this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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I'm not sure if Milei has been in power for long enough to have any sort of meaningful impact.
I don't expect him to have a positive impact, mind. But it always takes a bit of time before things change.
The poverty spiked exactly as fast and exactly as much as the social programs he dismantled, he's trying stuff out and his first speech explained that this would happen.
I don't believe he's gonna pull off any kind of 2nd phase.
The chart below shows the ARS/USD exchange rate over the last five years.
The peso has been in steady decline for years, with the last big drop in December, about a week before the presidential election.
The exchange rate doesn't tell the whole story of course, but neither does attacking Milei for dismantling Argentina's social programs. The reason for Argentina's ongoing problems is that the state has literally dozens (if not hundreds) of social programs that it simply cannot afford, along with regulations strangling otherwise healthy businesses. The Peronists have always 'solved' this problem by a) borrowing whatever they can (and then defaulting on the debt) and b) printing more money. This has unsurprisingly led to ever-increasing inflation and rampant poverty.\
The Peronist/Kirchnerist presidential candidate (Massa) planned to counter the threatening hyperinflation by printing more money for more subsidies to counter the effects of the inflation. Let that sink in for a moment.
The point is, Argentina's current system of subsidies and handouts is not sustainable, and hasn't been for decades. That's not a political opinion but simple math: you cannot spend more than you earn forever.
How that problem can and should be solved is of course debatable. Milei is certainly far from an ideal president, but when you bash him, keep in mind what the alternative to him would have looked like... and maybe give him a chance to prove his critics wrong if he gets Argentina's economy back on track, which would be something the faux-left Peronistas/Kirchnerites have failed to do for the better part of eight decades now.
He's got a term's time to prove everyone wrong now