I am very much observing Argentina at the moment guys, the west is a lost cause as far as I'm concerned. I'm probably going to flee to South America like the Alliance and Horde fleeing to Kalimdor from the Burning Legion. So far in terms of policy, Milei is doing everything that I want out of a government.
He's even gone so far as to simply wipe out portions of the government itself through presidential decree because he knows his enemy and what they'll do to try and stop him. I am admittedly fanboing over him but you've got to admit this is impressive, I've never seen a 'right winger' do any of this shit, not even Trump. Got to give him credit for having the balls to do it properly.
I'm not sure about the pesos notes, that's a bit beyond me in terms of economic knowledge, I'd have to research that. However cryptocurrency contracts? Brilliant, you don't have to make any special laws with crypto, just declare it private money and make it all legal and you're good, then that way people can start building up their savings in crypto if they want to which is an infinitely better option than the out of control central banks.
Something quite funny happened with Milei as well recently with the left. They organised protests against him but apparently there wasn't as big of a turnout as they were hoping for. He also anticipated their tactics and made sure to ban roadblocks but still allowed them to protest on sidewalks to prevent them from fucking with regular people and putting them in danger. Another based move by him was he's supposedly put it into place anybody causing trouble is going to have their benefits removed.
Lots of reeeing from the left of course, but there's nothing they can do. I remember as well there was a lot of understandable concern about him thinking on open borders. If he just gets rid of any possible migrant benefits and refuses to give them money, there's no way any of them are going to show up anyway, it will only be those who actually want to at the very least work that will show up.
Yeah, there seems to be a lot of shit going around it. RT was claiming he "devalued the currency by 56%" but I don't know if that means he spiked inflation (which I doubt), or he caused deflation which they are intentionally misconstruing as "devaluing".
Yes, there's also some former big shots in American finance running the treasury, but it's one of those things where if you're going to lean into the Americans, they probably want to re-order enough of the financial sector to get their money back, and completely dissolving the central bank might have gone down as a non-starter.
I don't envy the situation he's in, and although I'd love him to go full Ancapistan mode, he seems to be navigating it appropriately. Especially with a war-hungry US leering over his shoulder.
There was what the government said their money was worth, their official rates and what you allowed to trade, and the actual exchange rates on the market, what people actually traded.
He immediately moved to 'devalue' by 56%. As in recognise reality and what the money is actually worth, 800-1000 or so to the dollar, rather than the previous admin's bullshit of 400 or so. Now you don't have to go through the black market or various intermediaries or do loads of bullshit to trade your money and do other trades.
What had happened is the lefties had inflated the fuck out of it, but their official rates looked 'good' cause they set a bullshit official exchange rate, so the peso looked stronger than it actually was. This is just recognising reality and allowing fair trade.
Now as I understand there is also a plan to keep going though, devaluing at like 2% per month. Which is still quite high. Pursuing a kind of chinese style export focused model where your cheap currency helps your exports look attractive, and some other effects.
I don't necessarily agree with that part, but the initial recognition of reality is definitely needed.
So what specifically does "devalue" mean in this case? Did he free up the markets to decide on the value of the money as the result of some policy change? I don't get it. Was there some sort of value cap established by treaty?
I'm guessing that he wants to keep making exports cheap to sustain the industries long enough to repair them, but also knows that if he properly stops devaluing, he might actually get uncontrolled deflation. Which, although inevitable, you still want to try and limit.
literally just changing the official exchange rate to make it reflect reality