“Long live freedom, damn it!”
Those were the final words from Javier Milei’s speech in Davos for the World Economic Forum where he declared collectivism (his code for communism) “a well meaning fallacy” and has also called climate change “A socialist lie” during the event.
Also, this is his signature
If you’re a rebel like me, you absolutely love him.
Not enough? How about the fact that he since entering office in December, he has scrapped 366 separate rules and 9 cabinet ministries while laying off 5000 government employees.
That statement will polarize people but let me give you more context regarding Argentina’s situation in a mix of my words and Milei’s.
Argentina began the 20th century as one of the wealthiest places on the planet.
In fact, in 1913, it was richer than France or Germany, almost twice as prosperous as Spain, and its per capita GDP was almost as high as that of Canada.
This was mostly due to the country’s agricultural advantages. The country is endowed with a vast amount of highly fertile land.
So what went wrong?
In one word? Socialism.
Argentina has long been trapped in recurring cycles of deep and destructive economic contractions brought on by policies that force governments to routinely spend more than they collect through taxes and other income.
Zooming forward to today, if you live in Argentina, the value of your earnings have decreased by 70% in the past year due to currency devaluation (partly due to Milei) and extraordinary inflation (211.4% in 2023).
Landlords are now accepting rents mainly in dollars due to the instability of the peso and 1 in 7 houses are empty due to landlords being unwilling to rent in the current unstable economic environment.
This comes on top of the housing and homeless crisis in the nation.
So what’s the headline here? Well, a century of socialist and communist policies have taken their toll on a once prosperous nation and anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei finds a tall order on his hands.
However, there’s nobody better to handle the situation.
Before rising to fame through televised fiery political debates, Milei was a professor of macroeconomics, economics of growth, microeconomics and mathematics for economics for 20 years.
He laughs in the face of Big Government and Keynesian Economics while claiming to be an expert in Tantra (DO NOT SEARCH FOR CONTEXT).
He is, if nothing else, the most interesting man in global politics today.
