I know it doesn’t work like that but I think it’s mildly interesting
- 57% of Argentina population is 25MM people
- 12% of USA pop (amount who live in poverty) is 38MM people
Yeah, it doesn’t matter that the U.S. has more people living in poverty as what matters is the relative amount of the total population.
I know you know, but thought I’d say it just in case someone else didn’t get why you said “it doesn’t work this way”
You’re right from a hard-statistical point of view, but from a casual, layman conversation I think it is, as I said, mildly interesting.
Why is that interesting?
Because the US has several million more people living below a certain level of income, experiencing a daily misery but it’s somewhat excusable because the ratio is smaller.
I dont know the metrics, but I assume poverty means different things in each country. I would think poverty in a second world country means that people are at a state where they have a hard time getting enough food.
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.
(Source: xe.com)He’s got a term’s time to prove everyone wrong now
I’m not sure if Milei has been in power for long enough to have any sort of meaningful impact.
Doing things the regular way, he wouldn’t have.
That’s not what he’s doing, though. He’s tearing apart huge chunks of the government apparatus that people depend on with no safety nets or other mitigation of inevitable consequences.
It’s like the “let’s tear down each wall until we find out which ones are load bearing” approach to governance. Except they all are and he just keeps swinging his +5 Sledgehammer of Demagogue Stupidity.
except they all are
[Citation needed]
Demagogue Stupidity
Right, because its was so much more Democratic and smart to vote for the drug addict, corrupt, 400% inflation-rate causer, Sergio Massa
Sometimes, there are no good options.
Which was not the case in that election
Sure thing, boludo. Let’s see what you think in a year’s time.
Make that three years, zurdito, then we’ll see
It’s been my experience that you can screw things up way faster than you can fix them
Always faster to cut down a forest than to make it grow
When you remove all financial support from people who need it to survive, they instantly are poor, it doesn’t take years.
But I’m sure it’s a hard to swallow pill for liberals.
The former government contributed a lot to this, specially in the last year. Poverty has been steadily on the rise since 2003. I cant (imo) blame Milei for this, but I can’t deny that if anything Milei has accelerated the impact of Kirchners’ missmanagement.
Another things to keep in mind, the Kirchners were famous for lying about inflation and poverty indices and this government is consequently “taking pride” in transparency. Milei is also using this numbers to show how bad the economy is… so numbers could be biased or exaggerated.
Poverty here is generally measured by household income, which means that inflation leaves a lot of people under the poverty line, which may or not be momentary cause we get constant salary increases… always under inflation, of course.
The thing is really bad, and people is living out of savings. A sign of that is that we can buy US$ by 1400 pesos in a bank, but people is selling so many dollars in the black market to pay bills that we can buy them for 1000 pesos on the streets.
If all this mess will pay out in the long term, I cant tell, but appealing to our erratic history, I would say that it won’t.
Every 10 years, Argentina has a crisis that lasts 10 years.
Really interesting. Thanks for this.
I knew nothing about him 5 minutes ago.
Where are you buying pesos at 1400?!
Also, the blue exchange is so small that it doesn’t even affect the economy
Yeah. I’m hardly a fan of everything he says or does, but it’s a bit like appointing a new captain an hour after the Titanic hit the iceberg, then blaming him for not stopping the ship from sinking. Argentina was well on its way to hyperinflation long before the presidential elections.
Thatcherism works everybody
You mean Peronism?
Nah, Milei is not peronist.
And Milei didn’t cause this. He was in office maybe a month at this point? And the poverty rate had already rapidly risen from 40% to 50% in the six months prior under Fernández.
49% but yes
Why does their president’s haircut make him look like a 1980’s film star
Because he has 1980’s economic policy.
I read somewhere (sorry no sauce but it seemed informed) that it’s a deliberate choice by him to appeal to working class boomers or something. Did you all know that a medium channeled his deceased dog which in turn told him to run for president?
In my experience, Conservatives usually don’t do anything to improve the income levels of working class people.
Tbf, Milei isn’t a conservative, he’s a genuine AnCap, which is somehow even more pathetic. He’s tearing down everything in general, rather than trying to entrench Capitalist Power via fascism.
Not saying this won’t lead to fascism, there’s a large chance it does, but rather than moving directly towards fascism, Miley is moving directly towards destruction of government, which will likely result in an acceleration of Capitalism to fascism.
Edit: conservativism is terrible, but grouping AnCaps in with conservatives is like saying aspens are oak trees. Both are unique brands of stupid, but one of em has a MAGA hat and the other has a gadsden flag tattooed to their ass. Recognizing the differences between types of reactionary is useful.
There are other options than laissez-faire capitalism or communism.
The issue is that there has to be pain in the present for a much better future.
He took office in December, so this is entirely the fault of Peronism and doesn’t have anything to do with Milei yet.
One of the things Faux News did to build up Trump was to show the unemployment rate when Trump had 100 days in office and compare it with Obama. Obama came in after the 2008 meltdown and had [apx] 10% unemployment at 100 days. Trump came in after eight years of Obama and had [apx] 4%.
Yeah, people love to look at who’s in the White/Pink House and think everything since the day he took office was single-handedly caused by him.
