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Notes -
https://youtube.com/watch?v=8NLzc9kobDk
Milei on a podcast with Lex Fridman. Fridman is a bit of an empty head but Milei is great. Previously I read this summary of Milei by Scott Alexander, as well as several Economist articles on him, and all that information seems accurate from Milei describing himself. But the podcast also gives some new stuff I hadn't heard before.
a) He considers Ireland's market reforms a model and wants to go even farther, so that Argentina's the freeest country in the world. But he also spent a long time criticizing libertarians who criticized him, emphasizing that he had to live in reality and not put Argentinians through too much short term pain or Peronists would sweep him.
b) The economic statistics pre-Milei, as terrible as they were, were still cooked a bit because there were lots of price controls. But it doesn't matter if bread is cheap if there isn't actually any bread to buy. So removing price controls made inflation shoot up but also let people actually buy shit.
c) He's a big fan of the Austrian school and Mises, Hayek, Rothbard. Not a surprise, but I guess it confirms he prefers it over Chicago school. Personally I don't really understand the difference anyway.
d) He eliminated a system where there were middle managers handing out welfare payments, which was both a gross source of inefficiency, and allowed those middle managers to turn out the people they give payments to for large protests. This both freed up a bunch of money and got rid of a lot of stupid protests. According to Milei, shortly after he did that there was a protest organized against him that was expected to get 50 000 - 100 000 people, but only turned out 3 000.
e) He really, really hates socialism and loves freedom. He also doesn't like wokism and modern feminism, but his primary hate is socialism/communism. He also really does like Jews, he dropped in a few references to Egypt enslaving Jews and how he supports Israel today. He also really loves his dogs.
f) He recommends Trump/Musk move fast and get to cutting regulations as his #1 tip for DOGE.
g) He mentioned that Trump was "unfairly accused of protectionism" which is kinda funny to me. You can like or hate protectionism, but you can't really deny that Trump is a protectionist. Unless you're Milei I guess.
This is fascinating, did he mention which specific reforms he was referring to?
He didn't, and I don't know much about Ireland, but my casual awareness is that they have extremely low corporate tax and have become an international tax haven. So I guess Milei wants to make Argentina a tax haven too.
Ah, correct on both counts: probably the main reason that so many tech companies (Google, Meta etc.) have their EU headquarters in Dublin (along with the English-speaking populace). Interesting.
For details, see leprechaun economics.
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Protectionism in Argentina is off the charts. Maybe it doesn’t register as such by their standards.
Yeah, for just one example, Argentina has a weird law on the books that requires smartphones sold in Argentina to be made at great expense in the remote Tierra del Fuego region. Xiaomi has set up a factory there.
Obviously there is a huge black market in iPhones.
Maybe it's all for the best when we factor in the immense social harms caused by smart phone use.
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Goes for other countries around there, too. I regularly read complaints from Brasilians that buying tech there is insanely expensive due to tariffs.
That particular price warp had them become a haven for retro gaming because everybody still used old consoles and arcades for a very long time.
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