"This anti-statist instinct is not really part of Latin America’s political culture, and hadn’t really been much in evidence in Argentina at all, until this past year."
Big government is like an addictive drug: people think it will alleviate their misery, even though it actually exacerbates it. In a vicious circle, they go from more misery to opting for ever more expansive government. Marx had it wrong: it is government, not religion, that is the opiate of the masses.
Eventually, some countries hit a crisis point (typically hyperinflation or mass starvation) where they realize the terrible vicious cycle they're in and how govt. is the actual source of their problems. Countries that have undergone this tend to be some of the most free-market societies around, e.g., Eastern European countries, Argentina, Vietnam, and Chile...
Spoken like a true one dimensional apologist for unregulated capitalism. The absolute disaster visited upon the American economy is the result of the Reaganomics of the last forty years. A wretchedly expensive and under-serving healthcare system, a trillion dollar military budget, and tax policies that have destroyed the American industrial base as well as created an immense and unprecedented wealth gap - government has been bought and sold by the billionaire corporatists. Deny this fact and you are simply gaslighting and bullshitting. The truth is that we have always needed the balance, the creative friction between labor and capital that achieved incredible success in the mid twentieth century. The destruction of that balance by greedheads like you who rationalize their avarice with “government is the problem” horseshit is going to totally break us during the next four years, the Fourth Reich utopia ruled by Musk and the oligarchy.
In just thirty-five years (1960 to 1995), the countries with the freest economies in the world—Hong Kong and Singapore—multiplied their per capita GDP by an incredible factor of FIFTY (an increase of roughly $23,000), despite their high population densities and lack of natural resources. By contrast, India and Myanmar, two countries with government-dominated economies, increased their per capita GDP by a paltry $500. (THAT'S OVER 35 YEARS!!) At the end of World War II, all four countries had almost exactly the same income. Now, Hong Kong and Singapore are among the wealthiest countries in the world, while India and Myanmar are still wretchedly poor.
You claim: "The absolute disaster visited upon the American economy is the result of the Reaganomics of the last forty years." Here's the actual per capita income data:
United States:
1980: $12,574
2023: $81,695
France:
1980: $12,713
2023: $44,461
The disaster you speak of is that of the statist European countries that have denied their people all that income.
Here's more. Let's take a look at Africa:
After independence, a dozen African countries (Ghani, Mali, Ethiopia, et al) took the socialist route. Between1966 and 1980, not a single one of them had significant economic growth. Many actually had negative growth. By contrast, the countries with the freest economies -- Cote d’Ivoire and Botswana-- skyrocketed: Cote d’Ivoire's per capita GDP grew by 443 percent and Botswana enjoyed a staggering 1,212 percent growth rate during that period.
You have gaslighting garbage. Per capita income, your index. Hilarious. If one guy makes a million bucks and nine guys make nothing, the per capita income is $100,000. Want facts? Stop spreading bullshit and read this. https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
But they don’t. Economic inequality means nothing so long as nobody is starving, unless the rich sit on piles of treasure like Scrooge McDuck or Smaug. And _they_ don’t.
Here is the sad truth about leaders that take these needed bold moves to fix structural problems. Often they never get the thanks for it until they are long gone. And sometimes they are long gone with a shortened life because of their needed actions.
Change required to fix decades of continually layered problems HAS to be first destructive, until it can rebuild. Unraveling what is can seem more painful than what it. But the lack of sustainability for what is promises more pain in the future... the kicking of a can down the road so future generations have an even more difficult task to repair what is broken.
Trump has this challenge in the US like Milei has had in Argentina. I is good to remember that Argentina had the 8th largest economy before socialist Juan Peron took over. Many decades later, the pain from that mistake is still being felt by Argentinians. US citizens better wake up as a similar trajectory toward socialist hell is underway.
Your fear of socialist hell is hilarious. We're being bent over and f***ed in the butt by our privatized healthcare industry every minute of every day, with millions forced into bankruptcy, unable to access care, or sick and dying from care rejection. Not to mention the stranglehold that monopoly food distribution and ownership has on our economy, or the virtual absence of public ground transportation thanks to corporate lobbying, or the devastation of our public lands by mining industries who take their profits and abandon their toxic messes, etc., etc.. Stop with your bullshit already. Our hell is corporate made, here already, thanks to Reaganomics and deregulation. FDR saved capitalism and you greedheads are destroying us with it. Wasn't 2008 enough?
You are a class-B idiot. Not class-A because you at least accurately identify some of the problems; but you are so far off on their cause and what would work to make things better... that you own the idiot identity.
Here is a homework assignment for you. If socialism is such a great solution to all these problems you list, then please identify the countries or civilizations past and present that are good models we should adopt. Because if you cannot come up with any, then your demand for socialism is just a fantasy filling your little anger cup.
