Maybe we need an Argentina thread too

[SydneyCarton 47927]

Maybe people who say crazy shit, like they have telepathic conversations with their dog, or that they should inject bleach or nuke hurricanes, shouldn't be elected for office and we should all be rooting against them?

[NeverMarryAStripper 21783]

I have conversations with my dog, and I would make an excellent dictator elected official

[tx 3 putt 76430]

And the man is not a libertarian. He has no idea what that means, just like most Americans 

[bernorange 8349]

1 hour ago, tx 3 putt said:

closer than 99.99% of this board

What did your family do during Peron's Dirty War?

[tx 3 putt 76430]

Just now, bernorange said:

What did your family do during Peron's Dirty War?

[SydneyCarton 47927]

Just now, tx 3 putt said:

You should have answered "Sold crypto."

[chainsaw 9838]

Shocking how libertarian ideas never work in practice

[SubliminalHorn 6683]

3 hours ago, Dnaguy said:

 

 

Any sexual act that requires lubricants should use water based lubricants.

Anything else can lead to infection, inflammation, and irritation.

In addition, not using lubricants can lead to trauma to the areas affected which also leads to an increased risk of STI and potential injury.

 

Let's be safe, healthy, and consensual out there folks. There's only so many hours/minutes/seconds in a day to get your dick or lady parts wet (is it person parts now?)... savor every one of them.

Team silicone lube here 

[safe sex 11686]

Too slippery 

[Underdog 28458]

#TeamSpit&Curl

 

[SubliminalHorn 6683]

9 minutes ago, safe sex said:

Too slippery 

That’s the point, hunty 💁🏽‍♂️

[atomheartbevo 89465]

9 hours ago, Dnaguy said:

Let's be safe

Only if you’re a coward.

[safe sex 11686]

1 hour ago, SubliminalHorn said:

That’s the point, hunty 💁🏽‍♂️

a lil grip is nice to have

[Biff Tannen 45504]

22 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

To be fair wrt fisting and Vaseline you really can’t mention one without the other 

 

22 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Only if you’re a coward.

Quit your belly aching Dennehy, it's just a diver's watch!

[lucious leftfoot 126]

 

Spoiler

President Javier Milei has flawless timing. Argentina’s shale boom has reached industrial take-off just as he embarks on his extreme libertarian experiment: a Hayekian free market assault on the delinquent Peronist state and all its works.

The long-suffering nation is swinging very fast from a costly dependence on energy imports, and a chronic leakage of hard currency, to the happier condition of net hydrocarbon exports. The prolific shale basin of Vaca Muerta is finally delivering.

After years of talk and many dropped balls, this arid expanse of northern Patagonia is suddenly starting to look like the next Texas, promising to draw in the serious dollars needed to stabilise the ruined peso and make all else possible.

“It is not the same Vaca Muerta of 10 years ago, and we’re only doing a fraction of what we could do,” said Horracio Turri from Pampa Energy.

The US Geological Survey estimates that the region holds the world’s second biggest reserves of shale gas, and fourth biggest reserves of shale oil. Drilling has begun at another shale basin at Palermo Aike in Argentina’s deep south, so the potential could be significantly larger.

“Oil is what will put Argentina back on its feet because it is going to be a very big source of foreign currency. We have to start thinking like a petro-state because we are a world player in the making. First we have to tackle our infrastructure problems,” said Mr Turri, speaking at the Vaca Muerta Insights 2024 forum.

Those problems start at the crack of dawn every day in the regional capital of Neuquén as 30,000 people try to reach the shale hub of Añelo 50 miles away. It is a lethal Mad Max parade along a two-way road, full of craters, carrying hundreds of trucks skidding on and off the dirt verge. 

Many are loaded with specialist silica sand, the lifeblood of the fracking industry. There are too few trailers in Añelo to lodge the workers, so if you want to join the shale rush you take your chance.

Each well at Vaca Muerta needs some 15,000 tonnes of sand, 400 trucks of water, and a constant supply of diesel. Previous governments talked of upgrading the Norpatagónico railway to put an end to this daily ritual but the plans were overtaken by one debt crisis after another. The aqueduct bringing in water for the drilling rigs never got off the ground. 

“Infrastructure is something we just don’t do in Argentina, everything has been crumbling for 70 years,” said Prof Alejandro Welbers from CEMA University.

But the needs are becoming more urgent and the stakes ever higher. Vaca Muerta is blessed with high-pressure seams of black marl at a depth of 3,000 metres, up to 450 metres thick, matching the richest layers of the Wolfberry shale in the Permian. 

Rig crews from Halliburton, Schlumberger and Weatherford are already a feature of this strange moonscape, dotted with towering pillars of red sand.

McKinsey estimates that new fracking technology – smart drills, geonavigation, multi-drilling from the same pad – has cut production costs to $36 (£29) a barrel, an irresistible business in a world market with a structural price of $80-$90. It is the best low-sulphur light sweet crude. Gas comes in at circa $1.60 (MMBtu), low enough to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG) for export to Europe at competitive cost.

Shale oil output has quadrupled to 380,000 barrels a day (b/d) over the last three years, suddenly beating expectations, and tracking the Permian growth trajectory that so stunned Saudi Arabia, OPEC, and the old petroleum order.

