Javier Milei en fuego
Upon swearing in, Javier Milei has been on a libertarian rampage, gutting government regulation and coercion with his metaphorical chainsaw, with the fatcat Peronists and their useful idiots pushing back as hard as they can. |
| In Milei's inauguration signing, millions of socialists, social democrats, Keynsians, communists, dictators, authoritarians, fascists, and modern monetary theorists can be heard screeching as if they are melting from a bucket of water being thrown on them. // photo by: Senado de la Nación Argentina |
The libertarian president of Argentina hit the ground running already with some major libertarian wins in the short month that he's been president.
He said "Afuera!", as promised, to half of the government cabinets then laid off 5,000 government workers, promising more to follow.
To this, and mostly his executive order that union dues would now be voluntary, Argentina's most powerful union executed a protest. Milei's government set up a hotline for people to report harassment and intimidation by union labor representatives, which Marcos Falcone of Fundacion Libertad reports in an interview with Reason, claimed to have received 60 thousand calls. When the powerful labor unions get pissed off and the parasites start taking to the streets, you know something is going in the right direction.
Milei shot a Cupid's arrow through my heart by repealing housing regulations, including national rent control. Housing stock increased in short order and rental prices dropped 20 to 30 percent. Contrast this with the singular tool in the leftist's arsenal: rent control. Rent control is applied in many metropolitan regions across the US and housing prices and rents...continue to go up. Huh. It's almost as if rent control reduces supply, which increases prices, while repealing regulations increases supply, which decreases prices. Imagine the relief people can get from their rents being slashed 20 percent.
The nationalized airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, is also in Milei's crosshairs, with competition no longer barred and the process to privatize it has begun. It's so strange how the socialist left, without any introspection. complains about monopolies all the time but the solutions are often to nationalize industries and forbid competition.
The haters have been grasping at things to be outraged about. Hilariously, people have brought up a 200% inflation spike as a point to criticize Milei for. Did they not realize inflation surpassed 100% before Milei took office? Did they really think he was going to stop inflation cold within two weeks of taking office? Plus, the inflation spike wasn't even truly inflation. The inflation rates had been undercounted in government statistics for a long time, as the Peronist government created artificial currency trading rates that had no resemblance to market values. This should be no surprise as this is what happens everywhere. Governments try to hide inflation. When I was looking to add to my collection of hyperinflated currencies, I discovered that the Venezuelan bolivar actually had "value"! Of course, this was the official trading value set by the government. The actual bolivar was, for all intents and purposes, worthless. Even the United States hides its inflation rates by manipulating the CPI. What Milei did was set the government rates closer to market rates, which is why the spike in inflation occurred. It's just an updated statistical method; the actual inflation did not spike.
Journalists continue to be confused about what to call Javier Milei, still to this day using idiotic adjectives like "ultra-conservative" and "far-right" that do not bear any resemblance to libertarians whatsoever. Deranged socialist "news" outlets call him "fascistic", likely triggered by what Milei calls socialists (no, I'm not linking that garbage here, feel free to Google it). There seems to be no effort to figure out how a fascist, defined by authoritarian rule and a merger between corporation and government (Mussolini's sentiment), could be a libertarian (let alone an anarcho-capitalist), defined as a person who seeks to abolish authoritarian rule and a near-complete removal of the government from business. Journalists eager to discredit austerity were also quick to slam Milei for the rising poverty rates (which Milei said would happen for long-term economic stabilization), just mere months after he took office, as if that's enough time for anybody to fix such a gargantuan problem.
Recently, Milei had been praised by pretty much anyone who sees through the elites at the World Economic Forum, as he excoriated what the cartoonish Bond villain Klause Schwab and the WEF stand for in an inspiring speech at Davos. He starts out swinging, subtlely accusing the WEF of being co-opted to support socialistic tendencies "and thereby, to poverty."
Even his entrance was spectacular, on a commercial flight to Switzerland as the world megalomaniacs arrived in their private jets to discuss how climate change is such a major problem and economic problems in their home countries. This chosen method of travel saved Argentina over $300k of unnecessary expenses. This isn't a lot of money for a country, but given the state of Argentina, every little bit helps and at the very least, shows great leadership that he is not willing to tell others to tighten their belts while he demands luxuries for himself.
Although Milei faces a gargantuan uphill battle and is facing resistance from courts, powerful labor unions, and a hostile legislature, it does seem like Milei is the real deal. Let's just hope he's able to accomplish as much as possible.
Note: Wow, what a crazy and frustrating year. Lots of life issues to be dealt with. I wrote the above earlier this year, but I just had to take a break from this. Since then, Argentina's monthly inflation has declined to single digits in April and stayed fairly constant before dropping to 2.7% in November, the lowest it's been in 3 years. Still a ways to go but it's looking more stable.
