To be fair, while there won’t be a Department of Education anymore, it looks like the plan is to demote it to a dependency of a new Ministry of Human Capital instead of just eliminating it completely, how much would that demotion affect it and it’s budget is anybody’s guess, signs are not good.
It’s so disconcerting to see President Zelensky with Milei, even though I understand why it has to be. I’d love to know what President Zelensjy had to say to Orban.
Ah yes, seen that elsewhere – in the US of course the Hard Right also hates the Dept. of Education, but here it carries of the classic American Conservative call to “return it to each state doing its own thing” which they mostly do already – their aim is more to eliminate anything that “takes hardworking hometown American taxpayers’ money” to teach UnAmerican things like gender studies or the history of slavery, or to provide grants to benefit, you know, those others.
And he’s done it, by executive order (that’s my translation of "Decreto de necesidad y urgencia, literally “Decree of necessity and urgency”).
This can be revoked by congress, but it won’t be, see above about norms and congress.
The department of Health (Ministerio de Salud), survived as it’s own entity.
The department of Education as expected has been demoted.
Same with the Ministry for Women, Gender and Diversity.
Same for the ministries of Labor, Public Works and Culture.
The Ministry of Justice and Human Rights has been renamed Ministry of Justice. Period. In a clear sign of how the new administration feels about human rights…
There’s a lot of that here too, some of it homegrown, and some it imported from the USA, one of the things that most infuriate the (now) opposition about the right is the slavish tendency to copy everything from the U.S.
Generally the bad things.
It begins. The BBC article is useless, though: it implies that this is a necessary step following the prior practice of artificially messing with the currency’s value, but I’d love a better sense of what the real-world effects might be and whether this is irresponsible, prudent, or awesome.
Real world effects are hunger and misery. This has been tried before and it didn’t go well.
There are more civilized ways of achieving that objective, but their proponents were voted out in November, so here we go.
It also goes against all the promises of Candidate Milei, sort of, because he managed to make his voters believe the seemingly contradictory premises that:
- There would be a brutal “ajuste” of this sort
- The cost of it would be borne by the “Political Caste” and not by the middle class.
We told them that number 2 was a fantasy, they didn’t believe us.
So now prices are going to go up 100% (At the very least), salaries will stay the same, subsidized public transport will no longer be subsidized so going to work is going to be 10 times more expensive, unless you commute by car, then it’s only going to be 2 times more expensive (or more) …
Paraphrasing H.L. Mencken: they voted for that and now we are all going to get it, good and hard.
Thank you for replying. I re-read the BBC article after I read what you had to say and am amazed how blithe they are about it.
It’s easy to be blithe about these kind of solutions when you are not going to be affected by them, the ever lasting call for “major surgery, without anesthesia” as the only way to solve our problems has always been preached by those who suffer them the least (that if they do not profit from them)
The CNN version actually felt -worse- to me, it reeked of victim blaming and refusal to accept responsibility.
First the IMF representative:
“IMF staff welcome the measures announced earlier today by Argentina’s new Economy Minister, Luis Caputo. These bold initial actions aim to significantly improve public finances in a manner that protects the most vulnerable in society and strengthen the foreign exchange regime,” Julie Kozack, IMF director of communications, said in a press release.
Oh please, why do I ‘hear’ all the emphasis on the “foreign exchange regime” (IE pay everyone else) and ‘see’ a wink-wink-nudge-nudge on the “protect the most vulnerable in society” clause?
As for the whole “cost borne by the ‘Political Caste’” mentioned by @frodo - OMFG.
Caputo on Tuesday reiterated Milei’s campaign theme that “there is no money” as he outlined other measures, including a cut to new public works projects, plans not to renew labor contracts that have been in effect for less than one year and reducing energy and transportation subsidies.
“For a few months we’ll be worse off, particularly with inflation,” he said.
Regarding public works, Caputo said that “there’s no money to pay for works that often end up in the pockets of politicians and business people.”
So, if you look at it in a way that even a JEDI would raise an eyebrow too, the “political caste” are being hurt by denying them the ability to graft/embezzle public works / energy and transportation costs. If one tries really, REALLY hard to ignore the fact that sure, the rich will have less chance to grift, but that’s while (as Frodo pointed out) those less fortunate are likely not able to afford basic transportation.
Once again @frodo, you have all my sympathy, it looks like it’s going to get bad, and fast.
If I wasn’t in a constant low level panic about another Trump term (with zero willingness to hold him accountable) here in the US, or my other panic about my family in Israel, I’d probably be using more Pit-like language about Milei and his cronies, but I’m just freaking exhausted.
And I’m not even at personal risk (yet) the way you are. At this point I hope Trump visits Milei and they both have such a frenzy of back-slapping that they put each other in a coma.
It’s even worse when you know that Caputo is the same guy who took 75 billion dollars of IMF debt in his previous term as minister, money that was (charitably speaking) used in diverse financial maneuvers to try and stabilize the economy and the value of the dollar… without success and leaving us with the debt while he (famously) bronzed himself at a Brazilian beach
Less charitably, he took the debt so his financial cronies could change all their pesos into dollars and take them out of the country at reasonable rates of exchange.
As for the logic behind “There is corruption in public works, so the solution is to eliminate public works”… words fail.
ETA: The Caputo family is infamous for making their money… in public works.
This is how Right Wing Populists get elected- make bogus promises. It used to work to blame the failure of those unrealistic promises on some scapegoat- Jews, America, whatever. This doesnt work so well nowadays, altho it by no means it’s always a failure.
What worries me is that, once the promised “light at the end of the tunnel” fails to materialize in a year or so, they’ll start using social issues to distract/mollify their followers.
That is a standard tactic, but electorates are often on to it. You will have a rough time until next election, but more likely than not he will be licked out.
Gruesome.
What a typo eh?
That’s the sort of local knowledge that takes the hypocrisy to migraine level to vomit inducing.
Sadly all too common, and seems intrinsic to the human condition regardless of nation. Cheat, lie, and steal your way to wealth then turn around and say that no one should be allowed to do as you did while never accepting a shred of responsibility.
As for this:
Oh hell yes. And I’m sorry @DrDeth - but history (and current events in the US) proves that pushing responsibility onto an unpopular minority or social group is often successful, for as long as elections continue to matter in nations with any sort of Representative government. Right up until said government decides that representation isn’t needed anymore…
Oh, Dr. Freud. Your slip is back from the dry cleaners.
We got rid of trump. The Brits dumped Boris. Ect etc. It works, yes, but only until the promises turn out to be lies.