Javier Milei One Year In!

Javier Milei has been in office for one year having taken over an economy on the brink of collapse. Milei managed to cut the monthly inflation rate from 26 per cent before he took office to 2.7 per cent in October. The Argentine peso has strengthened significantly against the black-market dollar over the past six months and Argentina’s sovereign bond prices have roughly tripled.

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[Curiousperson]

People who don't give horses hats on sunny days are monsters

[guyfurman]

You know it's been a tough year for the rap industry when YouTube reviewers are forced to cover economics and politics instead

[KingUnKaged]

"Argentina is the only country to go from developed to developing."

*Canada begins to sweat nervously*

[garrenosborne]

Im a bit Judean Popular Peronism or Peronist Popular Front of Judea?

[xantiom]

This is the most accurate summary of Argentine affairs I've ever heard from a foreigner. Kudos

[luizf]

50 Shades of peronism ruined my country : (

[SedosoEstrella]

300 million for 24 F-16s... seems to have gotten an amazing deal at least.

[lucianoemmanuelramirez]

cant believe u making a vid on my country!!! we are honored

[franksloe]

Ngl, "hats on horses" is a good law. Im moving to Argentina

[RobotSantaClaus]

A couple additions from an Argentine that add nuance to some of these numbers that would understandably make the video a bit rambly:

12:20 laid off gov workers. A huge problem is political parties in power handing "jobs" party members who only show up to "work" on payday.

12:30 spending on universities. We have 100% free universities even to foreigners but don't require graduates to use their education in Argentina. This leads to for example 25% of our School of medicine being Brazilians, studying for free, and then leaving. I'm not aware of any other country doing this type of charity. There're Colombian companies who even make money off of this by charging Colombian students to fly and house them in Argentina where they study for free in our free universities. Milei is trying to negotiate with the other political parties about this and they're reluctant, so even minimal funding is tough to approve. Partly, this is because many students are Peronists and the Peronists are trying to rile them up before the next elections.

13:20 reducing investment in infrastructure programs. This is our politicians' most efficient method to ransack the country. E.g. Step 1: Pass funding to build a highway. Step 2: Give the contract to a "testaferro" (3rd party who's actually in business with you). Step 3: Over charge by 200%+. Step 4: Build 5% of the original contract. Step 5: Divide the remaining between you two (minus any bribes you had to pay on the way). Step 6: Make a layover in the Caymans when you're flying to China to meet with Fun fact, this all literally happened. Several times. With highways, hospitals, a hotel in El Calafate, a hydroelectric dam, etc.

13:40 lack of alternatives. Macri tried to make reforms the "nice" way and the rest of the parties, including non-peronists like the UCR and even some who joined his party put as many roadblocks as possible to make any meaningful changes

14:00 few union strikes. Because normally, unions are coerced to strike by leaders with connections to the peronists. (That's also why there're few strikes even in the worst Peronist governments, like Alberto Fernandez's). One of Milei's first measures was to charge strike organizers for the damages caused by their strikes. This makes the payoff not worth the cost.

14:40 for anyone curious how we could've even had negative foreign reserves when Milei took over is because his opponent in the election was the previous administration's Minister of Economy and he used the country as his personal electoral bank account.

15:00 this tax amnesty is done at least once a decade lmao.

17:00 about the import schemes. A bunch of these are just testaferros importing tech/clothes from china, assembling it in Argentina, labling it "made in Argentina" and selling for an exorbitant price as they have no competitors, and then of course sharing the profits with their political business partners

18:10 We have a huge and growing problem with cartels moving south. E.g. There're growing turf ware in Rosario (the inland port city in the agricultural basin, similar to how Chicago fits into the midwest with it's port in the Mississippi). Also we have an issue of not even having serviceable fighter jets to give out airforce pilots enough flight ours.

19:10 dolarizing. It was most likely a political prop to hit politicians who have financed deficits by printing, but there is still talk about dolarizing. But the fact remains that the main economic issue in Argentina is politicians not caring about financing a deficit by printing. And the only way to permanently stop that is to destroy the money printer. Which ideally is a good monetary policy tool. It's a catch-22.


19:30 devaluing the peso. While he officially devalued it, it had already lost it's value and was trading at the real value in the black market. Which in Argentina is surprisingly standardized and accessible. We even have websites to consult what the real value of the "dolar blue" exchange rate is and places to exchange it (called arbolitos) are everywhere.

Lastly, while I appreciate Patrick talking about Argentina and Milei and the changes we're trying to make, there's an insulting lack of Argentine rap in this video. How could you miss the great L-Egante butchering the national anthem on live tv?!

[billmcle]

Patrick's ability to never blink never ceases to amaze me. Having watched many of his videos and never seen him blink the only conclusion we can arrive at it he must be either a robot or alien. Please leave you vote either robot or alien in this videos comments

[shipchan]

Nice content Patrick! A great chance to witness a country bounce back from 2-digit number of defaults in my lifetime. May the momentum continue.

[NondumisoNyembezi]

I need my eyes tested. I saw Sam Bankman Fried..."it's already been a year?" As to why my brain conveniently ignored Javiers name is beyond me. This was fine in any case...😂

[tomassemhan]

I'm from Argentina and I want to say that it is a very good analysis! I am surprised that people of other countries are very interested in ours lol. I want to add that the main problem of the government in this point is currency appreciate which makes industry and farming less competitive. Investors are so exciting about Argentina that Milei fears that if he takes out exchange controls, the amouth of foreign currency that would enter would appreciate ever more the peso and would make the problem worse. (Argentina products are very expensive now). He wants to be pragmatic and give time to economy to adapt to the new system. If he going very fast the unemployment would be a very serious problem.

PD: My English is not the best haha. Exxume me for that.

[leandervr]

Milei is a rare politician who has a large mandate to make actual meaningful changes, with the public understanding that the situation is so dire that it will require measures that are going to make a bunch of things worse in the short term to fix them in the long run.

[erikson]

I am currently in Buenos Aires and the prices here are incredibly high. Groceries here cost more than in most of Europe and comparable if not more for most stuff with US prices. Bread costs $4, milk $2/L for example - much more than what I pay in the UK or Poland. Peso is artificially too strong atm as Miley is trying to artificially peg it to the dollar. A lot of people in Argentina are suffering right now but still support the reforms, simply because nothing else has worked in the past.

[murrethmedia]

I really enjoyed this unbiased look at his tenure. I'm a progressive but I'm not afraid to look at ideas I don't agree with. I'm smart enough to know I don't know everything.

[adriansaw]

I live in Argentina. As a foreigner, it's been an interesting experience.

[TacticusPrime]

Fuel subsidies are almost always a mistake, but I would argue that it was actually the landed elite of the late 19th and early 20th century that undermined Argentina's economy. They resisted large scale industrialization and dominated politics, turning the state into one strictly reliant on export led growth in commodities. When that stopped being a feasible economic strategy, they had no answers. They hadn't allowed really stable institutions to develop and so the populists turned to the dictator. Since then, the Argentine governments have been more interested in appealing to political blocks by giving them "rents" of various kinds than actually developing the country. Disregard for the rule of law and political favoritism are always ruinous to societies in the long term.

[xzcvdfxzc]

Patrick Boyle - "Argentina is the only country to transition from developed to developing status"

Post Brexit UK - "Hold my pint"