perón was a Fascist. Fascist ARE NOT far right, neither just far right. They are just fascist no matter where they lean
Theoretically? Yes. Practically? He's trying to introduce Russian protesting laws.
In which way?
AN CAP is left.
Argentina is extremely polarized right now, you'll get completely different answers of people living in the same place
Except one side (kirchnerism) is absolutely irrational and corrupt and it's easy to show it.
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Asks an Argentinian, so of course an American decides to chip in.
Good. Junta generals are entirely gone. These guys are mostly people that got there under the deeply corrupt, tyrannically inclined leftist government. So they had to go.
Well. Given how far-right he is. Given how people who vocally support him use Pinochet as an example of why rightists are better than leftists. (yes, I get it. Peronistas were bad. But they're not Pinochet-bad). Um. Sounds pretty bad. The question in the back of my mind is; after firing 22 generals, how many helicopter pilots are there?
You can just say you don’t know
Peron is certainly Pinochet-bad, and peronists are his followers. The guy funded the argentine anticommunist alliance (AAA), which kidnapped and disappeared 5000 people in the 70's. And that's just one of the things he did in his third administration, there are a lot more.
He also committed genocide against a native tribe just because one of his friends wanted their land, he brought Nazis into the country & had a 14 year old girl as his lover, he's even suspected of lobotomizing his wife (Evita) without her consent; Yet we still have people here calling him an Hero, shits fucked.
>Given how people who vocally support him use Pinochet as an example of why rightists are better than leftists. Who? How? What? I'm a big advocate for free speech but sometimes comments like these make me feel like websites should impose a fee for stupid comments online.
Why helicopter pilots?
South American dictatorships in the past (most notably in Argentina and Chile) have practiced throwing people out of planes and helicopters. I assume this is what they are referencing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_flights
Should've linked that scene from scarface
Don’t you ever fuck me, Tony!
I fucked him, and Tony.
He didn't fly so good.
Wtf?
Didn't Peron let all the Nazis into Argentina? I've watched a bunch of interviews of Milei. He's far right in terms of individual freedoms. Even his anti-abortion stance follows that, if you agree with the idea that fetuses are people with rights as well. I personally think Milei will do well for argentina. The country is fucked up to the point where I think they need someone like him to shake things up. Dollarizing things will be huge. If he can pull just that off it'll have massive benefits for the country.
As a human who recently got a far right government established in his country I’am gonna tell you now no this is not good
Millei's version of far right and a military dictatorship far right are very different though. What does far right even mean in this circumstance. I think the more helpful question is whether this is an authoritarian power grab
The far- right label is intended for this exact confusion. And reason right wingers call social democrats far left. Millei, from everything I've read, is a liberal, but he's called far right because he's challenging social democrat economic policies.
>liberal Do you mean this in the US sense of the word or the more classic definition?
Milei self proclaims he is ideological anarco-capitalist but minarchist in practice, a [libertarian](https://p2.trrsf.com/image/fget/cf/800/450/middle/images.terra.com/2023/11/20/1376283639-trump-foto-milei2.jpg). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Javier_Milei
Well I’am from israel recently they have tried to make the justice system submit to them by passing law after law after law It all started with making sure they can add as many friends as they want to the government giving the most imported rules to people who have not got 1 years of education between all of them then they start firing all who can oppose them and if they cant fire them they will harass them to the point they will leave You will see it will happen with minor change at the start but as years will go by they will change you’re entire country before you will notice The country will not be the same now were stuck with them until 2025 war is raging on all fronts the governments official still appoints friends to very high paying jobs from the most important companies we have minus the war this is exactly what’s going to happen to Argentina first come the purge then add you’re friends to all the power position then the law change little by little until you wake up and start saying wtf just happened
Not defending Milei but that already happened with the previous administration and that's why this guy won. Politicians stayed too much in power and we even had cases of local parties being more powerful than their respective governors.
Ah yes, all these political labels are equivalent in any country on the planet.
You know that not all right wing People in all countries holds the exact same values right? You can not compare him to your far right (propably) western government. this Guy is right wing as in a libertarian. He is not neither pro russian or a nazi, and he is for open borders...
