Latest news with #libertarian
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
It's time the world woke up and noticed the Argentinian miracle
Okay, it is still only on a par with Egypt and Suriname. But the credit ratings agency Moody's this week gave Argentina its second upgrade since its radical libertarian president Javier Milei took power. It is yet more evidence of the dramatic improvement in the country's fortunes. Growth has accelerated, inflation is coming under control, rents are falling and its debts are steadily becoming more manageable. The dire warnings from the economic establishment that Milei's bold experiment in slashing the burden of the state have been proved woefully wide of the mark. The only question now is this: when will the rest of the world wake up to the Argentinian miracle? While France scraps bank holidays to keep the bond markets happy, while the Chancellor Rachel Reeves struggles to fill the latest 'black hole' in the nation's books, and while even the United States bond market frets about the independence of the Federal Reserve, one country – and a very unlikely one as well – is getting upgraded. Moody's this week bumped up Argentina, a nation that for 50 years has been characterised by bailouts and mismanagement, from Caa3 to Caa1. It cited 'the extensive liberalisation of exchange and (to a lesser extent) capital controls' for the improving outlook. Sure, it is still technically rated as 'junk' – after all, this is a country with nine debt defaults, including the largest in IMF history, over the last 200 years. But the direction of travel is clearly right. That is just one indicator among many. The economy overall is expected to expand by 5.7pc this year despite the huge cuts to public spending and the 'chainsaw' applied to government employment by the president. Inflation came down to a monthly rate of 1.6pc last month, which may not exactly count as Swiss-style stability, but is a lot lower than the 200pc-plus it was running at when Milei took office. The IMF has rolled over the massive loan it extended to the country under the previous administration. Rents, a major problem with housing unaffordable to many people, have fallen by 40pc over the last year after the government scrapped all rent controls, bringing a flood of properties on to the market. Bond prices are rising, with the government able to borrow money on the global markets again. Sure, there are plenty of challenges ahead. Poverty is widespread, and there are still relatively few new industries, although its shale oil and gas sector is starting to boom, with Vista Energy reporting a 57pc increase in output this year, and forecasting it will double over the next 24 months. One point is surely clear, however: in the 18 months since Milei took office, Argentina's economy has been transformed. It has been achieved by radically slashing the size of the state. Promising a 'shock therapy' for the economy, the government has laid off more than 50,000 public sector workers, closed or merged more than 100 state departments and agencies, frozen public infrastructure projects, cut energy and transport subsidies, and even returned the state budget to a surplus. Milei has not followed through on all his promises. Argentina has not switched to the dollar as its official currency, as he pledged it would, and doesn't look likely to any time soon (although come to think of it, on current trends its peso may be a better bet than the American currency). But he has gone further and faster in deregulating the economy than any politician in modern times. The improvements in its performance are a stark contrast to the catastrophe that was forecast, and probably quietly hoped for, by a majority of the Left-leaning economic establishment. On taking office, 103 prominent economists, including France's Thomas Piketty, wrote a public letter warning that 'apparently simple solutions may be appealing, they are likely to cause more devastation in the real world'. It hasn't happened. Instead, Argentina is steadily recovering from decades of mismanagement. The real question is this: when will the rest of the world wake up and notice? The bulk of the policy-making and financial establishment still inhabits a mental universe where government spending is what drives growth, where regulation is seen as the key to innovation, where 'national champions' are expected to lead new industries, while industrial strategies will pick the winners of the future, and the only role for the private sector is a 'partner' for the finance ministry. We see that in the UK, with the National Wealth Fund getting billions in funding even though no one knows what it will actually do, and with GB Energy getting even more for the green transition. We see it across the European Union, with endless regulations that are bizarrely designed to promote competitiveness, and with the Commission in