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0 sats \ 12 replies \ @TomK OP 4 Oct \ parent \ on: Hans-Hermann Hoppe on Javier Milei Politics_And_Law
Ok. Where did he miss the point?
Ok this was a LOT of work (26 min video of non-stop slander), so I hope you do read this:
His victory had very little to do with Argentinians understanding any of what he said
That couldn't be any more wrong. It's the most remarkable and biggest piece of ignorance of the entire speech. Milei wasn't a last minute candidate that got into the ballot the night before so people just blindly voted for him to not to vote for other guy. He made himself famous years prior to his political career precisely due to his libertarian stance, and it was from that support prior that he decided to step up, first, as a deputy. It was then from the senate that he kept his libertarian speech and garnered even more support. The biggest proof that people believed in his ideas was that he wasn't alone in the race but other major force was also contending the first place respect to the bad guys, so that much that many Milei' followers didn't voted for him at first out of fear he wasn't making it, and thus voted for that other force instead. Of course, people that do not understands him and yet voted for him where supporters of that other major force, but his core followers do know and understand what he says, specially the youth. Boomers are irreversibly lost, they do not understand either capitalism nor socialism, and that's the reason they have been and are so easily manipulated. So the mindless boomer sector got divided mechanically as a coin tossed to the air, and our youth made the difference out of conviction.
Milei gave speeches in front of the elites I could have easily given even better
That has to be the most childish part. Hoppe "could have done it as easily". But he didn't. Milei did. It's not about the act of the speech itself, not only him but anyone can give it. It's precisely about actually doing it, actually getting there. Hoppe shrugs off lightly the merit with "oh since he was president it was so easy for him to get there"... getting to be president was the difficult part goddammit!! The fact Hoppe is so detached from all of the context and nitty gritty hard word that implies to actually get things done, as simple as superficial end results might seem, is another symptom of academia isolation.
I have not checked, but I have the impression that he was "anti-statist" in his campaign and then only "anti-socialist" once he won. Again I didn't checked but that's a contradiction so Milei is an hypocrite.
Well... he should have checked. At that point, not even 4 minutes into the video, I lost all hope I was looking at something serious. He knows how debased those expressions are, something that's sub-standard even for academia standards.
Milei never changed his speech, at all, at no point. He still repeats the exact same expressions. He always explained his plan and intentions in full. And the dismantlement of the state is explicitly point 3 of 10 core points of his recently launched party whose web you can see here. That's not an old page, it was publicly launched brand new two weeks ago.
Milei received prizes and Obama received prizes so that was a revelation that Obama's phenomenon was the same as Milei's phenomenon.
And Milei also breathes air! just like Hitler! Shame on him.
Milei didn't abolished all price controls and all subsidies.
Besides the fact he can just change that all of a sudden, he does is proceeding as much as he can and dismantling the structures those price control and subsidies support:
- Price-control on medical insurance is already poised to be eliminated, but it wasn't done all of a sudden because the medical insurance industry was made around the crony state-corporate structure, so there's no competition at all and those companies used that to impose dracoinian contracts clients can not easily get rid off. That state-corporate structure, that was used to have captive clients, has been being progressively dismantled now and that's why liberation of prices as been announced, but we are not there yet.
- Subsidies are most delicate for there's above 50% poverty on Argentina, so if Milei takes that away all of a sudden, 25.000.000 people are left hopeless. So subsidies are being progressively diminished, but the most impoverished sectors are still subsidized for there're no massive source of work yet, to whose formation the new regimes of foreign investment seek to activate. It's all a very intricate clockwork socialistic bomb the one to deactivate here but it's being done, and Milei was crystal clear on his campaign that this were the steps to follow.
Milei didn't privatized companies
Absolutely all state owned companies were set to be privatized but that's not a decision Milei can take by himself, but the senate must approve, whose majority is still socialistic. So ALL privatizations were rejected by this mobs, despite being proposed by Milei. Part of the campaign for next year elections is to show that he is being impeded to proceed with this, so he needs a majority on the senate to approve privatizations.
A large part of closed ministries personnel was simply transferred to another dependencies.
He gives no numbers in this, just qualitative adjectives. He seeks to imply that almost all state personnel was kept. Yes, some people was transferred, but that was the minority of people, not the majority. As much people as possible as been dismissed, but since the law (until changed) prohibits the dismissal of state personnel, volumes of transferred people from closed ministries where transferred simply because the government is awaiting for their contracts to expire, not to be renovated (a strategy that has been repeatedly and explicitly stated by the government). That's one of many nitty gritty details Hoppe ignores all along his speech.
