News of times

The invasion is about to begin

30-11-2024 05:46 Putting up protectionist barriers can be wonderfully easy, but pulling them down is anything but.

by James Neilson

Home away from Rome

30-11-2024 05:06 Returning Argentina to the world is not a straight or single line like any flight abroad – nor for that matter like domestic economic policy.

Post-electoral Democrat blues

09-11-2024 07:36 If Democrats were wise, they would understand that it was due to their incompetence, combined with highhandedness, that Trump came roaring back.

by James Neilson

Trump card, or joker?

09-11-2024 06:06 Milei is entitled to celebrate the convincing Republican win as a supreme booster for a global trend towards the far right but would be rather less accurate if he hailed it as an advance of his libertarian crusade against the deep state.

Obscurity obstructs security

19-10-2024 06:46 Both Peronism and the business world are undergoing a transitional phase.

Milei and the uses of fanaticism

19-10-2024 06:23 Javier Milei’s reputation, and with it his ability to rule, depends on his willingness to stick to his fiscal guns, come what may.

by James Neilson

The Wall Street shuffle

28-09-2024 06:27 Milei doubtless imagined that he was ringing his own Liberty Bell but it was also a self-excommunication from the international community which might well send alarm-bells ringing, not least among Wall Street investors.

The UN gets the Milei treatment

28-09-2024 06:22 Hypocrisy is the glue that holds the UN together. It would fall apart if the democratic members began demanding the immediate expulsion of countries whose regimes refuse to observe the rules they pledged themselves to respect.

by James Neilson

Nobody wins

14-09-2024 06:37 Milei risks his popularity with insensitivity towards pensioners in the name of maintaining a fiscal surplus.

A most illiberal libertarian

07-09-2024 06:06 Is Milei a democrat? Probably not; it is increasingly clear that, by instinct, he is an authoritarian who does not take kindly to even mild criticism.

by James Neilson

When whites play at identity politics

10-08-2024 05:55 To the alarm of many not just in the English-speaking countries but also in many others, hard-up whites have decided that they too can play at identity politics.

In default and by default

10-08-2024 05:45 The moral bankruptcy of the main opposition front is a vital lifeline for a government facing enormous difficulties in restructuring Argentina.

Are youth votes wasted on the young?

06-07-2024 05:27 Electoral opportunism is at work.

Work in regress?

29-06-2024 04:27 How can having a job continue to be synonymous with making a living if there are around seven times as many people below the poverty line as jobless?

by Michael Soltys

Bases loaded with grand slam yet to come

15-06-2024 06:50 The Senate vote was a close-run thing but perhaps Milei gains more from near defeat within Congress and violence outside than from a comfortable and peaceful victory.

A sea change in the Western world

15-06-2024 06:40 Abandoned to their fate by leading Democrats and socialists, people are turning towards politicians who are willing to take on the system they think has betrayed them.

by James Neilson

The pain in Spain falls mainly on the gain

25-05-2024 06:35 This dispute is far more easily personalised as being between President Milei and Spain’s PM Pedro Sánchez rather than between the two nations.

Hail to the new populist caudillo

18-05-2024 06:49 Will Milei’s daring experiment work and give Argentina an economy that is at least as efficient as those of what is known as the developed world? Or will the cure he is intent on subjecting it to prove to be so painful that it kills the patient?

by James Neilson

Missing the point

27-04-2024 05:38 Milei misread the demonstration as “the caste” riding a noble cause to defend its interests but the scale, spontaneity and peaceful nature of the protest argue against this bid to politicise the march.

Give us more education

27-04-2024 05:07 Though academe has been on iron rations for decades, with professors long being accustomed to having to survive on a pittance, the feeling that Milei had it in for the universities because he thinks they breed lefties gave teeth to Tuesday’s demonstrations.

by James Neilson