You are a schmuck. A first-class schmuck. As in a name-calling, McCarthyite schmuck. Nowhere did I advocate socialism. Your little reactionary cup is getting filled up by screaming "SOCIALIST!!!!" at every liberal who wants to regulate the endless greed of corporate motherfuckers who have destroyed the social contract and ripped the heart and soul out of America by killing the middle class. Get off your goddamn high horse and don't give me any fucking homework assignments. This country is sick of your shit. People are killing CEO's because assholes like you refuse to see that the regulation you eliminated - antitrust, bank speculation, labor protections, environmental protections, campaign finance reform, etc., etc. - has made THEM so damn angry they're using guns to express themselves.
You fucking idiots are shooting the wrong people and advocating support for the very people that reaming your little low-work ass.
Corporations exist for only one reason... to maximize profit and owner returns. They are not your fucking mother that did not hug you enough, or hugged you too much in your bunk-bed. They are like dogs... simple entities that live for simple things.
It is the fucking government that you love and want more of that is responsible for the globalist corporortocracy... the WEF project that pushing the cult of climate crisis that you probably pray to as your gap filler for your Godless soul.
You want MORE regulations that strangle small producers and keep benefiting the large corporations by killing off their competition. You blame capitalism and welcome the competing ideology of more centralized government (aka socialism... or collectivism in general) when it is centralized government that has corrupted capitalism into the mess you rage about with your fucking potty mouth.
You are so damn ignorant that you should never type anything about the topic because you identify yourself as a fool.
"The cult of climate crisis". Thank you for fully explaining yourself. Your theory of the problem, enhanced by your personal attack, have perfectly illustrated exactly what you are. Good job. Now fuck off.
I am not religious but I often think of the image of Jesus suffering on the cross as a symbol of leading a dysfunctional group of people out of crisis. That is the fundamental truth of the human condition: it is always in a state of dysfunction, the only question is how bad? Are they ripe for transformation which necessarily involve creative destruction? That is the real business of leadership. The rest is just for show or worse.
He doesn’t “sound like a madman” unless you live in an alternate reality where the laws of economics and human behavior don’t apply, or are a Democrat, but I repeat myself.
And by the way, Milei’s infantile insults of Pedro Sanchez deserve his alienation from other world leaders. Pedro Sanchez has managed, despite overwhelming odds, to keep his country whole, and produce the best economy in Europe. And he’s a Socialist, damn it. You want to see the disastrous result of Milton Friedman’s ideas? Look no further than Chile, whose people have gone to the streets, forced into misery from the privatization of everything, including water, and the absolute destruction of a social safety net for retirees, among other illnesses.
"This anti-statist instinct is not really part of Latin America’s political culture, and hadn’t really been much in evidence in Argentina at all, until this past year."
Big government is like an addictive drug: people think it will alleviate their misery, even though it actually exacerbates it. In a vicious circle, they go from more misery to opting for ever more expansive government. Marx had it wrong: it is government, not religion, that is the opiate of the masses.
Eventually, some countries hit a crisis point (typically hyperinflation or mass starvation) where they realize the terrible vicious cycle they're in and how govt. is the actual source of their problems. Countries that have undergone this tend to be some of the most free-market societies around, e.g., Eastern European countries, Argentina, Vietnam, and Chile...
Spoken like a true one dimensional apologist for unregulated capitalism. The absolute disaster visited upon the American economy is the result of the Reaganomics of the last forty years. A wretchedly expensive and under-serving healthcare system, a trillion dollar military budget, and tax policies that have destroyed the American industrial base as well as created an immense and unprecedented wealth gap - government has been bought and sold by the billionaire corporatists. Deny this fact and you are simply gaslighting and bullshitting. The truth is that we have always needed the balance, the creative friction between labor and capital that achieved incredible success in the mid twentieth century. The destruction of that balance by greedheads like you who rationalize their avarice with “government is the problem” horseshit is going to totally break us during the next four years, the Fourth Reich utopia ruled by Musk and the oligarchy.
You have opinions. I have data.
In just thirty-five years (1960 to 1995), the countries with the freest economies in the world—Hong Kong and Singapore—multiplied their per capita GDP by an incredible factor of FIFTY (an increase of roughly $23,000), despite their high population densities and lack of natural resources. By contrast, India and Myanmar, two countries with government-dominated economies, increased their per capita GDP by a paltry $500. (THAT'S OVER 35 YEARS!!) At the end of World War II, all four countries had almost exactly the same income. Now, Hong Kong and Singapore are among the wealthiest countries in the world, while India and Myanmar are still wretchedly poor.
You claim: "The absolute disaster visited upon the American economy is the result of the Reaganomics of the last forty years." Here's the actual per capita income data:
United States:
1980: $12,574
2023: $81,695
France:
1980: $12,713
2023: $44,461
The disaster you speak of is that of the statist European countries that have denied their people all that income.
