Reaganomics didn’t work here – it turned out that the whole trickle down theory was bogus (and David Stockman himself repudiated it).

So thinking that it will work in Argentina – a country with a smaller economy and less tradition of democracy – is pretty naive.

Argentina has a long tradition of dictators and undemocratic rule. It sounds like the new guy, if he wins the general election, is going to be another strong guy who is going to screw up that country.

Bottom line: if he’s elected, his policies will fail and he will be gone within a couple years, max.

Argentina was once a great nation with one of the biggest economies in the world. This was when they were very capitalistic. Then Juan Peron took power and brought Socialism with him. He started changing nationalizing everything, pushing the labor unions to be in control, controlling the freedom of the press, etc. That started the downfall of Argentina’s economy. It took a military coup to get Peron out of office, but that led to a military dictatorship (the next logical step following Socialism). This started a huge borrowing movement, increasing the country’s debt. The dictatorship was finally deposed and another person of the Peronist mind-set took power (Menem). He made some changes to reprivatize the railroad system and he cut social spending. But he continued to increase the national debt and much of the money that was “saved” by his actions ended up being funneled into the pockets of cronies. No leader since then has had a solid plan to fix things.

Now we have Javier Milei stepping in. He is trying to undo all the Socialist nonsense that destroyed the country in the first place. He wants to cut deficit spending, he wants to privatize government controlled industries, and deregulating industries. We have seen in this country that when we go to tax-and-spend ideas with huge government control on everything and lots of deficit spending, the economy falls apart. When the government starts to get out of the way of the people, it starts blossoming again.

My feeling on his election, given the political past of Argentina, is guarded. I believe he is making good moves towards restoring an economy that works, but Argentina is like many countries: it wants immediate results. If he can’t fix things to a point where people can see the results before the next election, they will vote him out and go for the next guy that promises to do the exact opposite of what Milei is doing.

The federal deficit went from about $80 billion to $150 billion during Reagan.

I do believe in giving business incentives through tax policy, but Reagan and the right wing in general go too far. They help their business buddies, and it all becomes about money and no integrity. They do extreme tax cuts not only for business but personal taxes for the rich too. It lacks integrity in my opinion, and that is the downfall.

I don’t know much about Argentina specifically, but that country seems prone to extremist promises to make things better for the masses. Extreme socialists and extreme fascists can probably have a good chance of getting elected, because the social strata has a large lower class.

I’m not sure what government not being involved in marriage means. I hear some US Evangelicals say they don’t think the government should be involved in marriage and that sounds very extremist and anti-women and anti-LGBT when I hear it.

I don’t know how Argentina will break free of their inflation spiral. I can see why people want to take a chance on a different economic policy. I need to know more about their policy to comment. Do they need to encourage people to stop spending so much? Furthermore, I feel economic methods need to be adjusted over time. One philosophy in a very rigid manner does not work for 100 years in my opinion. Not even 5 years necessarily. Events happen that cause the need for changes.

I am not fond of any candidate who is very far to the left or the right.

@JLeslie Socially Millei is a conservative. but he’s more of a libertarian. Both gay marriage and abortion are legal in Argentina and he’s shown no indication that he would want to change it.

@seawulf575 I tend to agree with you. What I would be worried about is that if they go to a dollar economy then it will help the wealthy, who have dollars, to stabilize their income. The poor, however will be more problematic as they just have pesos.

@Caravanfan I think it’s my “paranoia” that these more extreme groups are connected across the world now, and I’m cautious about their real ideas and intent. A lot of the Trump supporters in our country identify as Libertarians actually.

I don’t know how easy it is to change laws in Argentina. I was just texting with a friend from Argentina about something completely unrelated. I should ask her about it. She hasn’t lived there in years though.

@Caravanfan That is something that has been problematic with Argentina even before Peron. They were a society with a very small middle class. Either you had money or you were one of the others. It was magnified under Peron and since.

@seawulf575 That’s typical of most Latin America countries.

“His plans are to dollarize the economy, deregulate industry, eliminate budget deficits—basically a modern version of Reaganomics.

Is this something that is likely to work in Argentina”

Given that it’s something that has never worked in the history of human civilisation, and it’s the sort of lunacy that led to the Great Depression a century ago, his sudden popularity and possible election is a testament to the idea that the problem with democracy is that most voters are easily propagandised idiots who don’t understand anything—and they’re easily misled by confident charlatans in politics.

@Kropotkin Perhaps. But with current policies Argentinian economy is in the tank with over 100% inflation at times. Is that any better?

@Caravanfan I’d say it’s analogous to a fraud recovery scam: Recently scammed victims being preyed upon by further scammers who promise to recover their losses.

Hard to reconcile with the country of Jorge Luis Borges.

@Kropotkin Maybe. I don’t know. It’s why I asked the question. Honestly, I think the guy is kind of a nut, but it would be interesting to see if his economic measures would work or cripple the country more than it already it.

I’ll just add that I travelled to Argentina very recently. The small stores all took local currency, but everybody else, and I mean EVERYBODY wanted dollars. Nobody wanted Argentinian pesos. There is a thriving black market for dollars there.

I experienced that in Mexico years ago too; I don’t know if it is still the same. They wanted US dollars. They made more money being paid in dollars. No point in changing any money.

@Kropotkin “Given that it’s something that has never worked in the history of human civilisation,”

Except it has. We have seen numerous times in this country where, once the government gets out of the way, the economy booms. New businesses start forming, more businesses start expanding and hiring, people start spending more because they have less money rushing to feed bureaucrats…there are many ways it helps the economy. On the flip side of that, the Socialism that Argentina was trying is what destroyed their economy…as it has every time throughout human civilisation.

@seawulf575 No. Argentina has never had a socialist economy. Regardless, all the capitalist countries in the world that top various measures for quality of life and well-being across society are all ones with significant amounts of state intervention and with historical social-democratic governance.

Take even the advanced Asian economies, and they’re all ones that consciously ignored the usual “free market” prescriptions for development.

The premise that the private sector is somehow less bureaucratic or efficient is pure ideology and not based on any evidence.

Even the relative recovery of the US after 2008 and after the pandemic can be directly attributed to large stimulus spending by the federal government.

@Kropotkin Huh. So when Peron bought up gas companies, electric companies, telephone companies, railroads and a few others to turn them into government controlled things, and then started putting unions in charge of things…how exactly is that not socialism?

As for the government spending that you are so fond of, that is the profligacy that Peron brought as well, driving up the debt and creating massive inflation. Think about it. When the majority of workers work for the government who pays them? The taxes the government brings in. So the workers make, let’s say $1000 a month and pay $200 of it in taxes. That is an $800 loss to the government. It is a losing proposition that leads to massive debt and out of control inflation

@seawulf575 State control of natural monopolies and strategic industries is completely unremarkable and is standard practice in many countries around the world. Lots of countries were nationalising these things in the post-war era right until the neoliberals starting having their way in the 70s and 8s.

Argentina’s current spending as a percentage of GDP is on the lower end from major developed countries, and its tax to GDP is below average.

You’ll have to find a different hypothesis other than Peron’s governance over half century ago to explain the current economic conditions in Argentina.

@Kropotkin Go back and look at what I have said. Peron started the trend but subsequent leaders have carried it on. In the end, let me challenge you: Argentina was one of the most prosperous countries in the world up until right after WWII. Shortly after that Peron was elected and the decline started. Why is that? Certainly not because he was pushing capitalism. So please, enlighten us how his policies helped the country.