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submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

The eccentric far-right populist Javier Milei has failed to win the first round of Argentina’s presidential election, with the centrist finance minister Sergio Massa unexpectedly beating his radical challenger.

Supporters of Milei, a potty-mouthed political outsider described as an Argentinian mashup of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson, had hoped he was heading for a sensational outright victory similar to Bolsonaro’s shock triumph in Brazil in 2018.

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[-] travellingwolf@lemmy.world 57 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Comparing Milei to Trump or Bolsonaro is very, very misleading.

Milei is has radical capitalist / free market ideology, but is far removed from social conservatism.

Just to give you an idea, he wants to close the argentinian central bank and kill the national currency or let it kill itself with a free floating exchange rate.

Such a move is the opposite of what alt-right / fascism would do which seeks governmental control of media, industrial and financial institutions.

If anything, the current ruling party "Union for the motherland" (Union por la patria) openly advocates and defends Peronism which is a sort of decaf fascist ideology heavy in nationalism and populism thinly clothed in laborist rethoric to make it seem left wing. Current ruling party which btw has lead the country to over 300% inflation (if you take the free exchange rate as a reference since the official exchange rate is manipulated and it is illegal for argentines to freely buy foreign currency except for a small token amount).

Just to make it easier to understand. If you're familiar with the political compass:

  • Current ruling party leans top left
  • Milei is solidly bottom right
  • Trump is top right.

These are three very very different quadrants.

[-] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

I know nothing about economy, but isn't a bad idea to put all your chips into a currency that you do not hold any control over?

[-] travellingwolf@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

As Vis mentioned, it is the better option if the government can't stop itself from printing money and fucks everyone over.

This is the inflation rate of Ecuador before and after they adopted the dollar in 2000.

Milei now wants to do the same. At least this way people will be able to save (and spend their savings), and the government will have to be fiscally responsible.

The world has run directly or indirectly on gold (which can't be printed) until 1973, so it's definitely possible for an economy to work with a currency you can't print.

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this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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