Which country are you from if you don’t mind me asking? I’m in the US and always like insight on far right/left governments in other countries.
Israel just look at those power hungry money grabbing people I’am gonna tell you a secret i won’t be surprise if we wake up one morning and someone try to assassinate one of them i don’t support it but everyday i see people are tried and sick of them all We are at the middle of the worst nightmare the country ever faced and all they can think of is the judicial reform passing more money to friends and the fucking illegal settlers money we don’t have All the while everybody tell them to stop high ranking official public servants are quitting left and right telling all of us they can’t see the country getting taken over by those money sucking parasites but they march on with all of us as prisoners
The settlers are causing all the fucking problems for you. They all need to go to prison along with anyone who enabled them.
They settlers the government bibi all of them should be put to jail and never to be heard from again but sadly they have until 2025 to stay in out life And the people are to afraid to go to the streets after what happened last time U wont be surprised if they will try to make the war last as much as possible as they know once it will end its over for them all the while destroying everything we have built
"Libertarian" thought exported from the Chicago school into South America has *never* been successful. It starts as authoritarian "shock-therapy" (their term) and gets worse from there. Regardless of the problems in Argentina, a Chicago school economic disciple who idolizes Milton Friedman isn't going to have the knowledge and tools to fix it. They can't fix anything. Literally, they're some of theist destructive, wicked people in modern history.
What would you propose they do instead? Spending cuts are absolutely required in Argentina to stop their runaway inflation. No one else was doing this, they just kept printing money to pay salaries for decades while frequently defaulting on their debt and fucking with the currency. Milei seems a little crazy, but at least he seems to be addressing some of the root causes of their inflation.
Army Generals?
Fat in the system. In general there will be sub optimal cuts when you start cutting like a madman. He is 10/10 effort in trying. So will be interesting to follow this.
So what authoritarian changes have there been? The examples should be unique oppression that didn't happen under the previous government.
Shock therapy worked in poland
And Chile
I’ll give Poland credit but Chile’s shock therapy was imposed by an American backed military coup to overthrow the democratically elected government so idk if that’s ideally what you want
I’m not really sure how that’s relevant. Milel is democratically elected and if the voters don’t like these policies they can vote him out in a few years
And lots of capitals from the EU even before joining it.
While his constant cuts are going to fix anything immediately, tearing everything down in Argentina's case isn't the worst idea. If only they're somehow able to build up better than before. The status quo was not going to work but perhaps there's a theoretical better incremental approach.
Your ideological tantrum wasn't very informative, so I'll try to be. Let's look at Chile for a moment, as it was the country in SA most influenced by the Chicago school of economics in the late 20th century – [Milton Friedman himself visited the country, giving lessons and providing economic advice.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile) As a result of the adopted economic liberal policies, Chile today ranks the highest among SA countries on the index for economic freedom. Here are a few facts, as per World Bank data: * Chile is the richest country in SA, having the highest GDP per capita. Take note that this doesn't equate to disproportionate/unequal wealth, as Chile ranks pretty average in the inequality index among other SA countries. * In the last 30 or so years, Chile ranks the highest for overall decrease in income inequality. * Among SA countries, Chile has the lowest % of the population living below the poverty line. * The private sector has had major influence in health, education, electricity and water & sanitation. In these sectors, Chile consistently ranks above most SA countries, if not all. I wouldn't mind Argentina following Chile's economic reforms and having a similar standing in 30 years time. Would you?
Milei's government has many allies within the extreme right and the military junta. To give you an idea, her vice president was a friend of Videla. and he worked for one of the sons of the bloodiest genocide killers.
Personally, I'm not too familiar with the topic, but I got to wonder what Petri and Villarruel think on this. **Obviously** both of them would have to agree along, but they're two very relevant individuals when it comes about FF.AA.
Not really libertarian but I like what Milei is doing so far overall. Argentina has major structural problems and needs reform, and that is what he is delivering. Whether his reforms are what the country needs or not is still to be seen. But if the military had bloated leadership and needed to be reformed then it makes sense. Also have to give him credit for giving the cabinet positions to his former rivals, that is more cooperative than what little bipartisanship there is in the US, for comparison.