The government target of 1m b/d already looks too modest, with wildcatters in Neuquén talking of Norwegian levels above 1.5m b/d as the potential peak. 

“We think we can triple oil and double gas by 2028,” said Miguel Galuccio, founder of Argentina’s Vista Energy, which sank eight new wells here in March alone.

Horacio Marin, YPF’s Texas-trained chief executive and Milei insurgent, says he will make it his business to ensure that Argentina is generating $30bn a year in hydrocarbon exports by 2030 or shortly after.

“We’re doing this for the Argentine republic, and for our children. If we can bring in $30bn we’re not going to have any more exchange rate problems,” he said.

He is pioneering a form of ‘lean fracking’ based on the Toyota manufacturing model. 

“We want the construction of an oil rig to be as efficient as the construction of a car. It gets rid of layers of operational bureaucracy and makes us extremely competitive. Not even the Americans are doing this,” he said.

Argentina’s gas has until recently been bottled up in Vaca Muerta for lack of pipelines. The country had to import 80 ship loads of LNG gas in 2022, competing with Europe at nosebleed prices for global supply after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Everything went wrong at once. The worst drought in half a century shut down hydropower generation. 

The national soybean crop – Argentina’s top earner – fell by 44pc. It was this that drained dollar reserves and pushed the country into an insolvency spiral.

The Nestor Kirchner gas pipeline came into action last August, too late to save the Peronists, but it is now able to supply Buenos Aires through the approaching Argentine winter. LNG imports are collapsing. The gas balance will switch progressively into a large surplus over the next decade as Vaca Muerta supplies Chile, Brazil, and the Mercosur market by pipeline.

Mr Marin said YPF has contracted two LNG floating terminals with Malaysia’s Petronas. A larger fixed terminal on the Atlantic coast will follow. If all goes perfectly – an enormous if – Argentina’s combined exports of oil and gas per capita may not be that far short of Russia by the mid-2030s.

“Without Vaca Muerta it would be painful to think about Argentina,” says Rolo Figueroa, the governor of Neuquén province, which operates almost as an independent petro-state.

The governor no longer presides at the original Chateau Gris, a two-storey wooden chalet built in Scottish style by the firm John Wright in 1904 with materials shipped from Britain, part of the largely forgotten British and Irish influence in northern Patagonia. It was a lieutenant Ignacio Hamilton Fotheringham who first set foot in Neuquén in the War of the Desert in the 1870s.

President Milei has cut off all federal transfers to the regions in quest of his fiscal surplus. He has cut public investment by 84pc. This drastic austerity has left Neuquén with 413 paralysed projects.

Governor Figueroa is taking matters into his own hands, borrowing from the Inter American Development Bank and issuing $500m of bonds on the open market, offering Vaca Muerta as political collateral.

“We know that we have to monetise it and we have only got a window of time. We have got to get everything right to attract investors,” he said.

Getting everything right has not been Argentina’s forte over decades of misgovernment. The Peronists poisoned the energy well by nationalising the Argentine oil company YPF in 2012, setting off a chain of lawsuits. The fiscal and labour regime has been toxic for foreign capital.

Javier Milei aims to sweep away the thicket of Peronist controls, opening the country’s hydrocarbon industry to global market forces. His RIGI investment law will in principle give foreign oil and gas companies total freedom to repatriate earnings at the market exchange rate, and bring in their own kit without restrictions. It will remove import and export taxes.

It pledges no interference from the Argentine state for 30 years.

“Our guiding principle is that everything should be governed by price signals under the laws of free enterprise,” said the national energy minister, Eduardo Rodríguez Chirillo, a Thatcherite expert on privatisation.

The bet is that global capital will do the heavy lifting on infrastructure once the red carpet is rolled out. It is a risky proposition in a changed world order where industrial policy is de rigueur, and the new gospel is how to leverage private investment with public seed money.

But not every country has a Vaca Muerta to offer. McKinsey says the basin will need $45bn of investment over the next 10 years to reach scale, beyond the means of the Argentine state in any plausible scenario.

Foreign investors are keeping a watchful eye on the Peronist backlash, so far gaining little traction in a country hungry for a fresh start – like washed-out Britain in the 1970s after hitting bottom during the three-day week.

Mr Milei’s omnibus law has successfully run the gauntlet through the lower house of parliament after much horse-trading, but doing better in his showdown with the discredited parties of the ‘casta’ than many expected. The senate will be harder (he has only seven seats) but he carries the big stick of decree power if all else fails, like Emmanuel Macron in today’s France.

Oil state governors of all parties want the package. In a sense, Vaca Muerta has become a national project that transcends other divisions. Argentina’s climate pledges scarcely enter the debate. The economic imperative is too great to worry too much about CO2 emissions. Besides, shale enthusiasts argue that global fossil use is above all a demand phenomenon.

Precisely where the supply comes from is a secondary question.

Ex-president Cristina Fernandez Kirchner can only gnash her teeth and rail at the injustice of fortune, as shale technology and the global commodity cycle deliver nicely for her mortal political foe.

