Of course Javier Milei has plunged Argentina’s economy directly into the toilet. Inevitably so. The news only broke last month that Milei’s government is in such deep trouble that it needs a $20 billion bailout from the United States to stay above water, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is reportedly prepared to grant. But this outcome was practically foreordained, from the moment Milei became president back in 2023. You could tell he was going to crash and burn, and take thousands of Argentinians’ jobs and livelihoods with him, as soon as he uttered the word “libertarian.”
While most of the central bank’s policymakers still see inflation as a bigger threat than the jobs market, there’s little consensus on the path forward.
Alternative economic data is filling the blind spots created by the suspension of data collection during the government shutdown, and the substitutes paint varying pictures of the economy.
Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, has never hidden his disfigured and dangerous psyche. But now Donald Trump has empowered him to execute his fascist impulses.