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Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

nakedcapitalism.com

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Re: Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

#31

Post by roenxi »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #14
roenxi wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

A single moderately sized city in China has a population of 25% of Argentina

Based on this hard data, I expect I could figure out effective policies 4x faster than the average government if given dictatorial control over Argentina.

I think people underestimate the effect of East-West Germany or North-South Korea style examples for making a point about which policies work better. It is clearly no mystery what policies generate wealth. The US has had this figures out for a while now, you just need to look at the different states to figure out what policy mixes work. I bet that is politically inconvenient for the people pushing destructive policy so they then try to bring their ideas in federally.

Re: Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

#32

Post by resolutebat »

ngcazz wrote: post #11
Geee wrote: post #6

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.

"The people are worse off, but the country is much better!" You call that being opinionated, and yet you're okay (fascinated even) with an economy policy that brutalizes and starves in the short term? In a country like Argentina?

The whole idea is to swallow the bitter pill now in exchange for prosperity later. There are worse fates than brutality and starvation in the short term: witness Venezuela, which has been trying to wish away its economic problems for decades now, and keeps going from bad to worse.

Re: Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

#33

Post by Geee »

ngcazz wrote: post #11
Geee wrote: post #6

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.

"The people are worse off, but the country is much better!" You call that being opinionated, and yet you're okay (fascinated even) with an economy policy that brutalizes and starves in the short term? In a country like Argentina?

They have already been "brutalized and starved" for decades. Argentina used to be in top 10 countries of per capita GDP [0]. Argentina is a prime example of how socialist policies can destroy a country, and that's why reversing these policies can also fix a country.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Argentina#...

Re: Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

#34

Post by throwayaw84329 »

keiferski wrote: post #7

This recent focus on Argentina has highlighted a common tactic the media likes to use: - Bad thing happens for long time: ignore, downplay. - Bad thing continues to happen, but “enemy” person that can be blamed for it appears: suddenly it’s headline news and this new bad person caused the problem. No one that has paid any attention to Argentina is surprised that the economy is chaotic and undergoing experiments of wh…

As an Argentine, I agree.

This article "blames" everything that is wrong with Argentina on an "enemy" figure. It is generally accepted that monetary policy has a lead time of at least a couple of months (it took the FED at least one year [1]). The causal relationship implied in the article, regarding having a record high inflation in the month of January is pretty unlikely.

[1]: https://time.com/6227633/inflation-federal-reserve-interest-...

Re: Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

#35

Post by chgs »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #9
ladyanita22 wrote: post #5

To be clear, this is a liberal economics blog, so expect at least some bias.

I genuinely don’t understand. Shouldn’t we expect bias regardless of their orientation? Conservative, libertarian, liberal, progressive, Marxist - whatever ideology someone has, whether it has a name or not, whether it is coherent or not, it’s going to contain their bias. Not to be too reductive but that’s how human beings work.

If a Marxist blog advocates privatisation then that’s very different than if a neoliberal blog does.

Sure expect bias, but you have to know what direction that bias is in.

Re: Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

#36

Post by orwin »

Geee wrote: post #33
ngcazz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The people are worse off, but the country is much better!" You call that being opinionated, and yet you're okay (fascinated even) with an economy policy that brutalizes and starves in the short term? In a country like Argentina?

They have already been "brutalized and starved" for decades. Argentina used to be in top 10 countries of per capita GDP [0]. Argentina is a prime example of how socialist policies can destroy a country, and that's why reversing these policies can also fix a country. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Argentina#...

You compare it to the US GDP which is quite unfair prior to the 60s. And don't account for the Panama canal creation either, which should have been quite a blow. but really, the r'long period when Argentina was really declined in quality of life was the 70s, until at least the late 80s. I think it's rather a prime example of US intervention ism during the cold War, and how it create corrupt countries.

Re: Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

#37

Post by jowea »

asah wrote: post #20
fmobus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazil cured its hyperinflation by what could be described as the opposite of shock therapy.

interesting - where can I read more?

Wikipedia has a start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano_Real

Re: Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

#38

Post by ngcazz »

resolutebat wrote: post #32
ngcazz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The people are worse off, but the country is much better!" You call that being opinionated, and yet you're okay (fascinated even) with an economy policy that brutalizes and starves in the short term? In a country like Argentina?

The whole idea is to swallow the bitter pill now in exchange for prosperity later. There are worse fates than brutality and starvation in the short term: witness Venezuela, which has been trying to wish away its economic problems for decades now, and keeps going from bad to worse.

On the other hand, we all know what Chicago Boy orthodoxy has wrought in Chile with Pinochet, or in southern European countries in the wake of the forced IMF/ECB bailouts.

Re: Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

#39

Post by ngcazz »

gumby wrote: post #24
ngcazz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The people are worse off, but the country is much better!" You call that being opinionated, and yet you're okay (fascinated even) with an economy policy that brutalizes and starves in the short term? In a country like Argentina?

> …an economy policy that brutalizes and starves in the short term? In a country like Argentina? In which kinds of countries would it be ok?

Nowhere IMO, just appealing to OP's better sense given that Argentina has been trying for decades the same monetary policy to fix the issues it created!

Re: Argentina's Economy Is Screaming at Top of Its Lungs

#40

Post by neglesaks »

keiferski wrote: post #18
paganel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair there's "bad" and there's "more than bad", this looks to be in the "more than bad" territory. And whenever I hear "Shock therapy" being mentioned I shiver, because it reminds me of my childhood and adolescence spent under such an economic policy in Eastern Europe back in the '90s. It was worse than hell, thinking back at it. So all I can say it's that I wish the Argentinian people all the best, they're goi…

For sure I don’t want to come across as if I am on “Team Milei.” I am more just annoyed that these recent Argentina is imploding articles don’t spend any time discussing why the country is in the position it’s in, pretty much entirely because of ideological reasons. They only cover the story because it’s useful for bashing their opponents, not because they actually care.

Exactly, it's not much different from the clickbaity tabloid headlines: "ONG BAD STUFF HAPPENS HERE NOW". Very short sighted, and tend to finger current participants as bad, instead of offering a proper historical perspective, in this case that Argentine has been a repeat offender when it comes to defaults and debt restructurings during the 20th century.
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