“Milei’s plan is not anarcho-capitalism, it is anarcho-colonial. The recovery strategy is now clear: it’s oil, gas, mines, and grains. He wants to turn Argentina into an extraction country for raw materials. This pre-capitalism takes us back to the days of the Viceroyalty,” she said.

Alternatively, it harks back to the halcyon days before the First World War when Argentina enjoyed a prosperous place as Australia’s twin in the British imperial and commercial system, shipping commodities to Europe. It was the best of times for Anglo-Argentine concord, culminating in Harrods of Buenos Aires, the only foreign branch ever opened abroad.

A century later, Australia still manages to leverage its resource and farming wealth into a high-tech economy of top tier affluence. There is no foreordained reason why Argentina cannot do much the same.

Seems like a good bet to make.

[Macanudo 12931]

19 minutes ago, lucious leftfoot said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

President Javier Milei has flawless timing. Argentina’s shale boom has reached industrial take-off just as he embarks on his extreme libertarian experiment: a Hayekian free market assault on the delinquent Peronist state and all its works.

The long-suffering nation is swinging very fast from a costly dependence on energy imports, and a chronic leakage of hard currency, to the happier condition of net hydrocarbon exports. The prolific shale basin of Vaca Muerta is finally delivering.

After years of talk and many dropped balls, this arid expanse of northern Patagonia is suddenly starting to look like the next Texas, promising to draw in the serious dollars needed to stabilise the ruined peso and make all else possible.

“It is not the same Vaca Muerta of 10 years ago, and we’re only doing a fraction of what we could do,” said Horracio Turri from Pampa Energy.

The US Geological Survey estimates that the region holds the world’s second biggest reserves of shale gas, and fourth biggest reserves of shale oil. Drilling has begun at another shale basin at Palermo Aike in Argentina’s deep south, so the potential could be significantly larger.

“Oil is what will put Argentina back on its feet because it is going to be a very big source of foreign currency. We have to start thinking like a petro-state because we are a world player in the making. First we have to tackle our infrastructure problems,” said Mr Turri, speaking at the Vaca Muerta Insights 2024 forum.

Those problems start at the crack of dawn every day in the regional capital of Neuquén as 30,000 people try to reach the shale hub of Añelo 50 miles away. It is a lethal Mad Max parade along a two-way road, full of craters, carrying hundreds of trucks skidding on and off the dirt verge. 

Many are loaded with specialist silica sand, the lifeblood of the fracking industry. There are too few trailers in Añelo to lodge the workers, so if you want to join the shale rush you take your chance.

Each well at Vaca Muerta needs some 15,000 tonnes of sand, 400 trucks of water, and a constant supply of diesel. Previous governments talked of upgrading the Norpatagónico railway to put an end to this daily ritual but the plans were overtaken by one debt crisis after another. The aqueduct bringing in water for the drilling rigs never got off the ground. 

“Infrastructure is something we just don’t do in Argentina, everything has been crumbling for 70 years,” said Prof Alejandro Welbers from CEMA University.

But the needs are becoming more urgent and the stakes ever higher. Vaca Muerta is blessed with high-pressure seams of black marl at a depth of 3,000 metres, up to 450 metres thick, matching the richest layers of the Wolfberry shale in the Permian. 

Rig crews from Halliburton, Schlumberger and Weatherford are already a feature of this strange moonscape, dotted with towering pillars of red sand.

McKinsey estimates that new fracking technology – smart drills, geonavigation, multi-drilling from the same pad – has cut production costs to $36 (£29) a barrel, an irresistible business in a world market with a structural price of $80-$90. It is the best low-sulphur light sweet crude. Gas comes in at circa $1.60 (MMBtu), low enough to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG) for export to Europe at competitive cost.

Shale oil output has quadrupled to 380,000 barrels a day (b/d) over the last three years, suddenly beating expectations, and tracking the Permian growth trajectory that so stunned Saudi Arabia, OPEC, and the old petroleum order.

The government target of 1m b/d already looks too modest, with wildcatters in Neuquén talking of Norwegian levels above 1.5m b/d as the potential peak. 

“We think we can triple oil and double gas by 2028,” said Miguel Galuccio, founder of Argentina’s Vista Energy, which sank eight new wells here in March alone.

Horacio Marin, YPF’s Texas-trained chief executive and Milei insurgent, says he will make it his business to ensure that Argentina is generating $30bn a year in hydrocarbon exports by 2030 or shortly after.

“We’re doing this for the Argentine republic, and for our children. If we can bring in $30bn we’re not going to have any more exchange rate problems,” he said.

He is pioneering a form of ‘lean fracking’ based on the Toyota manufacturing model. 

“We want the construction of an oil rig to be as efficient as the construction of a car. It gets rid of layers of operational bureaucracy and makes us extremely competitive. Not even the Americans are doing this,” he said.

Argentina’s gas has until recently been bottled up in Vaca Muerta for lack of pipelines. The country had to import 80 ship loads of LNG gas in 2022, competing with Europe at nosebleed prices for global supply after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Everything went wrong at once. The worst drought in half a century shut down hydropower generation. 

The national soybean crop – Argentina’s top earner – fell by 44pc. It was this that drained dollar reserves and pushed the country into an insolvency spiral.

