re: Argentina reports 1st budget surplus in 14 years

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There are many more options of Trump supporting yuge spending, which is nothing like Milei

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Milei wants to quadruple military spending.

But they're "nothing" alike.

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This Argentinian surplus will be good for GE, Halliburton, Northrop Grumman and every other American military contractor. Which is to say, it's also good for me.

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Do you understand what a surplus is or how budgets work?

And how that is a massive improvement over accumulating debt?

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Means very little in the big picture.


Again, irrelevant to the public perception of what they think it'll do. Remember, the conversation is about political movements and what the public wants/expects,

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No, its not.

Only an idiot would ignore his previous administration and overlook his management style.

You have 4 years of a blueprint.

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But this board says Milei wants to use this surplus to pay down debt, not spend it.

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Did this surplus come after increasing military spending?

Getting the cuts accomplished to balance the budget required an impressive amount of political will. However, it was always mathematically feasible. Now comes the real test: will economic growth result that outpaces the increase in misery caused by putting so many public workers out of a job and cutting social safety nets?

The cuts significantly increased poverty and decreased standards of living (though also rapidly decreased housing costs). Libertarians argue that such sacrifices are necessary in the short term because medium and long term sustainable economic growth will quickly make up the difference and result in significantly higher quality of life and growth long term. However, the steep sudden drop in living standards usually results in too much public anger for a political party to hold onto power long enough to see the experiment through. They inevitably get replaced by another spend-thrift regime that calms social tensions with big spending, kicks the fiscal can down the road, and sends the nation back towards stagnation and slow decline.

We need to see signs of rapid growth over the course of this year. Libertarians have theorized that we will, and everything has gone according to chalk to far, but we’re entering territory uncharted in the past century. I hope libertarianism is proven correct, and that the people of Argentina give Milei’s regime the patience necessary to see it through.

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. Now comes the real test: will economic growth result that outpaces the increase in misery caused by putting so many public workers out of a job and cutting social safety nets?

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Which is why it will never happen here.

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Keep letting Chicago libs direct your economic understandings,

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I'm a Milton Friedman guy.

Unlike you Bernie Bros.

Milei understands classic economics, Trump does not (and neither do you apparently). Donny is a Mercantilist.

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Unlike you Bernie Bros.

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Bernie doesn't run on cutting regs and useless departments.

You have me mislabeled. I voted for Trump because he's the lesser of two evils. He's flawed, and I disagree with quite a few of his policies.

I want steak, not shite salad. But America won't vote for steak, too many people want too many governmental freebies and protections. So I voted for a mayo sandwich. Steak wasn't on the menu and just about anything is better than a shite salad.

All that said, you're wrong here. There are lots of parallels between Milei and Trump, even on the economy/spending.

Lots of differences too. But saying they're opposites is just plain wrong. I know you want to dunk on the MAGA faithful but you actually have to put the ball in the net.

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What's the aim of DOGE?

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To throw a bone to a couple of Trump sycophants who helped him get elected.

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To throw a bone to a couple of Trump sycophants who helped him get elected.

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A couple of people, huh?

"The first poll on DOGE with 997 respondents shows a majority of 62% of respondents support DOGE's mission to reduce government costs..."

- Source

Yea, just about 2/3rds of the country...