Ordinarily I would agree. But this is Argentina we’re talking about. Over 40% of Argentinians worked for the government and it was and probably still is the most regulated country in the world. For decades the unions had policy in an iron grip and the Peronites would pass one subsidizing law after the other while not having the money to pay for it all. So they printed more money. And more. And more.

And this kept going for decades, almost a century now (this started in 1930 with a military coup). Since then, Argentina has defaulted on its foreign debt obligations so often they lost all outside investment while having rampant inflation. And subsequent governments just kept printing money and introducing more regulations and social programs.

Argentina is sitting on a ton of natural resources, the country should be rich as hell, but because no foreign investor will touch it, nothing happens. And I haven’t even mentioned the rampant corruption and clientelism yet, which is also a massive problem.

Milei is a strange character, but his chainsaw politics are absolutely warranted and he is going after corruption as well. I just hope he manages to see it through so that Argentina can stop being an economic backwater. He only cares about the economy because the economy of Argentina is so completely and utterly fucked up, there is little else he should care about.

A long history of military dictatorships, followed by the many flavors of Peronism, is actually how Argentina managed to downgrade themselves from developed economy, to a developing one. Which is also what created the conditions that swept the current government to power.

I’m not saying the current administration is helping the situation, just that their economic policies have continued a long standing tradition of gross economic mismanagement.