The Nestor Kirchner gas pipeline came into action last August, too late to save the Peronists, but it is now able to supply Buenos Aires through the approaching Argentine winter. LNG imports are collapsing. The gas balance will switch progressively into a large surplus over the next decade as Vaca Muerta supplies Chile, Brazil, and the Mercosur market by pipeline.

Mr Marin said YPF has contracted two LNG floating terminals with Malaysia’s Petronas. A larger fixed terminal on the Atlantic coast will follow. If all goes perfectly – an enormous if – Argentina’s combined exports of oil and gas per capita may not be that far short of Russia by the mid-2030s.

“Without Vaca Muerta it would be painful to think about Argentina,” says Rolo Figueroa, the governor of Neuquén province, which operates almost as an independent petro-state.

The governor no longer presides at the original Chateau Gris, a two-storey wooden chalet built in Scottish style by the firm John Wright in 1904 with materials shipped from Britain, part of the largely forgotten British and Irish influence in northern Patagonia. It was a lieutenant Ignacio Hamilton Fotheringham who first set foot in Neuquén in the War of the Desert in the 1870s.

President Milei has cut off all federal transfers to the regions in quest of his fiscal surplus. He has cut public investment by 84pc. This drastic austerity has left Neuquén with 413 paralysed projects.

Governor Figueroa is taking matters into his own hands, borrowing from the Inter American Development Bank and issuing $500m of bonds on the open market, offering Vaca Muerta as political collateral.

“We know that we have to monetise it and we have only got a window of time. We have got to get everything right to attract investors,” he said.

Getting everything right has not been Argentina’s forte over decades of misgovernment. The Peronists poisoned the energy well by nationalising the Argentine oil company YPF in 2012, setting off a chain of lawsuits. The fiscal and labour regime has been toxic for foreign capital.

Javier Milei aims to sweep away the thicket of Peronist controls, opening the country’s hydrocarbon industry to global market forces. His RIGI investment law will in principle give foreign oil and gas companies total freedom to repatriate earnings at the market exchange rate, and bring in their own kit without restrictions. It will remove import and export taxes.

It pledges no interference from the Argentine state for 30 years.

“Our guiding principle is that everything should be governed by price signals under the laws of free enterprise,” said the national energy minister, Eduardo Rodríguez Chirillo, a Thatcherite expert on privatisation.

The bet is that global capital will do the heavy lifting on infrastructure once the red carpet is rolled out. It is a risky proposition in a changed world order where industrial policy is de rigueur, and the new gospel is how to leverage private investment with public seed money.

But not every country has a Vaca Muerta to offer. McKinsey says the basin will need $45bn of investment over the next 10 years to reach scale, beyond the means of the Argentine state in any plausible scenario.

Foreign investors are keeping a watchful eye on the Peronist backlash, so far gaining little traction in a country hungry for a fresh start – like washed-out Britain in the 1970s after hitting bottom during the three-day week.

Mr Milei’s omnibus law has successfully run the gauntlet through the lower house of parliament after much horse-trading, but doing better in his showdown with the discredited parties of the ‘casta’ than many expected. The senate will be harder (he has only seven seats) but he carries the big stick of decree power if all else fails, like Emmanuel Macron in today’s France.

Oil state governors of all parties want the package. In a sense, Vaca Muerta has become a national project that transcends other divisions. Argentina’s climate pledges scarcely enter the debate. The economic imperative is too great to worry too much about CO2 emissions. Besides, shale enthusiasts argue that global fossil use is above all a demand phenomenon.

Precisely where the supply comes from is a secondary question.

Ex-president Cristina Fernandez Kirchner can only gnash her teeth and rail at the injustice of fortune, as shale technology and the global commodity cycle deliver nicely for her mortal political foe.

“Milei’s plan is not anarcho-capitalism, it is anarcho-colonial. The recovery strategy is now clear: it’s oil, gas, mines, and grains. He wants to turn Argentina into an extraction country for raw materials. This pre-capitalism takes us back to the days of the Viceroyalty,” she said.

Alternatively, it harks back to the halcyon days before the First World War when Argentina enjoyed a prosperous place as Australia’s twin in the British imperial and commercial system, shipping commodities to Europe. It was the best of times for Anglo-Argentine concord, culminating in Harrods of Buenos Aires, the only foreign branch ever opened abroad.

A century later, Australia still manages to leverage its resource and farming wealth into a high-tech economy of top tier affluence. There is no foreordained reason why Argentina cannot do much the same.

Seems like a good bet to make.

That they'll fuck it up or become like Texas?  Because they could do both at the same time.

[DixonHur 11236]

36 minutes ago, lucious leftfoot said:

But not every country has a Vaca Muerta to offer.

Please, every county on Earth has a dead cow

[Brisketexan 104702]

1 hour ago, lucious leftfoot said:

“Milei’s plan is not anarcho-capitalism, it is anarcho-colonial. The recovery strategy is now clear: it’s oil, gas, mines, and grains. He wants to turn Argentina into an extraction country for raw materials. This pre-capitalism takes us back to the days of the Viceroyalty,” she said.

