Argentina's Milei says shutting central bank 'non-negotiable'
Argentina's Milei says shutting central bank 'non-negotiable'
Argentina's President-elect Javier Milei said on Friday that the closure of the country's central bank, a signature campaign pledge, was a "non-negotiable matter", according to a statement from his office posted on social media platform X.
Shuttering their central bank and converting to dollars... Meaning they aren't actually getting rid of a central bank, but are rather converting to a foreign central bank.
No it’s worse than that. How are they going to purchase enough dollars to replace their own currency? No one is going to give Argentina a loan to do this.
This project is doomed before it starts.
You get dollars the same way anyone else would in the situation: You carry a trade surplus vs. the United States and then allow tax payments to be made in dollars. Prices settle as a function of dollars available, rate of circulation, and volume of goods & services available.
The policy should produce a boost in exports & employment but also produce a shortage of goods normally imported. It'll also be a great time for Americans to visit, the dollar suddenly having a lot more purchasing power in Argentina.
It seems the whole point is adopting a currency they can't print more of. Because of the 'print more money' thing doesn't seem to be solving their inflation issues.
And the Dollarzone grew three sizes that day
I wonder how long it will be before I can point to this as yet another example of why libertarian policy is absolute bullshit.
My guess is not long.
From the moment he opened his mouth
Have to wait for the bears first.
i can usually understand most political views, but libertarians just make me confused
You are still not half as confused as the average libertarian.
TL;DR: Basically, in the US at least, Libertarians are spoiled white guys who don't even understand how good they have it and have Ayn Rand power fantasies that they'll make their own way and the rest of the world has just been dragging them down.
A couple of my college buddies are full on Ludwig Von Mises/Murray Rothbard anarcho-capitalist nutjobs. The basic conceit is that all governments and states are illegitimate uses of force and are drags on the free functioning of the economy. Left with no "coercive" governments, people will competitively self-organize into private collectives to replace all governmental services, and all resources will flow to their best and natural use. It's absurdly naive and ignores absolutely everything about human nature and even the de facto reality of their desired end state.
So somehow private property will continue to exist and be protected by voluntary courts and security, and funny how it works out that in this case my buddies get to keep the fruits of the privilege enjoyed by centuries of their ancestors and built up in a decidedly non anarcho-capitalist system. All existing government property will be sold off and the proceeds distributed to... someone? No word on how natural monopolies like the best water route between two river ports will be handled, but it will be privately negotiated and definitely perfect!
It will be a utopia of people pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and not letting silly things like "personal safety" or "living wage" or "stewardship of resources" get in the way of making the completely even-handed and non-coercive deals that all people will make with the private entities that spring up to replace governments, but only VOLUNTARILY! People definitely won't make deals they don't like, and that reduce their future power, to avoid death in a "market" with limited opportunities. They definitely won't leave their shares (or whatever) to their children and recreate all the same social structures we have now, but with corporate self-interest as literally the only governing norm.
Now, I suppose you could end up with corporate bodies that are outcompeted by "fairer" competitors (ignoring, of course, all first mover advantages and the willingness to protect profits by violent force that we already see in so many times and places), or maybe certain security and judicial corporations will make agreements with each other and install themselves as a layer over the more economically productive companies and collect fees that are definitely not taxes. Maybe some of them will be the "fairer" entities.
But where does that leave you? Basically, our current world is already at least a little better than the libertarians' best-case scenario, and what their system really does is tell people to give up, that they are not worth one cent more than the economic value they can provide to someone else, and that they deserve no voice in the governance of their lives beyond what they can take.
How this doesn't descend into competing warlord fiefdoms, eventually to be swept away by spasms of violence (in this system, "competition" is just a euphemism for politics and war), is beyond me. With some luck, it might lead to some parts of the world on a tortuously slow and uneven march in the vague direction of egalitarian governance to moderate the use of coercive force. In that case, CONGRATULATIONS! You've landed the world right back where it started, but now with millions dead and the Earth in even worse shape than it would have been.
Agreed. The only thing to add to this is that government systems are voluntary and propped up by the people. The reason our current system actually works so well is because there is already a strong sense of local governance and accountability albeit on some rails. Each state defines the types of organized entities that if will sanction. In NJ for example, we have townships, but you could also register using other systems like village, etc. If they wanted to appease the libertarians a little, they could potentially allow for that experiment to exist in the same way that Indian reservations are their own systems.
What an amazing, cojent and objective description. You've definitely done your homework. Glad to see you passing on your good knowledge to someone more ignorant
I can almost understand the Personal Liberties Libertarian, which I think is what the philosophy was originally supposed to be about. But we often see Corpo-National Libertarians or Totally-Not-An-Anarchist-I-Swear Libertarians, and both of those are baffling to me.
Yea, the only brand I ever sympathized with was the "Hey man, just let me smoke weed"-bertarians... but all those guys jumped ship a long time ago.
Now it's mostly just "I don't want to pay for schools"-bertarians... and that's ironic because those assholes really need an education.
