If you missed it, President Javier Milei of Argentina has been in the news lately. Let’s see what he is up to down in the land of tango and “empanadas.” (By the way, here is a great idea for Christmas. Go to an Argentina restaurant, order some beef empanadas and a glass of red wine. It’s second to none, especially at this festive season of the year, to paraphrase the two businessmen who visited Scrooge.)
Anyway, down in Buenos Aires, there are some big news for that other president with funny hair. Let’s check this from Quico Toro:
When Javier Milei was sworn-in as Argentinian president a year ago, the smart money was on a spectacular train wreck. Impulsive, thin-skinned, hyper-ideological and irresistibly drawn to every culture war controversy, no matter how dumb, Milei doesn’t immediately strike you as the kind of leader that gets results. Taking over one of the world’s most notorious economic basketcases at a time of absolute fiscal disarray, Milei’s coming doom seemed all too predictable.
A year on, the naysayers have been, if not quite silenced, then given ample time to reconsider. Argentina’s economy hasn’t imploded — that was the job of the previous administration. It did go through the deep recession the president himself had almost cherished forecasting, but it’s coming out the other side with much lower inflation, and much improved prospects for growth. Yes, poverty spiked during the adjustment, as everyone knew it would. What’s remarkable is that, even so, Milei retains popularity ratings above 50% — an amazing feat in a region where incumbency and single-digit approval ratings increasingly go hand-in-hand.
His ideas are simple. He hates regulations and invites citizens to suggest which ones he can cut:
Alongside a tax and cost-cutting spree, Javier Milei has gone on a kind of crusade against the thicket of regulatory nonsense that had colonized every bit of the Argentinian state. His economy minister launched a new mechanism to invite Argentinians to suggest useless rules to be done away with: in the first eight hours it was in operation, it received over 1,300 suggestions. The government deregulated everything from imports to labeling to apartment rentals. Its Deregulation Minister thundered at the mass of absurd regulations that meant importing, say, $30,000 dollars worth of toys required you to spend $10,000 on paperwork.
As my friend from Argentina told me on the phone, it’s about time that we got lucky. I agree because they’ve had some bad luck, or more specifically bad leadership. Milei got lucky because things had hit bottom in Argentina and the public was willing to give him a chance. He had no government experience but the public already had too much of politicians with lots of experience. He was full of slogans but the public trusted that this time the slogans were right.
As the author points out, Argentina was ripe for a bit of libertarian disruption. The voters had had enough, threw the dice, and so far it’s working. Of course, we don’t know if it will work a year from now, but so far people are betting on Milei making it work.
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This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