Alternatively, it harks back to the halcyon days before the First World War when Argentina enjoyed a prosperous place as Australia’s twin in the British imperial and commercial system, shipping commodities to Europe. It was the best of times for Anglo-Argentine concord, culminating in Harrods of Buenos Aires, the only foreign branch ever opened abroad.

A century later, Australia still manages to leverage its resource and farming wealth into a high-tech economy of top tier affluence. There is no foreordained reason why Argentina cannot do much the same.

You could bet on Kirchner's take: “Milei’s plan is not anarcho-capitalism, it is anarcho-colonial. The recovery strategy is now clear: it’s oil, gas, mines, and grains. He wants to turn Argentina into an extraction country for raw materials. This pre-capitalism takes us back to the days of the Viceroyalty,”

Or you could bet on the author's take: "A century later, Australia still manages to leverage its resource and farming wealth into a high-tech economy of top tier affluence. There is no foreordained reason why Argentina cannot do much the same."

The problem is, the author's take misses one important point.  "There's no reason" why Argentina can't follow Australia's path.  The problem is, there is definitely a reason why it can't.  That reason is "it's Argentina."  Corruption, graft, and inefficiency are woven into its DNA.  It is much, much more likely that Argentina will become an anarcho-colonial extraction economy, benefitting only those at the very top who have managed to take advantage of it.

I'd love it if that was wrong, though.  I love Argentina, I really do.  Just saw enough with my family living there for 6 years to tell me which way to bet here.

[Fudge Nuggets 19152]

Argentina will be nothing more than a scaled down version of Russia minus a bunch of nukes that may or may not work.

[TexArcher 37537]

* Sadly crosses Argentina off potential ex-pat retirement locations *

[tx 3 putt 76430]

I’m easily the surly Neuquén expert, I’ve spent about 6 weeks around there on 4 vacations.

that area has been an o/g hub for many many years. What the article fails to mention, not all shale formations are built the same. US / Texas type shale formations have been hard to come by (hence the frac’n revolution has yet to be mass exported) <<< if this is incorrect, someone please correct me

I hope they can find something though. Great people in that area 

Edited May 9 by tx 3 putt

[tx 3 putt 76430]

Really was hoping some change for the good ….

Prices in Argentina have surged so dramatically in recent months that the government has multiplied the size of its biggest bank note in circulation by five — to 10,000 pesos, worth about $10. 

The central bank announcement Tuesday promised to lighten the load for many Argentines who must carry around giant bags — occasionally, suitcases — stuffed with cash for simple transactions. Argentina’s annual inflation rate reached 287% in March, among the highest in the world. 

The new denomination note — five times the value of the previous biggest bill — is expected to hit the streets next month in a bid to “facilitate transactions between users,” the central bank said. The 10,000 peso note is worth $11 at the country’s official exchange rate and $9 at the black market exchange rate. 

Across Argentina, hard currency — specifically, the country’s ubiquitous 1,000-peso notes — remains the most popular way to pay for things. When first printed in 2017, the 1,000-peso note was worth $58 on the black market. Now, it’s worth a dollar.

[bernorange 8349]

That tweet has a very slanted take on the issue.  Contrast it with this:

Quote

Argentina’s monthly inflation rate eased sharply to a single-digit rate in April for the first time in half a year, data released Tuesday showed, a closely watched indicator that bolsters President Javier Milei’s severe austerity program aimed at fixing the country’s troubled economy.

Prices rose at a rate of 8.8% last month, the Argentine government statistics agency reported, down from a monthly rate of 11% in March and well below a peak of 25% last December, when Milei became president with a mission to combat Argentina’s dizzying inflation, among the highest in the world.

...

https://apnews.com/article/argentina-inflation-milei-single-digits-3cf0adca2cdf911fb04a06c3e9c6880d

Edited June 5 by bernorange

[SydneyCarton 47927]

1 hour ago, bernorange said:

That tweet has a very slanted take on the issue.  Contrast it with this:

https://apnews.com/article/argentina-inflation-milei-single-digits-3cf0adca2cdf911fb04a06c3e9c6880d

I feel like your paste has a particularly slanted angle as opposed to the rest of the article you linked:

 

Quote

“People are in pain,” said 23-year-old Augustin Perez, a supermarket worker in the suburbs of Buenos Aires who said his rent had soared by 90% since Milei deregulated the real estate market and his electricity bill had nearly tripled since the government slashed subsidies. “They say things are getting better, but how? I don’t understand.”

Quote

Even so, some experts warn that falling inflation isn’t necessarily an economic victory — rather the symptom of a painful recession. The IMF expects Argentina’s gross domestic product to shrink by 2.8% this year.

“You’ve had a massive collapse in private spending, which explains why consumption has dropped dramatically and why inflation is also falling,” said Monica de Bolle, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who studies emerging markets. “People are worse off than they were before. That leads them to spend less.”

Signs of an economic slowdown are everywhere in Buenos Aires — the lines snaking outside discounted groceries, the empty seats in the city’s typically booming restaurants, the growing strikes and protests.

 

At an open-air market in the capital’s Liniers neighborhood, Lidia Pacheco makes a beeline for the garbage dump. Several times a week, the 45-year-old mother of four rummages through the pungent pile to salvage the tomatoes with the least mold.

