News of times

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.

Fear and loathing in the US

02-11-2024 06:42 About the only thing Donald Trump and Kamala Harris agree upon is that, unless one of them wins, democracy will die in the United States.

by James Neilson

A most unappetising choice

26-10-2024 05:32 The choice, then, is between a blustering egotist and an almost comically vacuous lady.

by James Neilson

A totalitarian all or a nihilistic nothing

26-10-2024 05:27 While verbally aspiring to ending Kirchnerism, Milei is doing much to revive it with his modus operandi.

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

There are no easy answers in education

12-10-2024 06:59 Living as we do in an egalitarian age, many educationalists are reluctant to take into account another unfortunate fact: people have different talents

by James Neilson

Reducing the issue

12-10-2024 06:16 Both sides fall into the error of reducing this issue to a budget tussle without bringing up the major structural problems of university education.

It’s the education, stupid

05-10-2024 06:24 When presenting the 2025 Budget in mid-September, Milei defined his fundamental fiscal principle as first defining the available revenue and then adjusting the spending to it – modernising the university system to that end could be an interesting application of that principle. But instead his primitive proposal is literally to cut university spending in half with his chainsaw.

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

BEYOND THE HEADLINES

Untidily Crumbling Radicals

28-09-2024 06:05 The Unión Cívica Radical crisis perhaps stems from standing or falling from being the men in the middle in many senses – representing a middle class facing extinction and a middle ground squeezed out by polarisation.

by Michael Soltys

Israel’s terrible swift sword

21-09-2024 06:20 Israel not only tore apart Hezbollah’s communications’ network and undermined its morale, but also scored a major propaganda triumph. For a small country whose very survival depends entirely on its military prowess, this is a matter of literally vital importance.

by James Neilson

Painting without numbers

21-09-2024 00:36 Milei’s maximalist stance last Sunday might have experience in mind: the logic of only obtaining half of the requested still being a substantial gain.

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

A window of opportunity for autocrats

31-08-2024 05:37 Donald Trump is far from being the only North American politician who would like to see his country leave the rest of the world to its own wretched devices.

by James Neilson

Libertarian entrapment

31-08-2024 05:21 The paradox of a libertarian government revering the free market while unable to exit bureaucratic Kirchnerite capital controls has already drawn comment but the reduction of the PAIS tax exposes another contradiction.

Inflation down on its all fours?

17-08-2024 05:39 The main obstacle to zero inflation is zero certainty as to the future.

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.

Between Tucumán and Asunción

13-07-2024 07:44 President Milei’s decision to skip the Mercosur summit does more to compromise Argentina’s future than his photograph and 10-point pact does to advance it.

Goodbye to all that, perhaps

13-07-2024 07:32 Like Mauricio Macri before him. Milei is convinced that for Argentina to prosper he and his supporters will have to win the “cultural battle.”

by James Neilson

The US and Europe in meltdown mode

06-07-2024 05:50 All this political turmoil reflects what is going on beneath the surface. In every Western country, people are dissatisfied with the way things are and fear they could soon get far worse.

by James Neilson

Are youth votes wasted on the young?

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

Beyond the headlines

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

When Loan is a national debt

29-06-2024 04:22 On the nationwide clamour for the reappearance of a missing child.

A bad time for politicians everywhere

29-06-2024 04:19 Once upon a time, successful politicians were held in high regard. This is no longer the case.

by James Neilson

Milei may have to come down to earth

22-06-2024 05:53 When talking high theory, the president is in his element, but he is far less self-confident when it comes to practical matters; he must feel they are beneath him and can be left to his sister.

by James Neilson

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 country needs a proper civil service

08-06-2024 05:36 Rather than merely slimming down a pathologically obese public sector, it would be far better to concentrate on greatly improving its quality.

by James Neilson

The greatest show on earth

01-06-2024 05:56 Milei is playing the leading part in an imaginative cosmic drama he himself dreamed up in which, backed by heavenly forces, he battles the leftist foes of everything that is good.

by James Neilson

Risky Investment Guarantee Inconsistencies

01-06-2024 05:45 The primacy of the fiscal over the economic causes problems elsewhere.

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

Single digit should not mean single issue

18-05-2024 06:13 Single-digit inflation relieves the poor more than anybody but comes at a price – must they also be the ones to pay it?

Contradictions and multitudes

11-05-2024 06:07 The Javier Milei Presidency has never been short of contradictions.

The perils of cyberspace

04-05-2024 05:37 A world in which everybody is electronically connected to everybody else and to the Internet is not one in which people feel closer to one another. Engrossed as they are with the talking pixels they see before them, they do their best to steer clear of flesh-and-blood creatures.

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

The worst journalists in the world

20-04-2024 06:07 Milei wants to control the narrative and, by doing so, change the way Argentines think about the world. Does hurling insults at journalists help win him more adherents?

by James Neilson

Pre-paid or re-paid?

20-04-2024 05:14 Subordinating medical fees to the dictates of a usually populist government did not work since it placed pricing hopelessly out of sync with the costs, but the naïve faith that the market could correct the damage of years in three months was a non-starter.

The medium as the message

13-04-2024 05:54 Milei is the leader of a pack which competes to be the most outrageous but this week he seems to have been trumped by an underling: Alberto ‘Bertie’ Benegas Lynch.

Looking for unity offshore

06-04-2024 06:54 Despite the diplomatic points that can be scored, the current status quo looks likely to prevail for some time to come.

by James Neilson

Mixed messages

06-04-2024 06:29 While Argentina’s government has turned full circle between the two Easters from leftist populism to far right devotees of the market calling themselves libertarians, inflation persists as the basic fact of life .

The forces of Earth

30-03-2024 05:15 All the suffering of Good Friday was followed by Resurrection Sunday but can we be sure of the same sequence for Argentina?

48 years and 100 days later

23-03-2024 06:34 Tomorrow is the 48th anniversary of the 1976 military coup, while last Tuesday marked the classic first 100 days of the Javier Milei Presidency.

The dragon is getting older too fast

23-03-2024 06:32 Not that long ago, many took it for granted that China would soon overtake the United States to become the world's top nation, but there are plenty of good reasons to think they were mistaken.

by James Neilson