Argentina’s Milei Gives the Davos Crowd a Spine Transplant

[jjarokerrc]

I would like to share an excerpt from Argentina's President Milei's speech at Davos, Switzerland yesterday. It is exceptionally clear and eloquent, and describes the today's situation.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/argent...30ein6grzyw&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

 

[Uwe]

-Uwe-

 

[RGH0]

The problem in Argentina is 100 years of corruption and right wing (fascist?) dictatorships has steadily destroyed the countries economy and institutions. The world has many problems but I would suggest he works on fixing his own countries problems before lecturing to the rest of the world on theirs.

just my personal opinion as a spectator on global politics

 

[Uwe]

The problem in Argentina is 100 years of corruption and right wing (fascist?) dictatorships has steadily destroyed the countries economy

Right wing or left wing doesn't matter all that much. It's a question of how much the State controls the economy, which is what he rails against. He believes that free markets can allocate resources and make investments more far more efficiently than politicians and bureaucrats, and that such efficiency is what ultimately leads to prosperity.

I would suggest he works on fixing his own countries problems before lecturing to the rest of the world on theirs.

You do realize he's only been in office for a bit over a month, right?

-Uwe-

 

[RGH0]

I know he has been in office for only a month hence my comment that he need to demonstrate some credibility before lecturing the rest of the world on the best economic approach for the world. His first step of linking his country to the USD to try to stop runaway inflation will be an interesting experiment.

There is a huge range of economic approaches to resource allocation that have been adopted over the years. Centralised seems less efficient than decentralised so effective free markets work well in many areas or many counties economies. Corrupt allocation within so called free markets is a big problem that his county and many others have suffered from. The distribution of a countries wealth via government intervention by taxation and allocation to things like schooling,health, military, infrastructure etc has a huge variation in approaches and outcomes. The "big" versus "small" government approach differences appear to have a limited impact on over all economic wealth of a country and other factors appear to be far more influential.

 

[jjarokerrc]

... lecturing the rest of the world on the best economic approach ... huge variation in ... outcomes. The "big" versus "small" government approach differences appear to have a limited impact on over all economic wealth of a country and other factors appear to be far more influential.

Do you have any specific examples of counties with big, interventionist governments that have produced anything but poverty and misery?

You may want to read Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek and study economists like Milton Friedman before making such ill-informed, naive and foolish statements. You will discover that when government focuses on the basic principles of laws, public order and national defense (and leaves everything else to the forces of competitive capitalism), there is greater wealth, peace and equality between people. Conversely, when "big" government tries to define winners and losers (employing tactics like printing money), the ones most harmed are the poor and unskilled, leading to social strife.

You are correct that Argentina is highly corrupt. Why do you think that is the case? It is because there are many opportunities for graft and corruption in a "big" government. Milei is warning all of us of the perils of collectivist ideology. As a "spectator on global politics", you should take note of his comments and not dismiss them as lecturing as you have much to learn.

 

[RGH0]

jjarokerc

I have read the works you talk about and many others. I dont think my comments are ill-informed, naive, or foolish. You seem to want to judge my knowledge and analytical capability remotely and with extremely limited data. I recommend you talk about the data and dont play the man.

Most Western European countries have "big" government in US terms and are very successful with higher and more equal living standards than the US supported by better goverment safety net support. In Europe the US Democrats would be seen a right wing and Republicans extreme right wing. I have lived in both the USA and Germany and understand the differences in attitude well.

There is however a difference between "big" government (democratic socialist in European terms) and centrally planned government intervention in all aspects of the economy and collectivist (communist?) ideology. If Milei wants to talk about his perception of Argentinas failures and what he plans to do about it, thats fine, but the speech and its contents as I understood them were more than that and appeared to be telling the rest of the world that they should follow his somewhat extreme views