I remain hopeful but doubtful that the people will eventually pick up on this and change tactics.
Same here. I’m not going to hold my breath though - I personally know too many people who voted for Fernandez/Kirchner even though the Kirchner clan is arguably the apex of corruption and directly responsible for one of the worst bankruptcies in the country’s history… just because they were unhappy with Macri’s budget cuts (which funny enough were way less far-reaching than what Milei wants to do) and Kirchner double-pinky promised to do better this time.
I’m not going to pretend to have the answer to all (or even most) questions. It’s just insert adjective for ‘argh!!!’ here to watch a country with such natural riches and resources so skillfully flush itself further and further down the crapper. But I’m going to have to agree with your assessment and there’s probably not much that can be done from outside the country.
On the upside: thanks to Western Union basing its exchange rates on the dólar blue, supporting my niece’s studies now costs five times less than what it cost two years ago, so there’s that!
I went to grad school in Buenos Aires and lived there for about 5 years
This is a bit off-topic and just personal curiosity: what made you choose Argentina, resp. Buenos Aires? Do you know somebody there, did you want to see the city/country, or is it just the logical choice where you’re from?
the practice decidedly does not correspond with their stated principles for most of them
No argument here. It just bugs me how some people misappropriate words. It’s a bit like Swiss neo-Nazis having resorted to calling themselves “patriots”. Being a racist bellend doesn’t make you a patriot, just as wanting to roll back several decades of gender equality doesn’t make you a libertarian.
I just wish that people would understand that if you’re afraid to call yourself what you really are in public, you should probably reconsider your ideology, not the word you use to describe it. Yes, I’m aware that that’s asking too much.
I agree with you on the healthcare, but that’s not where I’d start changing things. The main problem I see (and our friends/relatives in Argentina tell us about) is that the state is expected to pay for a lot of basic necessities because people, even those with a full-time job, can’t afford them… and the various governments have a habit of doing the worst possible thing.
For instance when electricity prices exploded in 2019/2020, the government apparently paid out 5000 pesos to every household but did nothing to address the root cause. Another time retired people got a flat fee of 6000 pesos. No money went into improving the country’s electricity grid or power efficiency (or no money that wasn’t somehow ‘lost’ underway, anyways).
The same goes for unemployment money. While it is important, in the long term it would make more sense to create an environment where the economy can prosper instead of paying the unemployed what is frankly a pittance. Most unemployed people would rather work than live off welfare, if given the chance.
But then there’s the challenge of transforming the existing economy, especially industry, into something sustainable that could survive without heavy government subsidies. But that discussion is going to lead to a fundamental discussion about peronism, so let’s not go there please.
A lot of these things are probably at least partially caused by incompetence, but that’s not a valid excuse IMO. If you run for office, you should bring the necessary qualifications, and also be able to judge the qualifications of the people working for you
Not to defend Milei (he’s a total knob), but one could argue that Argentina’s social infrastructure is a big part of the problem. The state has been notorious for spending much more money than it makes for decades… and still poverty is rampant and rapidly increasing in many parts of the country. It’s obvious that the established system simply doesn’t work, and hasn’t worked for decades.
Doing away with corruption would obviously be a great thing, but the fact remains that too many people are dependent on some kind of government subsidy either because it’s the easiest way (heavily subsidised parts of the economy, cozy government ‘job’, …) or because they simply have no other option due to the bad economy.
Personally I find it difficult to call him a libertarian when there are so many existing liberties that he wants to make illegal (see the parts of his agenda labelled ‘homophobia’ and ‘misogyny’).
Not that a label being misleading would ever have stopped a politician from applying it to themselves as long as they think it gets them votes…
That’s actually the best summary I’ve read for a long time.
Having said that, besides Milei being a right-wing misogynystic asshat, linking the peso to the dollar might actually do the country’s economy a lot of good in the long term. It has been tried before - sadly unsuccessfully because the rampant corruption in other places more than negated the positive effects, so Milei’s success there probably depends on a) whether he actually does what he’s promising to do, b) whether the new government actually will be less corrupt than the current and previous ones (though being any more corrupt than the Kirchner clan is going to be super hard), and c) whether the people will support the changes long enough once they realize that it means they too will get less subsidies and government hand-outs.
Milei is an idiot, but I can’t blame Argentinians (much) for voting for him. What other choices do they have that they haven’t tried several times already, each time with disastrous results.
It would be interesting to know how many of the votes he’ll get are actually votes “for him” as opposed to “anything but the established parties”.
The above is sound advice. I’d like to add a generous amount of butter to the list - it adds flavour and smoothness.
Speaking of which, you also may want to add one small potato per pumpkin, though I wouldn’t experiment with this until the potato-less soup is in a satisfactory state.
Also, try using a high-quality vegetable broth instead of salt for seasoning. Go easy on the other spices then.