Milei raised taxes and created new ones
For the sake of last year campaign, the socialist government that was seeking to keep itself in power froze tax rate increments and suspended some taxes a month before the elections (but not the spending that came from them), for the sake of gaining some cheap votes. Of course when Milei came to office he had to unfroze and unsuspend those measures because the spending had been done and under the new monetary policy it couldn't be financed anymore with emission nor debt. Once deficit was stopped, he proceeded to actually lower those taxes, not to temporarily froze them like the prior govt did. The difference in tendency is clear. Yes, taxation is theft, but if you voted for theft, then Milei can't undo the damage, but make his best to stop it, and that's what he is doing.
Government budget surplus has not led to a decrease in taxes
On one side, that's straight up a lie, see here. But on the other, that's not the only purpose of the surplus: to proceed with dollarization, a certain surplus is needed to allow to buy enough USD reserves so that the change can be done.
Milei seeks to centralize power
Blatant and shameful lie, simply as that. In fact Milei is on his path to end the centralization that's currently in place: a distopian tax scheme called "coparticipation", which sucks funds from productive provinces and give it to non productive provinces (which have as much as whooping 95% state employment rates due to that). Of course that ends the feudal system the lords of those provinces love so much, so they call Milei a "tyrant" for ending that mob scheme. I'm in awe that Hoppe simply took that word.
Further, all provinces are rising taxes in opposition to government cuts in order to keep the state-corporate structure, but now they get busted on the act for previously that was subtly made with stealthy debt and emission which now is terminated, so the feudal lores blame Milei for the political impact that being exposed is having on them.
Milei didn't ended the central bank
Can not stop being surprised by how innocent Hoppe is, truly an academic. Of course ending the central bank is not something that can be done immediately, specially taking onto account all of what depends on it (not for good, but still). It's all being meticulously dismantled:
- The printer has been closed and its dismantlement announced
- Again the surplus in govt budget that Hoppe treats with so much disdain is needed to buy the USD reserves to proceed with the dollarization he so anxiously claims for from the comfort of his chair. You need the USD to dollarize Hoppy! How did you missed that one little detail!!
This is not even the middle of the video yet. I could go on and on but the text will get too long and it's really tiresome and not worth it. But hope this gives an idea.
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Thank you for taking the time to read it :)
And yes, couldn't say it better, that's literally what he is, an incel of economics and politics.
PD: if the zap was from you, thank you so much!!!
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Thank you for your detailed reply, it's very stressful for me at the moment. But the points that Hoppe made can still be substantiated by the facts. Using the example of the central bank, we can see that we are in a fluid process. You're right that you can't close such an institution immediately without crashing the banking system. But he doesn't give any prospective guidance on how to proceed. Instead, he is dollarizing Argentina, becoming the new dumping ground for more US government bonds, transporting the state gold to England, whatever that is supposed to bring, he is participating in the proxy wars in Ukraine and Israel and, for me as a libertarian, he is doing exactly what he should not be doing: he is participating in kinetic aggression. But we can continue the dialog in the future to see what else is good.
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can still be substantiated by the facts
Careful on this because he made a lot of distorted or even false statements, as I pointed out.
he doesn't give any prospective guidance on how to proceed
What makes you say that? He did, profoundly, that's why the ones that support him still support him, because he is proceeding as he explained he was going to, step by step.
he is dollarizing Argentina
That's part of the plan to two objectives:
- first, being able to end the central bank for good, because that can't be done yet as long as all of your obligations are in pesos, that's the currency debt was emitted with (that's why Hoppe arguments on that aspect are profoundly ignorant: ending the central bank before cancelling all debts would default the country and cause crushing crisis).
- once you have cancelled all debts, which are all in dollars, dollarization can put the last nail in the coffin of the central bank and lead to the second phase Milei explicitly pointed to: a free currency system.
So the dollar is the currency that allows for that transition for many obvious reasons: Argentines are big tenants of dollars for it was always seen as a refuge from inflation respect to the peso, all of our debts are in dollars, all obligations past and future are in dollars, international salaries are in dollars, even the chinese offer and charge in dollars, so it's a pretty straight forward option to transition to a free currency system, where any currency can compete for being the most used, be it the dollar or bitcoin.
transporting the state gold to England
As I said, we have debt obligations and a long track-record of dishonouring them. The transportation of some of the gold (not "all" of the gold) was made to give more assurance to debt creditors that intentions to pay back are serious. Plus the gold can be leased for other financial operations in exchange of fees, and that money helps a lot. It has be done in the past many times, even during the previous government, and the gold always returns.
he is participating in the proxy wars in Ukraine and Israel
"Participating" in what way? He has show support, for sure. But no participation other than humanitarian help where needed.
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This is an excellent review debunking all of Hoppe fallacies, hopefully automatic subtitles are good enough:
I hasn't, but there's a chance ammo can be triangulated to Ukraine regardless. Argentina manufactures and sells 155mm ammo, and nothing prevents it from reaching the Ukrainian front regardless to who you sell it, in the same way Russia violates bans to get the all precious west goods it so much despises on camera.
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