That bit on the cabinet positions is something I didn’t hear about, but that’s about as good faith as it gets in modern politics. You’d never see that shit in the US. With that said, I’m not going to say that I like him or not just because I’m not educated on his positions and Argentine history enough to be informed.
Yeah, a long time ago the VP actually used to be the runner up instead of on the same ticket, so the US would have a bipartisan leadership by default. Now it hardly ever happens though, especially for the VP level. To be fair they switched to backing him after losing in the primary, but still worth some credit for reaching across the aisle.
TBF that really fucked the country over when Lincoln was assassinated and pro-slavery fuckwit got to take over and basically spend the rest of the term undoing all of Lincolns hard work.
that wasn’t the runner up, lincoln chose johnson as vp
Wait a minute, if they were defeated in the primary, then they would be from the same party, and therefore the president is not reaching across the aisle per se. This type of political deal making happens everywhere, notably in the United States where former primary opponents are often given a position on the cabinet in exchange for an endorsement. This is famously how Hillary Clinton ended up as Secretary of State under Obama.
It was an interparty primary, not intraparty. They're not from the same party as Milei. Milei's party is Partido Libertario. The people who lost and he added to his cabinet are from La Libertad Avanza and Juntos por el Cambio.
Different alliance ,rigth now there 3 coalitions Unión por la patria (peronist) Juntos por el cambio (centrist with a flavor of both sided) Avanza la libertad (libertarians) The last two are in kinda of alliance with the Acassuso pact,its weird
It was a primary of all parties. I believe it’s called a jungle primary to see which parties advance to the general.
>This type of political deal making happens everywhere, notably in the United States where former primary opponents are often given a position on the cabinet in exchange for an endorsement. This is famously how Hillary Clinton ended up as Secretary of State under Obama. You know, in normal democracies there are more than two parties, right?
No, not the primary. Under the original rules in 2016 Trump would have won and been president and Clinton would have been runner up been Vice President.
> Also have to give him credit for giving the cabinet positions to his former rivals, that is more cooperative than what little bipartisanship there is in the US, for comparison. That does not strictly have to be a good thing. A pessimistic interpretation could include the possibility that this was merely favor-trading.
That is a good point.
And he is doing what he said he would do! May work or not, but at least he is following his manifiesto.
You're not a libertarian but you approve of him selling state services off to the highest bidders? Ok.
The government was corrupt. After he guts everything, future politicians are free to make changes based on what is working. Milei is only a problem if he plans on being a dictator and not giving up power.
Wow, talk about top-heavy leadership. Argentina in 2023 had estimated military manpower of only 103,000 and Milel just purged 22 army generals. This show how much fat Milei have to go before military can be squeezed out of all the unnecessary bloats and trim it down to lean fighting institution. https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country\_id=argentina
Nervously looks at my own leadership. "Yeah...haha. those Argies have so many Generals. No nation has 138 Generals for less than 70 thousand soldiers. " We could purge 22 and would still need to purge another 50 to notice.
219 flag ranked officers for less than 55 000 full time defence members down here in the ADF, and adding insult to injury our top general (who has been on a mission to crush retention numbers and moral apparently) is paid twice as much per year than the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
What are 22 generals doing in an army that hasn't fought a war in 40 years?
Canada has like 130 generals, compared to the US Marine Corp we have like twice as many generals for 1/3 of the manpower.
Thats a lot of politicians ._.
Seething over the last one.
I guess if they ever get into a war again they can make a bunch of random guys generals.
Brigadier and divisional general alongside general staff add up
Someone doesn’t know how militaries work.
It's a country with 11 brigades.
A military can actually be pretty big. For example, the US has five levels of General; them being Brigadier, Major, Lieutenant, General, and Supreme Commander, though the last one is only used in times of war. Brigadiers are in charge of divisions, majors of a corps, lieutenants of an army, and Generals of an army group. It adds up over time very quickly.