I've meet way too many libertarians who don't want their taxes to go fund cycle lanes because they don't ride a bicycle. "it does not benefit me" they say while they fail to see that people in bicycles mean fewer people in cars clogging up traffic.
Libertarian world view cannot even see past their nose
confused
You've understood.
It always seems like "common sense" (short-sighted and moronically simplistic) solutions to problems they don't understand but waffle on about something tangentally related to make it sound like they do.
I don't think most of it is common sense. I'm a voluntarist, which is an ethical position for me.
it's like I'm always with them for the first few seconds, then they just go way off base out of knowhere at some unexpected point in time
just make me confused
It's very simple. They incorporate as a superperson. You're a human, somewhat rich. You get a corporation. You put it on like a magic suit and you have super-immunity (impunity) from laws, you can do anything.
The freedom that they want is the freedom to exercise their power (money) with no bad consequences for them.
It's a simple theology: "Me first. Fuck you. Every man for himself."
While it fits great on a bumper sticker, it's a suboptimal strategy to build an economy, nation-state, or anything really.
It's neoliberalism
This move is a necessity in Argentina's Political and Economical situation, by shutting down the Central Bank (and subsequently moving to Dollars) Milei is killing the Politicians' (long standing and abused) Ability to finance themselves with monetary emissions (their Agendas and Deficient governments just to not say corrupt money laundering), which is the cause of inflation, which makes all Argentines poorer by the hour.
It is if not his biggest, one of the major promises on his campaign and the one most people voted him for, Argentines understand (as seen trough Random Street interviews) that this will create major hiccup on Economy while they transition to dollar, but given it's long tern effects are willing to put up with it
The long term effects are going to be serious whiplash. The monetary regime would go from severe inflation to super low inflation (below what Argentina needs). They will essentially be using Argentinian Government funds to buy US dollars, thereby helping the US keep its inflation under control.
That's good for the US, but Argentina may fall into a recession. Growing economies need a growing money supply or businesses will not be able to borrow money to expand. By essentially hitching their economy to the slower growing US economy, Argentina is ensuring that their businesses pay high interest rates to borrow money. The US government is paying you 5%, risk free. Why tf would anyone loan money to Argentina less than 10-15%?
Remember how US tech companies all fired people at the same time when the Federal Reserve increased interest rates (it happened)? That's what will happen to many companies in Argentina at the same time.
Edit: lol, he was just lying about "dollarization" for votes because it's nuts:
He added no dollarization was planned in the short-term, as fiscal and monetary stabilization were need, the first source said.
https://news.yahoo.com/finance/news/milei-economic-team-led-former-175214678.html
I'm sure crime will not rise up when people have no food because they don't have dollars, I'm sure people will not go out violently on the streets and raise hell, yes the policy may be be beneficial to those who have their on dollar reserve, but the rest? Save my comment, and hope that doesn't happen.
Trust me. I'm an economist from Facebook University
Hey, he may even met our economist, Erdoğan, there!
Come on man, the Turkish economist isn't Erdoğan , it's
BerbatbayrakBerat Albayrak
Oh yeah, a bank shutdown turned out great for Argentina the last time they did it.
I missed that previous time, I did a quick Google search but I'm not getting results. Would you know roughly when that happened?
In 2002, there was a major bank freeze overnight in Argentina. They reopened months later, and because of how they now pegged to the dollar, the value of the accounts were functionally cut in half. In those months, many local neighborhoods invented their own bartering systems and it was a whole mess.
This was around the time the USA invaded Afghanistan, which explains why most people don't know about it, but it was obviously a major event for Argentina.
Argentina just activated Fuck Around And Find Out protocol.
Bruh weve been. The world is just paying attention for the first time.
Nos estamos cayendo a pedazos hace décadas y recién ahora se enteran. Me da algo de gracia, arriba alguien confundió el corralito con el cierre del central
Literally order 66
I'm really interested to see how this plays out. If history plays out that country is headed almost immediately for a recession that may or not be purposefully engineered.
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by dumbass political philosophy.
Oscar Wilde
“Regulate money? Amid out of control inflation? Nonsense!”
The market will regulate itself /s
They should just declare inflation illegal like Zimbabwe
Wait so also the Falklands was non-negotiable?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
BUENOS AIRES, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Argentina's President-elect Javier Milei said on Friday that the closure of the country's central bank, a signature campaign pledge, was a "non-negotiable matter", according to a statement from his office posted on social media platform X.
The comments, in response to what he called "false rumors", come as the outsider libertarian economist races to put together his team ahead of taking office on Dec. 10, with some signs that he is picking a more moderate Cabinet that expected.
That marks a shift from a previous plan that Milei would appoint a close ally to lead the administration.
Horacio Marin, a private energy sector executive, was also confirmed as the incoming chief of state oil company YPF.
Milei faces major hurdles to implement his more radical reform plans, which include dollarizing the economy, shutting the central bank and privatizing state companies like YPF, which will take time if they can be done at all.
Milei also has to juggle demands from the more mainstream conservative bloc, whose public backing was key to him winning the run-off election last week.
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