Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

I've wondered: is this because there is property to acquire there at 10 cents on the dollar, so foreign investment funds are now rushing in?

That may be good in the short-term but what about long-term?

The article founds it's conclusion on some KPIs which are down compared to a month ago or two months ago.

But what about the long term trends? Aren't those KPIs falling for decades now. Is this really something new?

When I look at the Peso/Dollar rate:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=argentina%20peso%20usd

It's in decline for over 20 years.

Can you really blame a new president on not stopping this in two months?

Is this a marxist blog? Seems very opinionated. Milei's plans for Argentina's economic recovery is very unique & interesting, and should be a good example for other countries who struggle with massive public spending. Economic "shock therapy" is obviously painful in short term, especially for the beneficiaries of previous policies.

People seem to have this expectation that an economic crisis is like a storm. Kind of blows in, out of nowhere and then things are bad. For that sort of person, 2 months is a long time. I don't know why people seem to think that way though because it doesn't make any sense; and economic crisis is usually triggered by past decisions that have destroyed wealth and people are now having to realise it. I'd put Argentina's devaluations in that bucket, and the spending freezes. The wealth isn't there to sustain the policies and that isn't the fault of the current guy. Someone needed to be creating wealth 10 years ago for the generous policies of yesteryear to have a chance.

But I'm not really a fan of the idea of "shock therapy", it is the same sloppy thinking as gets people in to messes. We'll note that China, bone-fide economic miracle, seems to have had a strategy of using charter cities (eg, Shenzhen). That seems less disruptive and probably about as effective as anything else; quarantine the old rules geographically and set up experiments with new rules to figure out what works. Let people move to low-tax regions on their own terms when they think it is better than their current state. Sharp changes are super risky, people do need time to re-learn how to survive in a competitive economy. And just because your ideology is sound doesn't mean your policies will magically be good.

I literally don't understand why people keep insisting on using one policy across entire countries. It is patently obvious that politicians aren't good at figuring out the best policy from the legislature. They need to experiment.

I wouldn't consider myself to be knowledgeable about Argentina, but this is a blatantly misleading article.

All the conclusions here are based on the government's official USD/peso exchange rate, which until a recent devaluation, had been completely out-of-sync with the black market exchange rate.

From this AP article published in December: https://apnews.com/article/argentina-inflation-milei-currenc...

"The previous government sought to deny reality by strictly limiting Argentinians’ ability to exchange pesos into U.S. dollars or other foreign currencies. As a result, the official exchange rate made the peso look stronger than it actually was — around 400 pesos for every U.S. $1 before the devaluation that Milei’s government announced Tuesday. But no one was fooled. The black market has lately pegged the peso at around 1,000 per $1."

"At the heart of Milei’s audacious economic agenda is his plan to devalue the peso from 400 to 800 per $1 U.S. dollar and then by an additional 2% each month. Part of the goal is to make Argentina’s exports less expensive — and thus more competitive — overseas and reduce the country’s gaping trade deficit."

"Some economists worry that Milei’s devaluation doesn’t actually go far enough. His plan would narrow — but not close – the gap between the official exchange rate and the 1,000-peso-to-$1 rate in the black market."