Brussels only this week proposing a turnover tax on every business of any significant size within the bloc. We even see it in the US, with Donald Trump, hardly an economic liberal, imposing tariffs to try to reshape the economy instead of leaving it to the market to decide where companies should invest. And we see it most of all in China, with industries from autos to aerospace to artificial intelligence receiving huge state support to conquer the world. Argentina under Javier Milei is the only major country taking a different path. Perhaps because subsidies, controls and protectionism have turned it into a basket-case, it was ready to try the alternative. The results are now clear. In reality, open, free markets and a smaller state are the only way to restore growth, and Milei is proving it all over again.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Milei beat his detractors and it's delicious to watch
A budget surplus, inflation at a five-year low and an upgraded credit rating. These are economic conditions Britain could only dream of. But they are exactly what Argentina is now boasting under the sideburned, chainsaw-wielding libertarian president Javier Milei. When he was elected, Milei was widely dismissed as a dangerous eccentric who dubbed himself an 'anarcho-capitalist'and waved a chainsaw as a symbol of his mission to bring in savage spending cuts. When he swept to victory in 2023, Argentina was on the brink. Annual inflation had surged past 100 per cent, eventually peaking near 300 per cent. Every time Argentinians went shopping they found they had become noticeably poorer. But within months, Milei's shock therapy took effect. His prescription was brutal austerity: one in five government workers sacked, a public sector pay-freeze, the tax agency abolished, infrastructure spending slashed nearly 80 per cent and government subsidy removed leading to the cost of a trip on the Buenos Aires metro system jumping nearly five times overnight. It was difficult, but last year Argentina returned to a budget surplus for the first time in 14 years. The annual rate of inflation also dropped to below 40 per cent, with last month's monthly rate of price rises coming in under expectation at 1.6 per cent. He didn't stop with putting the brakes on price rises. Abolishing rent controls led to a near trebling in the number of apartments available on the market. Average rents have dropped 40 per cent even after adjusting for inflation – Zohran Mamdani, take note. Milei still has his critics. His style is shock and awe, his methods Trumpian. On Monday his vice-president, Victoria Villarruel, told him to 'grow up' after the president shared a post on X calling her 'stupid', and 'a traitor'. They've fallen out over a motion in the senate that would raise pensions faster than inflation. Unlike British politicians – too lily-livered to tackle the triple lock on pensions, a policy that might literally bankrupt us – Milei is against more money for retirees and has said he will veto the bill that increases pensions. He insults journalists (critics are labelled 'baboons') and ignores protesters but the economic indicators all seem to be pointing in the right direction. Milei has pulled his country back from the brink and seven in 10 Argentinians now support his agenda. Should we in Britain, then, consider a Mileian approach to our economic crisis? The inflation we've experienced over the past few years – ticking back up to 3.6 per cent on Wednesday – is by no means Argentinian but our spending is set to pass half of GDP. Bond markets baulk at forecasts which show welfare costs climbing to £375 billion. The result: it is near impossible for the Government – or any government – to think remotely long term, instead having to survive day to day among constant speculation about the Chancellor's headroom. Naysayers would argue Milei's approach wouldn't work here. Thatcher already carried out much of the financial deregulation here that's helped Milei bring in nearly 8 per cent growth over there and that it's easier to climb up the economic ladder from the starting point of an emerging market or developing country. But that might be precisely the point. If Britain started to think more like a crisis economy – accepting that we're already in financial disaster – rather than warning that a crunch point is yet to come, might we be prepared to accept the kind of shock therapy Milei dished out to such success. Long ago we should have called time on sluggish growth, the return of red tape and worsening productivity. We've avoided hyperinflation but we add billion upon billion to state spending with no improvement to our living standards in return. Perhaps we don't need someone as theatrical as Milei, and perhaps his model wouldn't fit Britain neatly. But his shock-therapy mindset – if not his chainsaw – might be exactly the prescription we've been too afraid to try.
