Prices soar in Argentina after Milei’s currency devaluation

alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgmod to World News@beehaw.org – 69 points –
Prices soar in Argentina after Milei’s currency devaluation
english.elpais.com
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Haha the 'chainsaw the central bank' guy turns out to be unhinged, who knew

You can't say we didn't know what was on the package, this is entirely self-inflicted.

I’m sad for the common folk who will be hurt here, even the ones that voted for him because they desperately needed relief. I fear they’ve jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

That's exactly what they did, and we all knew this was going to happen. Like I said before, if you don't manage to cut your toenails with a fryig pan a gun is not going te be much help either, dumb fucking cunts

We'll only in the same way Trump was self-inflicted, that is to say that millions of people didn't vote for him and are still impacted by this.

Didn't he win the vote? Trump lost the vote. He won the election because the American system is designed to sometimes hand victory to the loser - Trump was the 5th or 6th example to date.

He was voted on by 14.5 million votes, which was 56% of the votes, but it is also out of a population of 45 million, and he only got 30% in the first round of votes. They have a completely different voting system to the US, so they had a second round of runoffs.

The point is, no most people in Argentina did not vote for him, but many did not vote at all.

Anarcho-capitalism means that the rich can exploit the poor without any limits or protection. Whoever thought this was a good idea deserves to live with the consequences. The others have my sympathy.

TBF there's a reason for the devaluation. In countries like Argentina the government sets the price of the dollar, but that doesn't affect the real price, so in the end the government pays the difference. In the case of Argentina the government basically made the dollar half its real value, so say for every 100 dollars an Argentinian bought the government needed to pay 50.

It's a bad situation all around and there are no good solutions, but just leaving it be is unsustainable.

Having the currency be free-floating is the best policy. The transition might be a bit too rapid, though

Yeah. That's the challenge in situations like these: How do you get to a free-floating currency without the people starving to death.

Well, could always spend some of the money wasted on exchange rate manipulation on food subsidies instead. But I think just making the transition more gradual would be my bet

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You thought having a leftist as leader was bad, Argentina, good luck dealing with this douche in power.

That's helpful, but why declare a 50% devaluation? Isn't that just determined once you peg to the dollar and float your currency?

Yearly inflation for December 2023 has been 160% (stuff that used to cost 100, now costs 260)

A 50% devaluation, is the same as a 100% inflation: stuff that used to cost 100, now costs 200.

Milei has promised a reduction in inflation for the next year, from the 160% to just 60% (stuff that used to cost 100, plus through the 50% devaluation now costs 200, will end up costing just another 60% more, or 320 "160").

Meaning: instead of having to anounce a 220% inflation for 2024, he's split it into "50% devaluation, plus 60% inflation".

...see? He promised to reduce inflation, and he did! 🎉🤡 /s

He said he would do something abrupt to literally kill the Argentinian peso as he wants to "dollarize" the country

What does he say this achieves? What is his endgame with respect to the devaluation?

apparently abolishing the central bank and switching to the dollar

So having US cemtral bank controlling the own currency.

Very well tgought through

If they dump their currency and use USD, then as long as there arnough dollars around it solves inflation right? (Their economy is a blip to the Goliath that is USD)

But if that's the case, then their currency is useless as everyone knows if will have zero value at all in a few months/years.

It does mean they can't print money to get out of trouble though.... Not that that was going well for them before.