South America

Venezuela has a chance at revival. America has removed a security threat. And autocrats everywhere just learned that no palace provides immunity from justice.

Today marks two years since Javier Milei took office as president of Argentina.

President Javier Milei’s clear victory on Sunday, October 26, over the opposition in the midterm elections, where he obtained almost 41% of the vote to 31% of the Peronists, was greeted with market euphoria.

Milei’s victory is significant for two reasons.

or Milei to continue the vast reform agenda that Argentina needs, his party (or his party and those allied) will have to get a third of the seats plus one in either house—enough to prevent the opposition from overriding presidential vetoes. 

By dollarizing, no future government would be able to manipulate the exchange rate for electoral purposes so as to make a run against the peso more likely, as has often been the case in Argentina.

Milei delivered his “shock therapy” plan in the first few months of his presidency. Tens of thousands of state workers were cut as were more than half of government ministries, including the Ministry of Culture, as well as the Ministries of Labor, Social Development, Health, and Education (which Milei dubbed “the Ministry of Indoctrination”). Numerous government subsidies were eliminated, and the value of the peso was cut in half.

In 1970, Venezuelans were the wealthiest people in Latin America. With annual incomes comparable to those of the Finns and the Japanese, they earned two-and-a-half times what the typical Latin American earned. Their wealth bought them a longer life, lower infant mortality, and some measure of safety. Today, as the United Socialist Party’s Nicolás Maduro tries to steal another term as president, it is a different story.

Argentina needs a monetary regime whose survival depends as little as possible on domestic politics.

Brazil is facing its greatest struggle for freedom of speech since the end of the military regime that ran the country from 1964-85. For the first time since the adoption of the 1988 Constitution, freedom of speech has been effectively limited without due process, and contrary to the Constitution, the criminal code, and the Marco Civil.  

Argentine President Javier Milei has postponed the implementation of his much-anticipated dollarization plan. Some commentators, including Steve Forbes, have urged Milei to pick up the pace before it’s too late. Is it too late for Argentina to dollarize? One major...

The revelation that Argentina has done something the US government hasn’t done in more than two decades—run a budget surplus—seems like a newsworthy event. So why the silence?

Milei has not dollarized Argentina as promised. Instead, he has chosen a more gradual approach, implementing a series of fiscal and structural reforms that he believes will lay the groundwork for future dollarization. 

Milei is not actually a fan of dollars, precisely because the US currency is also managed by the politicized discretion of a central bank. His goal seems to be a change in the very economic constitution of Argentina, forcing a permanent separation of money and state.

As Americans sift through the Twitter Files and learn the shocking truth about U.S. government involvement in social media moderation, they can take important lessons from Brazil’s recent foray into censorship.

As Mises said, if we want, peace, freedom and prosperity, there is no alternative to the free market economy respectful of competitive entrepreneurship and consumer choice.

History demonstrates unequivocally that socialism works to destroy liberty and prosperity.

The degree of misery imposed by socialism is proportionate to the degree of redistribution.

Venezuela has greater oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. But because some people believe socialism is the answer to inequality, Venezuelans starve.