Here's more. Let's take a look at Africa:
After independence, a dozen African countries (Ghani, Mali, Ethiopia, et al) took the socialist route. Between1966 and 1980, not a single one of them had significant economic growth. Many actually had negative growth. By contrast, the countries with the freest economies -- Cote d’Ivoire and Botswana-- skyrocketed: Cote d’Ivoire's per capita GDP grew by 443 percent and Botswana enjoyed a staggering 1,212 percent growth rate during that period.
You have gaslighting garbage. Per capita income, your index. Hilarious. If one guy makes a million bucks and nine guys make nothing, the per capita income is $100,000. Want facts? Stop spreading bullshit and read this. https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
But they don’t. Economic inequality means nothing so long as nobody is starving, unless the rich sit on piles of treasure like Scrooge McDuck or Smaug. And _they_ don’t.
Here is the sad truth about leaders that take these needed bold moves to fix structural problems. Often they never get the thanks for it until they are long gone. And sometimes they are long gone with a shortened life because of their needed actions.
Change required to fix decades of continually layered problems HAS to be first destructive, until it can rebuild. Unraveling what is can seem more painful than what it. But the lack of sustainability for what is promises more pain in the future... the kicking of a can down the road so future generations have an even more difficult task to repair what is broken.
Trump has this challenge in the US like Milei has had in Argentina. I is good to remember that Argentina had the 8th largest economy before socialist Juan Peron took over. Many decades later, the pain from that mistake is still being felt by Argentinians. US citizens better wake up as a similar trajectory toward socialist hell is underway.
Your fear of socialist hell is hilarious. We're being bent over and f***ed in the butt by our privatized healthcare industry every minute of every day, with millions forced into bankruptcy, unable to access care, or sick and dying from care rejection. Not to mention the stranglehold that monopoly food distribution and ownership has on our economy, or the virtual absence of public ground transportation thanks to corporate lobbying, or the devastation of our public lands by mining industries who take their profits and abandon their toxic messes, etc., etc.. Stop with your bullshit already. Our hell is corporate made, here already, thanks to Reaganomics and deregulation. FDR saved capitalism and you greedheads are destroying us with it. Wasn't 2008 enough?
You are a class-B idiot. Not class-A because you at least accurately identify some of the problems; but you are so far off on their cause and what would work to make things better... that you own the idiot identity.
Here is a homework assignment for you. If socialism is such a great solution to all these problems you list, then please identify the countries or civilizations past and present that are good models we should adopt. Because if you cannot come up with any, then your demand for socialism is just a fantasy filling your little anger cup.
You are a schmuck. A first-class schmuck. As in a name-calling, McCarthyite schmuck. Nowhere did I advocate socialism. Your little reactionary cup is getting filled up by screaming "SOCIALIST!!!!" at every liberal who wants to regulate the endless greed of corporate motherfuckers who have destroyed the social contract and ripped the heart and soul out of America by killing the middle class. Get off your goddamn high horse and don't give me any fucking homework assignments. This country is sick of your shit. People are killing CEO's because assholes like you refuse to see that the regulation you eliminated - antitrust, bank speculation, labor protections, environmental protections, campaign finance reform, etc., etc. - has made THEM so damn angry they're using guns to express themselves.
You fucking idiots are shooting the wrong people and advocating support for the very people that reaming your little low-work ass.
Corporations exist for only one reason... to maximize profit and owner returns. They are not your fucking mother that did not hug you enough, or hugged you too much in your bunk-bed. They are like dogs... simple entities that live for simple things.
It is the fucking government that you love and want more of that is responsible for the globalist corporortocracy... the WEF project that pushing the cult of climate crisis that you probably pray to as your gap filler for your Godless soul.
You want MORE regulations that strangle small producers and keep benefiting the large corporations by killing off their competition. You blame capitalism and welcome the competing ideology of more centralized government (aka socialism... or collectivism in general) when it is centralized government that has corrupted capitalism into the mess you rage about with your fucking potty mouth.
You are so damn ignorant that you should never type anything about the topic because you identify yourself as a fool.
"The cult of climate crisis". Thank you for fully explaining yourself. Your theory of the problem, enhanced by your personal attack, have perfectly illustrated exactly what you are. Good job. Now fuck off.
I am not religious but I often think of the image of Jesus suffering on the cross as a symbol of leading a dysfunctional group of people out of crisis. That is the fundamental truth of the human condition: it is always in a state of dysfunction, the only question is how bad? Are they ripe for transformation which necessarily involve creative destruction? That is the real business of leadership. The rest is just for show or worse.
He doesn’t “sound like a madman” unless you live in an alternate reality where the laws of economics and human behavior don’t apply, or are a Democrat, but I repeat myself.
And by the way, Milei’s infantile insults of Pedro Sanchez deserve his alienation from other world leaders. Pedro Sanchez has managed, despite overwhelming odds, to keep his country whole, and produce the best economy in Europe. And he’s a Socialist, damn it. You want to see the disastrous result of Milton Friedman’s ideas? Look no further than Chile, whose people have gone to the streets, forced into misery from the privatization of everything, including water, and the absolute destruction of a social safety net for retirees, among other illnesses.