Where’s that rain cloud icon to use instead of the heart one?
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On 2023-12-20 Argentine president Javier Milei announced a broad programme of deregulation, including abolition of rent control, allowing the privatisation of state-owned companies, suspension of all public construction projects, and a year-long ban on advertising by the state. Below are the first five minutes of the speech with English subtitles. This was posted only on 𝕏 so you have to click the image to play the video there.
Argentinians responded, of course, by rioting.
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As part of the economic reforms announced by Javier Milei, Argentine minister of foreign affairs Diana Mondino confirmed that henceforth contracts in Argentina may be settled in Bitcoin.
English translation:
We ratify and confirm that in Argentina contracts can be agreed in Bitcoin.
This is actually a special case of the implementation of full Milton Friedman-style monetary freedom, in which parties to a contract can agree to use any currency or commodity they wish for payment.
English translation:
And also any other crypto and/or species such as kilos of steer or liters of milk.
Art 766. - Obligation of the debtor. The debtor must deliver the corresponding amount of the designated currency, whether the currency is legal tender in the Republic or not.
I think the use of “especie”, which Google Translate translated as “species”, probably was intended to denote “money”, as in the related English word “specie”.
How appropriate that in Argentina you can pay in beef!
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All countries need a leader who will do the same thing as Milei. I have high hopes for Argentina now.
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In remarks delivered on the eve of the first big protest of Milei’s Presidency, Human Capital Minister Sandra Pettovello said in a broadcast that picketers who attempt to block roads would be stripped of government support.
“The only people who will not receive [welfare and aid] are those who go to the march and cut the street,” warned the 55-year-old, who is leading a new government portfolio that encompasses the former ministries of Culture, Education, Labour and Social Development.
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Protesters are set to take to the streets in two days time to mark the annual demonstration commemorating the 39 people killed in protests on December 19 and 20, 2001, the year of Argentina’s worst-ever economic, social and political crisis.
Pettovello took pre-emptive aim at the organisers of the demonstrations as she warned them that “those who cut do not get paid” – repeating a line used by Milei in his December 10 inauguration speech.
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“Over the next few days, picketer organisations have called for a protest,” said the minister. “We wish to specify that even though it is a right to demonstrate, so is respecting the right of people to circulate freely to get to their jobs.”
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The contracts for other government employees, who were hired prior to 2023, will be reviewed, authorities said. The 2023 cutoff is apparently meant to target the practice of outgoing presidents padding the payrolls in their final year.
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Milei Does Davos
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If you don’t have time for the whole thing, or just want a snippet to help you decide, here’s the punchline in the end:
https://twitter.com/agustinavcid/status/1747655869909946548
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I hope he has good security and wears a bulletproof vest.
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Heritage Foundation: “Hold my beer!”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1748354639861276740
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Autodubbing of speech into English:
https://twitter.com/aphysicist/status/1747868626948907325
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Frankly seeing the US coverage of Argentina’s election makes me wonder how much the American press gets wrong when they write about other countries too… If they have no idea what they’re talking about when they write about Argentina, how can I trust what they write for other countries?
He has no idea…“One toke? You poor fool! Wait till you see those goddamn bats.”
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Drama queen moment
Devon says it’s wrong to call Javier a populist because he is a free market libertarian. He has more in common with Milton Friedman than Trump.
She believes populist means socialist like the Peronist politicians or Bernie Sanders. She doesn’t understand populist is ideological neutral.
Populists can be conservative or progressive or billionaires or poor or etc.
Devon like Leslie can be a male or female name. In this case female.
FYI I am not a biologist
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Frankly seeing the US coverage of Argentina’s election makes me wonder how much the American press gets wrong when they write about other countries too… If they have no idea what they’re talking about when they write about Argentina, how can I trust what they write for other countries?
Including their own.
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We should not trust the corporate media. We should always be skeptical.
Don’t trust, verify!
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Some excerpts:
- Author
I’m Argentinian, for 3 years I was part of the efforts to create Javier Milei’s structure that conformed his coalition and protected his votes on the 2023 elections.