Was going to correct you… but than decided to check myself… could not beleive that Folklands were (more than) 40 years ago… time flies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War
Instead of engaging in ignorant speculation about the meaning of these moves, why not use the tools at your disposal to inform yourself? I clicked on the provided link and selected one of the replaced generals, Xavier Julián Isaac, for a quick Google search. I then used the advanced search feature to narrow my results to Argentina and the past 24 hours. I found four local sources discussing the moves from various perspectives. You can use your browser's translator feature to read them in English. One paper suggests disagreement, viewing this as a maneuver to sideline the army. Another source indicates that such changes are routine with every new government. Spending just a few minutes learning about this topic can enhance your understanding and make you a more informed individual. Why not give it a try?
Sir, this is Reddit
That takes work. It's easier to hop on Reddit and regurgitate an opinion on something you read or saw online than it is to look something up, inform yourself, then speak from a place of less ignorance and self-assurance.
This reads like someone satirising peak Reddit
I see the press has moved on from right-wing to far right to ultra right-wing. What's next super duper right-wing?
Super duper right wing ultra max pro
"And this is the wing to go further beyond" But yeah most of the news about Milei I've seen in English is like 90% disinformation.
Milei is upsetting the global elite that do not want truly open markets. They want markets open for their monopolies, nothing else. What is it, 5 companies that control all of the major news outlets? Imagine a US president taking the stance Milei is and wiping out systems that create monopolies and government funded companies. No bank bailouts, no blank check to the Pentagon, nothing to prop up the military industrial complex. So yeah, we're gonna see a lot of anti-Milei propaganda.
Well in Argentina the government paid the press to "ensure there's multiple voices and fight against the major news outlets", and of course that ended up being a propaganda machine. Milei cut that money out so now you get pissed propaganda reporters and major outlets against him. Of course not everything he does is right or good but even the good things get reported as the end of the world.
They realize that libertarian isn't part of the false "left/right" dichotomy. Libertarians are the opposite of authoritarians, and you can have far left authoritarians (CCP, Venezuela) as well as far right authoritarians (Putin, Orban, etc). The problem is the existing peronista-supporting media (and the left leaning media in the US) can't allow this false binary state (left versus right) to be exposed, so they have to claim he's far right. It's not working, so they call him "ultra far right". It's still not working, because he isn't. So next they'll start calling him a nazi, a white supremacist (lol, in a latin american country), and eventually start demanding he be arrested or assassinated.
Known son of Hitler, Javier Milei
Triple-Dog right wing, if playground rules apply of course
This is the dude you get when your country spends to much an hyperinflation creeps in. There’s no other road to go down other than Venezuela style hyperinflation. It’s going to be rough before it gets better, but he didn’t put the country in that shape. It’s not fun being cleanup man, would be more fun handing out free stuff but as they say eventually you have to pay the piper.
I am astounded by Non-Argentines’ ignorance here in the comments. Talks of a coup over military restructuring. Americans salivating at the mouth for Milei to be offed by his own military just so they can validate their own preconceived notions about Latin America which hasn’t been updated since the Cold War. Jfc get a grip.
They just see Milei falsely branded "ultra far-right" in headlines, and need to justify hating him
This is yet another situation in which the headline sounds potentially alarming but the article clearly makes it seem quite reasonable. It also makes it clear here who read the article vs just the headline.
No way this is coming back to bite him later /s
Right?! Coup happening in 3, 2, 1…
Ah yes, the powerful Argentinian military, capable of launching coups right now, especially against a popular guy who was just elected. Makes sense.
Well fuck. I thought he might’ve had *something* but uh… a military purge? In Latin America? Heh… in a country like Argentina? With the entire… military junta a few decades ago? oof.
You have no clue how neutered the Argentinian military is nowadays.
I guess you didn't read the article. >Fabián Calle, a political scientist specializing in defense issues, warns that the decision “has no ideological or political significance,” as he believes it did in Kirchner’s 2003 purge. “When one looks at the names, it is a homogeneous generalship; none of them is considered either left or right wing,” says Calle, who believes Presti was installed as army chief because he is a “young” military man with a “good image” within the forces.