France 24
5 days ago
- Politics
- France 24
Milei steps up attacks on media as election nears
The chainsaw-wielding, budget-slashing, libertarian president has recently taken to describing critical reporters as "human excrement," "trash," "baboons" and "prostitutes to politicians." A new slogan, "We don't hate journalists enough," has its own hashtag: #NLOSALP, which Milei adds to online posts. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has moved Argentina down 47 spots on its World Press Freedom Index from 2023, when Milei took office. It now sits at 87 out of 180 countries. The daily La Nacion counted 410 attacks by Milei on the press during his first year in office in speeches, interviews and on social media. Sixty journalists were assailed by name. "His mistreatment of journalists... has worsened in recent weeks as the government loses control of the narrative" and editorials express doubts about Milei's economic reforms, Hugo Alconada Mon, an investigative journalist at La Nacion, told AFP. Others say the president's anti-media stance is an essential part of his battle against what he calls "woke ideology." "It's a central theme since the government claims to be engaged in a 'cultural battle,' and since the narrative, by definition... goes through the media," said Gustavo Marangoni, a political analyst with the consultancy M&R Asociados. It is also common for populists, Marangoni added, to create "an enemy" for their supporters to blame for "a conspiracy... to prevent the success of libertarian governance." Since he took office in December 2023, Milei has made good on his promise to lower inflation. But it has come at a price of cutting thousands of jobs and slashing social spending, while concerns remain over Argentina's ability to shore up foreign reserves and attract investment. 'Journalist scum' Milei has filed eight lawsuits against journalists this year alone, two of which have been dismissed. At least one reporter is under police protection after receiving online threats and has filed a countersuit against Milei for intimidation. "Insults, defamation and threats from Javier Milei's administration toward journalists and media critical of his regime have become commonplace since he took office," according to RSF. Milei insists the media has only itself to blame. "All these journalist scum called me incestuous, a zoophile, homophobic. They called me a Nazi," he complained recently to a friendly streaming channel, Neura. "Then, when they face a backlash, they start whining." Shila Vilker of political consulting firm Trespuntozero said Milei's targeting of the media serves to maintain his image of a disruptor, to show "that he remains the same 'outsider' who came to power to fight the political-media 'caste'." This was particularly crucial to drum up support in the months leading up to October parliamentary elections, with Milei seeking to expand his party's representation. Vilker said that due to Milei's rhetoric, "the center is neutralized, polarization increases, and the message becomes clear: there is no room for the lukewarm" in the country with deep political divisions.
National Post
5 days ago
- Business
- National Post
J.D. Tuccille: The remarkable triumph of Javier Milei
It's possible that no politician has defied the expectations of the chattering class as successfully as has Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei. Expected to remain in political obscurity, he rose to lead a political movement. Anticipated to lose a presidential election to a candidate from the country's dominant authoritarian political party, he won. And predicted by a cabal of academic economists to lead Argentina to ruin with free-market policies, he instead turned around the long-suffering country, resulting in lower inflation and rapid economic growth. Article content Article content Argentines have decades of experience with making bad choices and suffering their consequences, but this time they may have broken that unfortunate pattern by electing leadership that wants the state to take a back seat to individuals and private effort. Article content Article content Article content Drawing on official data, Reuters reports that Argentina's 'economic activity rose 7.7 per cent in April compared with the same month last year.' That was higher than expected and a welcome addition to news that the economy had grown by 5.8 per cent during the full first quarter relative to the same quarter the previous year. Early numbers put Argentina's second-quarter growth at 7.6 per cent. By contrast, Canada's economy grew at an annual 2.2 percent in the first quarter and the U.S. economy shrank a bit. In equally encouraging news, Argentina's 'monthly inflation rate has fallen below two per cent for the first time in five years,' according to the Financial Times. That's still high in North American terms, but Argentina's governments have a history of wildly expanding the money supply to pay off debt and finance expenditures, resulting in inflation rates in the hundreds and even thousands per cent per year. Inflation slowed somewhat in recent years, but it was over 200 per cent in 2023 and Milei was elected on a promise to stabilize prices — even if it meant adopting the U.S. dollar as the country's official currency. Article content Article content Importantly, the poverty rate in Argentina has also fallen to 38.1 per cent of the population at the end of 2024 from 41.7 per cent when Milei took office. Again, that remains very high, but it's an improvement in a country where politicians have long seemed committed to keeping people poor and dependent on the state. Article content Article content This wasn't supposed to happen. In a November 2023 open letter, over 100 economists warned that Milei's economic 'proposals, rooted in the economy of laissez-faire and which include controversial ideas such as dollarization and significant reductions in public spending, are fraught with risks that make them potentially very harmful to the Argentine economy and people.' Article content The economists — including such academic luminaries as Thomas Piketty and Jayati Ghosh — warned of havoc if Milei implemented his free-market plans. Voters weren't impressed by the forecast of doom; they chose the self-described 'anarcho-capitalist' economist and his upstart political coalition over the standard-bearer of the dominant Justicialist Party.
Bloomberg
08-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Milei Approval Rating Holds as Argentines Worry More About Jobs
President Javier Milei's approval rating and positive image remained well above domestic peers in June even as Argentines became increasingly worried about the job market after unemployment rose earlier this year. Milei's approval and disapproval ratings both stood at 44% last month while nearly 12% of respondents were unsure about the libertarian leader, according to LatAm Pulse, a monthly poll conducted by AtlasIntel for Bloomberg News. With tumbling inflation amid a stable currency, Milei also maintained the highest positive image of all major Argentine political leaders at 47%.
