"This is your captain. Brace for impact"

[Gabriel]

No. This is not about US Air 1549.

This is about Argentina. This long preamble is to put into context what I say in the last 2 lines aviation-related paragraph at the end.

The Argies have elected Javier Milei, the first libertarian president in the world. More than that, he describes himself as anarch-capitalist. While he acknowledge that it is a utopia at least by now, in his mind the best form of government is no government at all where all the relationships between humans are free. In a more real world, the role of the government would be limited to ensuring the conditions that assure liberty which he describes as "unrestricted respect for the life-project of others based on the principle of non-aggression and the rights to life, liberty and property" (yeah, I know, kind of circular). It is also the first time that Argentinians elect a professional economist as president.

Some days ago I (and No_Carlos) described the political situation of Argentina as 2 candidates running for ballotage (after a general election where none of the candidates obtained the majority) that would guarantee suffering. One was the current Minister (i.e. Secretary) of Economy and de-facto president Massa (since he assumed in this role the real president has hidden in a bathroom, probably one with a mini-lav, and has disappeared from the scene). This was the continuation of a government that destroyed the Argentinian economy and brought it to 150% inflation, 50% poverty (even within persons with relatively good employment) and 10% indigency, a Dollar price (vs the AR$) that increased 10 folds, a lack of reserves in the central bank, stagnation (stagnflation actually), a huge deficit (since the government tries to keep the situation livable by subsidizing the poor and the price of things such as fuel, utilities, etc) and, consequently, and tax pressure that is unbearable. This situation is of course not sustainable and would have led to what I called a slow torture ending in a total failure within 18 months.

The the people, just not bearing the current conditions (remember, it's the economy, stupid!), elected whatever was on the other side. In the general election the opposition went divided between this Milei guy and the party that held office in the previous cycle, which share many ideas but is less extremists (their ultimate goal is not to get rid of the state). The current Minister of Economy came up first, Milei second, and the other opposition party third. Hence yesterday we had the ballotage between Massa and Milei.

And Milei won. By a lot. This is the other guy that I and No_Carlos) described as catastrophic failure within 18 days.

Now, while he won in a landslide with a difference of 11.4%, he is politically week. Until 2 years ago (when he started in Politics out of the blue and was elected representative in the lower chamber), he was a private economy consultant and, more important, a very famous "opiniologist" with a lot of public exposure in talk shows and news shows, where he always had a very confrontative and aggressive behavior. His party has 10% of the Senate, 10% of the Representatives, zero governors (Argentina has 24 provinces), and only 3 mayors in all the Country (all 3 in very small towns with a population of less than 25,000). He will not be able to do all the things he would want to, and he will be forced to negotiate with the existing political parties, which is kind of funny and sad since all his campaign, and the main reason why he has so much support, is that he calls all of the current policial class as a "cast of criminals that make a living based on corruption payed by the people" (now he was forced to call to "wipe the slate clean" and invite all the politicians that are wiling to embrace the ideals of liberty, regardless of their affiliation and of what they did in the past (which infuriated a good fraction of his followers and even his own party mates, who were with him to fight the cast and threatened to not vote for him but ultimately saw that voting for the other or not voting was worse).

That gives certain assurance that he will not be as crazy as he want to, not because he doesn't want to but simply because he lacks the ability and power to do so.

But it is very clear that if he will do one thing, that is what he calls "the reform of the state" which involves eliminating deficit. And he tries to put as much of the cost as possible off the shoulders of the people and on the shoulders of the political system.

One thing he will do is try to get rid of all the state-owned companies, especially and with high priority the ones that are operating at a loss.
And do you know which is one such company? Aeroíneas Argentinas.

[Not_Karl]

INDEED and CONCUR

[Sickbag]

what is with all these populist fascists and bad haircuts?
its a global phenomenon.

[elaw]

It's a bunch of people who have convinced themselves that all politicians are s**theads, and somehow think that electing the worst s**thead they can find to office will somehow improve things.