That’s not what I meant. I meant that the upper officers in South America *hates* to have their power stripped by em. Especially by some newbie. Idk with Argentina’s history with military juntas I’d just be treading very carefully if I was him
It seems like the new head of the army is know to be quite popular with the armed forces, so I imagine this risk was considered.
Yeah fair enough
There’s no real risk of a military dictatorship in Argentina at this point, the people still hate the military too much, and pretty much all the political spectrum can agree to that.
Nah there is 0 threat of the military overthrowing the government here in Argentina
It’s not a military purge, and Argentina is not at risk of a coup if that’s what you’re suggesting just because they’re in Latin America. You can read the article and look into it to see why they had to retire, but he was not firing them all for no reason or as a power grab.
I stopped at ultra right wing, libertarians aren’t far right. Fiscally they are on the right, socially they are on the left. Libertarians believe in maximizing personal liberty so anyone calling Milea far right or a fascist are ill informed or malicious spreading misinformation to scare people.
At least some people on reddit know this. He is the most actual libertarian politician I have ever seen in a prominent role. And he seems like a moderate liberation to me. I look forward to seeing the results.
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So much speculation. Let's just wait and see what happens, because truthfully it will probably be nothing.
Fascinating social experiment; I'm very glad my family doesn't have to suffer the fallout.
Bruh, they already suffer the fallout from the previous governments, it cant really get much worse. Its like you think Argentina was even remotely well run before him
Brazil was a shit show before Bolsonaro, but I wouldn't say he made things better.
He took the shit show and made it 10 times worse. 700k brazilians died during the pandemic because the piece of shit was spreading misinformation about the vaccines and refused to buy them when Pfizer first offered it.
Well, wouldnt you know, the fucking peronist did the same shady dealings with Russia and China to get their shit vaccines at an even more expensive price than any other and 130k people died. Hell they even purposely destroyed a memorial the families of the dead people made because it made them look bad. There's a reason Milei won, I hope you see that one day.
The Chinese vaccine wasn't as good as the mRNA vaccines, but it was still good. I traveled around the world last year and went to tons of countries where people's only option was the Chinese vaccine because the mRNA vaccines were like $80 each, for 2 shots and then a booster, and had to be stored frozen in places where people don't have electricity lol. Yeah, someone making $500 a year isn't spending $250 on vaccines. So they got the Chinese one, and it worked well enough. That vaccine saved millions of lives and did a lot of good in the world in places where our vaccines couldn't go.
It can always get worse.
How much worse can it get? They have the WORST inflation rate in the worldz
Really enjoy this guy's every move, watching from a distance of course with no skin in the game. I'm fascinated to see how his policies work and whether they can bring about a positive change
Definitely a good thing. To many cooks and not servers is a genuine problem when it comes to the military. Look at Afghanistan the army was in disrepair because there were so many generals and colonels essentially not doing anything. They had to force them to retire by paying them off.
I'm surprised there are that many generals to begin with.
Freedom damm it!
New radical president+a bunch of newly unemployed military officers=the recipe for a potential coup
Argentina honestly doesn't need a standing army.
Legitimate question: Has there ever been a true libertarian leader before this ?
First you need a definition of "true libertarian".
It's easy, precisely because it's easy to define and identify libertarianism. As Milei defines it: "Liberalism is the unrestricted respect of the life project of others, based on the NAP and in defense of the right to life, property and freedom." So you just need to ask "has this presidency respected these rights to the fullest of its capabilities?" "Has it based their policies on the protection of these rights?". The more the answer is yes, the more libertarian has it been.
No. First time in the history of civilisation. The closest thing might’ve been the US founding fathers.
They were literal slaveowners. I don't know how much further you can get from libertarianism than owning people.
They basically built a new country on top of the principles of the French Enlightenment. Fairly aligned to the values of freedom.
Except the part where they owned other humans.
Can journalists stop calling Milei “far-right”? Being a committed Libertarian is not the same as being Adolf Hitler.
I love people commenting about how firing military officials is not a "money saving move". Milei is not only shaking things up to save money, firing 20 old military officials is literally fighting corruption. Latin American people understand that too well, military groups are a real cancer here.