As I wrote just two days ago, the establishment media often alternates between bias and inaccuracy.
An example from earlier this year is when the press referred to Javier Milei, a presidential candidate in Argentina, as a “Mini-Trump.”
That was an absurd depiction. Milei is an out-of-the-closet libertarian who ran – and won – on a platform of radical (and necessary) ideas such as slashing the public sector and dollarization.
And, as illustrated by this tweet, he has wasted little time in trying to reduce the size and scope of government.
At the risk of understatement, that’s the opposite of Trump, who increased spending at a faster rate than Barack Obama.
By the way, Trump was more profligate than Obama even when looking only at domestic spending (and I didn’t even count all the money wasted during the pandemic when I did that comparison).
Now we have another example of President Milei being the opposite of Trump.
Like all sensible people (and unlike Trump and Biden), Milei is pushing for free trade.
Here are some excerpts from a story which was written for Bloomberg by Ignacio Olivera Doll.
Argentina’s government lifted import restrictions Tuesday…, advancing President Javier Milei’s free trade agenda. The tax authority replaced a red-tape import system Tuesday that forced many companies to seek manual approval for every shipment with a more data-based version. …Economy Minister Luis Caputo wrote on social media. “Government bureaucracy will no longer have the power to decide who does or doesn’t import goods.” …Import shortages damaged the real economy in recent months with hospitals saying they couldn’t bring in essential equipment made abroad. Even major international players, such as General Motors Co., temporarily suspended production at its car plant in October due to auto part shortages.
Here’s one other passage from the story that warmed my heart.
While Milei advances his free trade agenda, he took another austerity measure Tuesday, cutting by decree thousands of government jobs for people who started working earlier this year. Milei’s spokesman said the measure affects about 5,000 state employees but a labor union representing public sector workers put the figure at over 7,000.
Amen. Argentina desperately needs smaller government and Milei is on the right track.
And it also desperately needs free trade, and today’s column shows that he’s starting strong on that issue as well.
Argentina also desperately needs sound money, and I expect we’ll soon see inflation moving in the right direction.
P.S. I realize I’m over-using “desperately,” but that’s a very appropriate word when considering the mess that Milei has inherited.
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Image credit: Ilan Berkenwald | CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED.