 

“This place saves me,” Pacheco said. Sky-high prices have forced her to stick to worn-out clothes and shoes and change her diet to the point of giving up yerba mate, Argentina’s ubiquitous national drink brewed from bitter leaves. “Whatever I earn from selling clothes goes to eating,” she said.

Bascially, the part you posted is the only positive paragraph in that article, at least per my interpretation. And keep in mind that I say this as the United States probably needs some form of austerity (will never happen). I'll leave with this one:

 

Quote

Nearly 60% of the country’s 46 million people now live in poverty, a 20-year high, according to a study in January by Argentina’s Catholic University.

 

Edited June 5 by SydneyCarton

[kevwun 15672]

I am shocked that the crazy guy is fucking up the country. 

[bernorange 8349]

55 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I feel like your paste has a particularly slanted angle as opposed to the rest of the article you linked: ...

I was drawing a contrast in the reporting of the inflation data.  Milei told everyone while campaigning that he was going to bring the austerity pain and that it was necessary to correct the inflation caused by his predecessors.  In spite of not having legislative support to enact his full plan, what he was able to accomplish has had a significant effect in lowering the rate of inflation that existed prior to his term. 

It's not Milei's austerity that is responsible for the 10k note.  That's an ignorant, obtuse or deliberately deceptive take on the situation.

Edited June 5 by bernorange

[SydneyCarton 47927]

1 minute ago, bernorange said:

I was drawing a contrast in the reporting of the inflation data.  Milei told everyone while campaigning that he was going to bring the austerity pain and that it was necessary to correct the inflation caused by his predecessors.  In spite of not having legislative support to enact his full plan, what he was able to accomplish has had a significant effect in lowering the rate of inflation that existed prior to his term. 

Which, as the article points out, might just be a result of the donkey punching his actions have done to the economy, which is rapidly and drastically shrinking, as opposed to a healthy shrinking of inflation. The cure being worse than the poison references aside, I think the bottom line is that at best it's too early to take a victory lap for his policies. 

[Foosters 17745]

3 minutes ago, bernorange said:

It's not Milei's austerity that is responsible for the 10k note.  That's an ignorant, obtuse or deliberately deceptive take on the situation.

I think I understand. If something good happens to the economy under his watch, then austerity is to thank. If something bad happens under his watch, its not his fault and any insinuation to the contrary is outrageous.

[wildcat09 29270]

1 hour ago, kevwun said:

I am shocked that the crazy guy is fucking up the country. 

Esto.

[bernorange 8349]

From a few weeks ago:

Quote

The International Monetary Fund, Argentina's biggest creditor, agreed Monday to release the next tranche of loans due under a bailout program, endorsing government austerity measures so severe they even surpass the terms of its $43 billion loan.
...
... the IMF praised President Javier Milei's libertarian government for a number of economic successes — Argentina's first quarterly fiscal surplus in 16 years, falling monthly inflation and surging sovereign bond prices.
...
Although brutal for Argentina's poor and middle classes, the market-friendly overhaul has “resulted in faster-than-anticipated progress in restoring macroeconomic stability and bringing the program firmly back on track," the IMF said, thanking Argentine authorities for “the decisive implementation of their stabilization plan."

The praise marks a dramatic turn-around from the past six decades during which Argentine politicians showed little interest in enacting reforms stipulated as part of borrowing agreements.

Previous left-leaning governments fell far short of IMF targets and relied on central bank money printing to finance treasury spending, pushing the country's IMF program — launched in 2018 and refinanced in 2022 — to a breaking point.
...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/argentina-will-get-next-installment-of-bailout-as-imf-praises-mileis-austerity-policies/ar-BB1mjRMt

 

[TexArcher 37537]

1 hour ago, kevwun said:

I am shocked that the crazy guy is fucking up the country. 

 

See, the rest of the world does want to be like America again.

Suck it, libs.

[Pato del Muerto 52353]

1 hour ago, kevwun said:

I am shocked that the crazy guy is fucking up the country. 

I think the country was already fucked up, prompting the populace to say fuck it let’s see if the crazy guy can do better.  

[kevwun 15672]

Which they are finding out does not help at all.

[texasdago 7553]

I love Argentina... really do.  Buenos Aires is one of the great cities of the world.  Visited four times and loved it.  The country has so much going for it...

AND YET they repeatedly elect monumental idiots who screw everything up.  Has a country ever had so much potential and consistently screwed up regardless of who is in power?  I mean, seriously... they keep electing idiots.

  

[Brisketexan 104702]

1 minute ago, kevwun said:

Which they are finding out does not help at all.

I'll offer a moment of fairness here....Argentina has been so fucked up that at this early juncture, there's no telling whether his measures are making shit worse or better.  All that's happened thus far is that the rubble of Argentine society and its economy has moved around.  Maybe it is laying a foundation for reconstruction.  Maybe it's doing jack shit other than crushing more people in the process.  There is no way to know for sure yet.

And I DO understand why the voters said "fuck it, it's already all wrecked, let's try anything we can."  It may be dumb, but maybe it's not dumber than trying the same old shit that has failed for decades.  I personally don't think it will work, but I admit that it's such a chaotic environment that I really don't know.

