In Argentina, President Javier Milei has screwed the economy up so badly he needs a $20 billion bailout. That’s because his “free market” economics don’t actually work.
Wait a moment, wasn’t Argentina’s economy in the toilet already? If it happens like Mexico in the 80s, this 20 billion loan won’t prop the economy, but the pockets of government officials and robber barons.
Regardless of the state of Argentina’s economy and government, this is a $20 billion gift from one fascist to another. Trump is probably hoping for Millei to back any move against Venezuela the US might make.
Libertarians do care about freedom … their own personal freedom … and it doesn’t matter to them if it costs the freedoms of others
It’s a selfish mentality where they believe that they should have all the ultimate freedom to do whatever they please, regardless if it hurts, degrades or destroys anyone’s or everyone’s freedoms.
In the before times (Trump, COVID, Harambe) Libertarians believed in the Non Aggression Principal or NAP as it was commonly referred to.
After the tea party and preperheads co-opted the libertarian imagery, it seems to have long since been forgotten.
But initially, that ideology was one of not using coercion to rule. Not restricting behavior or actions as long as NAP is not violated. Yes excess taxes are bad but also stay out of my bedroom and my non-binary neighbors garden. You want a coal plant cool, BUT if it is spewing crap into the air that we breath, it violates NAP and not allowed to operate.
Personally, I believe some of the ideals have merit but they require people to not be shit and that seems way too hard an ask. There are other ways to govern and maintain personal freedom not at the expense of others.
As a fun read Dr. Jo Jorgensen (she/her) was an interesting libertarian candidate years ago and huge contrast to what we see in the pork chop sideburns guy from Argentina. A long way from what could have been. They forgot her faster than the NAP.
You want a coal plant cool, BUT if it is spewing crap into the air that we breath, it violates NAP and not allowed to operate.
Most of the libertarians I’ve met don’t seem to believe that sort of thing. They might accept that punching someone is bad, but something complex like pollution they don’t accept.
“I should be free to dump my garbage on my property! It’s mine!”
“Yeah, but then you pollute the river and everyone down stream suffers”
“…it’s my property!”
When socialists ruin Latin American economies, we blame the US and World Bank for undermining them. The reality is that pragmatic approaches are good for economies and populist approaches wreak havoc.
The worst part of the Trump Era is that we’ll finally oust him by putting in a populist from the other end of the spectrum and suffer from another pendulum swing.
Or, Argentina simply has an enormous hole to dig itself out of from its previous mismanagement.
I’m not actually fond of most Libertarian policies myself, I lean socialist in general. But you can’t judge his performance purely on the basis of needing a lot of money, he wasn’t starting from a blank slate. From what I’ve read he’s actually managed to make good progress on a couple of deep economic problems Argentina had.
I think it’s important, for at least Americans, to see that those policies don’t work. Yes it’s a valuable lesson at the expense of a ton of people, but hopefully people at least learn from others mistake. And yes I hear that narrator voice right behind me.
My point is that the simple fact that Argentina needed a bailout doesn’t mean that his policies “don’t work.” These things are more complicated than a simple red or black number in an annual balance sheet.
To be clear, I don’t like Milei. But Argentina was in a terrible state for a long time before he came to power, and whether I like a person or not doesn’t have much effect on whether his policies are effective.
