The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
Back in 2018, I wrote an article about Zimbabwe when it was poised to become blessed with a great economic recovery. In 2008, Tendai Biti became finance minister, and in a 30 minute speech, he announced the end of essentially all government interference in the economy. He treated Zimbabwe to instant free markets. Regulations, licensure, import permits, and exchange and price controls all went out the window. In 2009, Biti replaced his country’s worthless hyperinflated dollars with U.S. dollars and South African rands.
In a few weeks, Zimbabwe’s economy blossomed with explosive impact. Food and fuel shortages suddenly vanished. Empty supermarkets stocked up to their limits. The once rampant inflation dropped to a minus 7%, and within two years dropped to the lowest in southern Africa. Over the next four years, the economy grew about 8% annually. Tax revenue jumped almost eight fold. Foreign currency abounded. Unemployment plummeted. Entrepreneurs thrived and made record profits. Masses of people bought cars, took vacations, and sent their kids to the best private schools.
The magic of laissez faire (just leave me alone) had almost overnight transformed this destitute third world loser into a model of first world prosperity.
But it did not last. In 2013, in an election that was probably stolen, Mugabe’s party regained full control and immediately re-imposed the previous government shackles—thus ending Zimbabwe’s four years of glory.
In June, 2018, Zimbabwe had another opportunity to re-elect Tendai Biti and restore his policies, but he lost in a rigged election. Zimbabwe slid back into an impovershed third world cesspool, where it remains to this day.
NOW FOR ARGENTINA
On December 10, 2023, Javier Milei, a true libertarian with a flamboyant personality and a strong media presence won in a landslide election to became Argentina’s new president. He said that the State is a criminal organization and that taxation is theft. He strongly supports laissez-faire economics, aligning specifically with minarchist and anarcho-capitalist principles and the Austrian School of Economics. He immediately enacted a comprehensive overhaul of the country’s fiscal and structural policies, supporting freedom of choice on recreational drugs, firearms, sex, and same-sex marriage, although he tends to oppose abortion and euthanasia. He supports closer relationships with the United States and Israel, and distancing from China and Russia.
During the early 1980’s, when Argentina’s exchange rate was collapsing, Milei became interested in economics, studied it intently, earned several degrees, and focused onto an economic career. By 2016, he had written more than 50 academic papers.
Milei is a self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist who supports minimizing government to the utmost, and focusing on justice and security with a philosophy rooted in life, liberty, and property, along with free-market principles.
From 2020 to 2021, Milei strolled through Buenos Aires neighborhoods and talked with the common people, pledging to never support any tax increases or new taxes. He denounced politicians as “rats” in a caste of “useless parasitic politicians who have never worked” on TV, radio, and YouTube.
He has taken several trips to the U.S. and had meetings with Donald Trump and Elon Musk. In February, 2024, while speaking at a CPAC meeting over here, Milei pledged to “make Argentina great again” and promised to deliver “shockwaves” to his home country.
During his first six months, Milei wasted little time and warned his people “to brace for pain” with a “shock therapy” of hundreds of austerity measures. He cut government ministries by half, terminated 70,000 state jobs, slashed federal aid, and devalued the peso and then replaced it with the U.S. dollar.
Argentina had been suffering from one of the world’s highest inflation rates and more than a decade of economic stagnation, rising poverty, and was teetering on the brink of economic collapse. Milei’s clear mandate is to eradicate inflation and reignite economic growth—a top priority.
Milei signed Decree 70/2023, deregulating the Argentine economy. The monthly inflation slowed down from 25.5% in December, to 20.6% in January, and down to 13.2% in February, 2024. Argentina's dollar-denominated international bonds reached new highs in March, with the 2029 and 2030 issues close to or at record high prices.
Argentina’s economy has a great deal of potential to prosper. While many countries struggle to diversify and integrate into the global economy, Argentina has many opportunities for sustained growth, including high-tech developments in agriculture, oil and gas, information technologies, and software. Argentina is also blessed with huge deposits of lithium, an essential element in the booming market for electric car batteries,
Milei plans to cut the deficit by five percentage points of GDP in 2024. Progress has already been made with a fiscal surplus in the first quarter of 2024 (see Table). Deep spending cuts across the board have slashed primary expenditures 35% below those of 2023.
The entire world is watching. Perhaps the governments of at least a few other nations will pay attention and work to mimic the fantastic success that can be attained with laissez faire policies and getting abusive government out of the way—just leave people alone.
Once again, minimizing government, reducing taxes, slashing spending, and getting government intrusion out of the way has proven to be the “magic bullet” to ensure economic prosperity and individual liberty for everybody.
Today, the U. S. is deeply mired in the quicksand of bloated government, reckless spending, excessive taxes, and overbearing regulations and mandates. When will our representitives, senators and president gain the backbone to eliminate these atrocities and join Argentina’s blessing with Javier Milei?
SOURCES
1. Reuters, Argentina posts fourth month of fiscal surplus under Milei, but margin narrows, May 16, 2024.
2. Meadows, Sam, Javier Milei is torn between the West and China, May 14, 2024.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/javier-milei-is-torn-between-the-west-and-china/
3. Argentina under a new government: what are the big economic challenges?
4. Bergengruen, Vera, The 100 Most Influential People of 2024, April 17, 2024
https://time.com/6965017/javier-milei/
5. Holmes, Frank, How Javier Milei’s ‘Shock Therapy’ Is Transforming Argentina’s Economy, May 13, 2024.
THE VIEWS OF SUBMITTED EDITORIALS MAY NOT BE THE EXPRESS VIEWS OF THE ALABAMA GAZETTE.
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