[wildcat09 29270]

The libertarian likes the IMF now. Lol. 

[Macanudo 12931]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

I'll offer a moment of fairness here....Argentina has been so fucked up that at this early juncture, there's no telling whether his measures are making shit worse or better.  All that's happened thus far is that the rubble of Argentine society and its economy has moved around.  Maybe it is laying a foundation for reconstruction.  Maybe it's doing jack shit other than crushing more people in the process.  There is no way to know for sure yet.

And I DO understand why the voters said "fuck it, it's already all wrecked, let's try anything we can."  It may be dumb, but maybe it's not dumber than trying the same old shit that has failed for decades.  I personally don't think it will work, but I admit that it's such a chaotic environment that I really don't know.

And this is how Trump gets reelected. 

[bernorange 8349]

Once again wildcat09 misrepresents something I posted.  Shocking (not). 

Those damned Austrian economists at the IMF claim that Milei's austerity is responsible for lowering inflation.  I posted it for the derp crowd here that is fond of appeals to authority since they can't put 2 + 2 together on their own (ending brrrrt to finance government spending removes the fuel for inflation).

[Brisketexan 104702]

Just now, Macanudo said:

And this is how Trump gets reelected. 

If that happens here, it's a MUCH dumber version of it.  Argentina's economy is literally in shambles, and has been for a long time.  It's not a PERCEIVED shitshow, it's an ACTUAL real-deal shitshow.  In those sort of circumstances, I genuinely can't blame people for trying something else.  It's kinda like how people jump out of a burning building - fuck it, it can't be any worse, maybe I'll land on something soft.  Odds are slim, but maybe....

Whereas in our case, the "shitshow" is mostly a lie that's been fed to them by Fox and piss-poor media not doing its job of calling out baldfaced lies.

[Pato del Muerto 52353]

Fox News:  there’s a fire just out of sight. It’s headed here fast, you had better jump for it. 
 

viewer:  really?  I don’t see flames. I don’t smell smoke. I don’t hear fire alarms. There are no fire trucks or firefighters around. Are you sure?

fnc:  look, if you can’t see it that’s terrible but you are going to have to take our word for it. 
 

viewer:  ok I guess. Why don’t you go first?

fnc: oh, we would, believe me. But we need to stay here to warn others.  Off you go!

[Pato del Muerto 52353]

As opposed to:

our building has been on fire for decades and we are all burned and covered in smoke. 
 

that guy over there says he can get rid of the fire with a combination of verbal insults and aggressive interpretive dance. 
 

well, nothing else has worked. Let’s see if he’s right. 

[Brisketexan 104702]

Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

As opposed to:

our building has been on fire for decades and we are all burned and covered in smoke. 
 

that guy over there says he can get rid of the fire with a combination of verbal insults and aggressive interpretive dance. 
 

well, nothing else has worked. Let’s see if he’s right. 

You're missing the additional part of "and nobody, not a damned person, has offered up doing anything but more of the same shit that got us into that pickle."  Desperate people, given no real alternatives, will do desperate things.  Again, I think they are wrong, I don't think it will work, but I absolutely understand them saying "fuck it, maybe the dance will help somehow."

[tx 3 putt 76430]

Milei is pinching the poor and middle class like no other. Things could get very very ugly when the protests start to grow and grow 

 

[bernorange 8349]

Quote

Argentine President Javier Milei on Wednesday announced the layoff of an additional 50,000 state employees, advancing his effort to "reduce the state in half." The move comes as part of the president's ongoing strategy to cut public spending and reduce the national deficit.

This latest round of cuts follows a March announcement in which Milei proposed slashing 70,000 jobs from Argentina's public sector work force, which employs approximately 3.5 million people. According to Infobae, 25,000 positions have been cut since March's announcement.
...

 

More:

https://reason.com/2024/06/06/argentinas-milei-to-cut-50000-state-jobs-amid-legislative-challenges/

 

[Orale 1087]

On 6/5/2024 at 11:55 AM, SydneyCarton said:

And keep in mind that I say this as the United States probably needs some form of austerity (will never happen)

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, but why do you think the U.S. probably needs some form of austerity? I'm not being snarky, I'm just curious of that thinking at least in regards to the U.S. economy. 

[SydneyCarton 47927]

13 hours ago, Orale said:

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, but why do you think the U.S. probably needs some form of austerity? I'm not being snarky, I'm just curious of that thinking at least in regards to the U.S. economy. 

30 trillion in debt is unsustainable, and we’re getting close to a trillion in interest a year. People love to say cut military spending, but honesty that isn’t going to make a dent. You’re really not going to get there unless you increase corporate and individual taxes as well as make some cuts that are painful. Of course, stagflation is always a risk. 

[TexArcher 37537]

1 hour ago, SydneyCarton said:

30 trillion in debt is unsustainable, and we’re getting close to a trillion in interest a year. People love to say cut military spending, but honesty that isn’t going to make a dent. You’re really not going to get there unless you increase corporate and individual taxes as well as make some cuts that are painful. Of course, stagflation is always a risk. 