Sacrifice. Might sound dramatic but that’s exactly what I did, and it felt terrible and distressing every second amidst a non-stop madness that I could translate into a complete netflix series… my goodness…
But the reason I openly say and repeat that is because people needs to let sink in the reality that even in the era of democracy, to create such a major political change painful and massive sacrifices are needed.I hated every second of it. It’s not my field (I’m and engineer, full techie), it’s not my game (I’m the computer/workshop guy, not a social extrovert), it’s 24/7 hostile, it’s 24/7 demanding, it’s 24/7 world-ending drama… I started it just as a plain banzai charge: straight to the bullets, not the enemy. With time, it unexpectedly and thankfully became a trade-off, and now I just can’t conceive my existence without knowing what I now know. Had I know I would end up learning what I did, I would have done it as a trade-off, not a sacrifice.
- The reason for victory:
Milei’s key achievement was being able to appeal to the entirety of the youth, through all economic classes, and I mean kids from 7 to 13. Many teachers that were among the volunteer lines recalled that during national dates, for which kids always perform small plays in schools, instead if the traditional cry of “Viva la Patria!” (“Long Live the Nation!”) at the play end, out of own initiative the kids started to replace it with Milei’s cry of “Viva la Libertad Carajo!”. That’s it, that’s THE victory, right there, a society unfucked from the roots.
The boomer generation here is completely lost. After all of what happened, they still are nowhere even close to start to grasp what’s going on, what’s inflation, why socialism fails, what is socialism to start (despite having lived their entire lives in it), what is money, what’s politics, “didn’t USA made a brick wall all around Cuba?”, etc etc. They are little innocent kids lost in a mall, eager to hold the hand of the first stranger that offers them to go to their minivan full of candies. So I’m not even trying there, my hopes are only in the youth, for which I’m working on making a more comprehensive libertarian manifest using my experience to more transparently and concretely express and unify the political, economical en philosophical concepts.
- Inefficiency of socialist systems:
Here crisis is a day-to-day reality so not only not much changed for the majority of people, but since public spending was slashed on the parasites, Milei voters are only seeing the benefits of the consequences which is decelerating inflation and increased freedom through deregulation.
That, plus the permanent public disclosure and dismantlement of previously hidden parasitic state structures and state mobs, as only lead to a permanent increase of his image. Literally most people will tell you “I don’t care how bad it gets, as long as he makes those despicable criminals pay”.
The situation is bad but no one is scrapping the barrel, and everyone in a vulnerable condition is still receiving full support.
- Voting infrastructure:
Here we still have to vote by putting paper ballots in a box. Every piece of paper is manually counted and reported. To ensure that the entire process isn’t adulterated, every contending party needs to have a person of his own trust on every table where people votes, so to oversight everything. Established parties use the money they squeeze out from public money to pay for every “volunteer”. We didn’t had nor that nor any source of money to pay anyone, so the entire structure had to be completely composed of volunteers. 10,000 volunteers in my state alone. I had a good and heavy quote of responsibility on the coordination of the effort of getting and coordinating that “army”, in most territories designating and helping local coordinators, and being personally responsible of my own. I made in google drive the entire database people used to list and coordinate the volunteers, helped to define the structure of coordinators, designated and instructed many, gave countless of training sessions, etc etc…but, by far and large, what consumed the most of my time was bringing emotional balance to people, volunteers and coordinators alike. My nerves being essentially fried out from past terrible experiences in the field plus the base assumption that losing was by all means a possibility, allowed me to talk to people that was crying to me on the phone with a non forced calmed tone that never failed to appease. Every one called me to thank me when we won, something I keep warmly in my heart.
- Libertarianism
I kept learning permanently about libertarianism, and being able to make the permanent contrast of it’s principles against the realpolitik I was living first-hand, was like a revelation. Everything made sense, I could finally see how everything was going to evolve. But now, we needed the right vector. For 3 years, a sad parade of potential candidates rose and fell permanently. Milei wasn’t even in the equation, until for everyone’s surprise, he announced is candidacy. I barely knew him, but I was amazed to see that he had the strongest support in the poorest classes. So I started to learn more about him, and started to understand, and admire, how he was achieving the impossible: making libertarianism politically viable. Has he demonstrated stern determination and unmovable principles, working for him finally allowed us to stop thinking if the guy “in front” was going to wane any second. We knew he wouldn’t.
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