 

The changes needed to balance the budget are really obvious: cut military spending significantly, increase corporate taxes significantly, raise the capital gain tax a moderate amount (something like from 15% to 20%), and eliminate the estate tax exemption.  

The reason that will never happen is equally obvious: everyone in Congress has one thing in common -- they are wealthy investors.  Even "rags to riches" AOC immediately started earning $170k per year, plus whatever she makes from speaking engagements, book deals, etc.  Hell, most of them are still partners in law practices.  If anyone in either chamber filed for less than $250k last year, I'd be shocked.  

Of course these people aren't going to raise the capital gains tax on their own investments, or volunteer to pay more taxes on the millions they inherit from their Yale secret society douchebag dads.  And of course they're not going to vote to raise corporate taxes, or their campaign donations go bye bye.  They don't really give a shit about the military spending, except that cutting that loses you an election, because people are brainwashed and stupid.

And they certainly don't give half a shit about the spiraling debt or the interest on it.  This country exists for them to profit from for as long as possible, and if they sink it, they'll ride their golden parachute payouts to one of their other homes abroad.

[SydneyCarton 47927]

34 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

 

The changes needed to balance the budget are really obvious: cut military spending significantly, increase corporate taxes significantly, raise the capital gain tax a moderate amount (something like from 15% to 20%), and eliminate the estate tax exemption.  

The reason that will never happen is equally obvious: everyone in Congress has one thing in common -- they are wealthy investors.  Even "rags to riches" AOC immediately started earning $170k per year, plus whatever she makes from speaking engagements, book deals, etc.  Hell, most of them are still partners in law practices.  If anyone in either chamber filed for less than $250k last year, I'd be shocked.  

Of course these people aren't going to raise the capital gains tax on their own investments, or volunteer to pay more taxes on the millions they inherit from their Yale secret society douchebag dads.  And of course they're not going to vote to raise corporate taxes, or their campaign donations go bye bye.  They don't really give a shit about the military spending, except that cutting that loses you an election, because people are brainwashed and stupid.

And they certainly don't give half a shit about the spiraling debt or the interest on it.  This country exists for them to profit from for as long as possible, and if they sink it, they'll ride their golden parachute payouts to one of their other homes abroad.

While I appreciate the screed and I agree with much of it, military spending accounts for less than 15% of our annual budget. And with Ukraine and China there’s no way I’m cutting that. I think it would be prudent to increase it to 20%.

 

meanwhile social security and healthcare (Medicare/medicaid/etc) represent over 50%. Around 3 trillion a year. You want to decrease the deficit? You have to cut into some painful shit. Maybe fixing the tax code can get us an extra few trillion a year, but I’m skeptical it gets us to eating into the actual deficit by itself. Hence, austerity. 
 

before Trump and Covid added 8 trillion to the deficit in 4 years we could have maybe just altered the tax code and gotten it back down, but I don’t think so anymore. 

Edited June 8 by SydneyCarton

[elfenix 34189]

it's taken 40 years of reaganomics policies to get us to where we are now re: debt.*  so any solution should be in a similar time frame (and that's not to cut the debt to 0 or even the deficit to 0, there are completely sustainable levels of deficit).  discussions of the deficit should be deficit/gdp ratio (both of these are annual rates).  debt is a scalar and really shouldn't be directly compared to a rate.  a better comparison would be another scalar like total US wealth. 

 

as the economy gets larger and nominal dollars decrease in value it's inevitable that the deficit becomes a trillion and then eventually 10 trillion and the debt goes to 100 trillion and all those are meaningless scalars without any context.  

 

 

 

*we had a brief interlude during the clinton years but went right back to reaganomics bullshit when bush got elected and his solution to all economic situations was cut taxes

Edited June 8 by elfenix

[TexArcher 37537]

9 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

While I appreciate the screed and I agree with much of it, military spending accounts for less than 15% of our annual budget. And with Ukraine and China there’s no way I’m cutting that. I think it would be prudent to increase it to 20%.

 

meanwhile social security and healthcare (Medicare/medicaid/etc) represent over 50%. Around 3 trillion a year. You want to decrease the deficit? You have to cut into some painful shit. Maybe fixing the tax code can get us an extra few trillion a year, but I’m skeptical it gets us to eating into the actual deficit by itself. Hence, austerity. 
 

before Trump and Covid added 8 trillion to the deficit in 4 years we could have maybe just altered the tax code and gotten it back down, but I don’t think so anymore. 

 

Oh, there's no getting it back down.

I'm talking about stopping the annual deficit from adding to it.

What I suggested above is a way to balance the budget by increasing the money coming in, rather than cutting the money going out (except for defense, which absolutely can take a healthy cut without putting any monsters at our gate).

I agree that the debt is a huge problem.  But the bigger problem is that a) most people don't understand it, which allows for b) the people making the decisions to not give a shit about it.

They really are running this thing like a corporation.  We're the shareholders who will lose everything.  They're the C-Suite who will milk it for whatever they can, then cash a massive check on their way out of the burning wreckage.

Perhaps I'm getting cynical in my middle age.  But the solutions are obvious.  We can argue about the order of priority, but there are many solutions that will work, or at least help, and fucking zero of them will ever happen.