YouSaid · the spoken record

Javier Milei

lines on the record: 123
first: 2024-11-20
most recent: 2024-11-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And the need to populate the planet, he asked me, Now, what about you? When are you going to move in that direction? I mean, I said, oh, look, I have five children. And he said, well, the four-legged ones don't count. That was the first meeting I had with Elon Musk, the second meeting was. When here at the universities we started Seeing anti Semitic demonstrations were basically Palestinian flags were displayed and Jews were harassed and persecuted. And at that moment, when we had that second meeting, He showed himself to be very deeply involved with that Brought up the issue of the cultural battle. So I mean It's not quite conventional even in the political field During our last talk, which lasted for about two and a half hours, right?”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But they are usually very much focused on their own business. And one of the things that really, really shocked me When I met Elon Mus We had scheduled a meeting for no more than 50 minutes. The first time we were in the meeting, for a little over forty-five minutes because he was about to miss his flight, so obviously if someone as important as him doesn't fly as planned, it has to be rescheduled, and he loses a lot of hours. Imagine every minute is very valuable. And one of the things that happened was that. Basically, he brought up the topic of demography. And we started discussing demographics and growth. I never imagined that I would end up discussing demographics and growth with him? You know? And another very fun thing was that something funny he said to me was that since we shared our vision regarding demographic issues.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A huge admiration for Elon Mus He is an absolutely unconventional person. A great fighter for the ideas of freedom. What he has done on Twitter, now known as X How he helping the world nowadays Wake up once and for all and become aware of the socialist virus, the woke virus that in itself makes him a hero in the history of humanity. But it's not just that. One of the things that happened to me is that When I went to first talk to him, I thought I was going to meet a successful businessman and that I would have a typical successful businessman conversation who understands business and that some of his businesses, some of his business slightly more exotic? That's the kind of talk you would expect to have, and business people. Are truly admirable, right? Because they are true benefactors of society.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The feet of Moses is like one person alone with his brother, Aaron. Both confronting the combined forces of The United States China and Russia together And it was Moses who said to Ramses, let my people go. Well, Ramses resisted, and they forces of heaven ran him over to the But what I mean is I don't see any other possible way to live other than with freedom, and I would always fight for full freedom, and I would be at the forefront of this cause. I mean, it's a cause that I'm going to die with my boots on. I mean, I'm not going to make do with living any other way other than with freedom. I will fight everything I'm going to fight as much as it takes. At least that's the way I feel. So, what good is it to be alive if you're confined? What good is it to be alive if you're not free? It's no good. What good was it for Peter Fetcher?”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The most interesting thing is that the Alcatraz tour ended in the recreation yard, where the basketball court exercise areas and all recreational facilities were located. So anyone would have thought that this was the best part of Alcatross. And yet, what they said in the guide was that that was the hardest part for the inmates. Why? Because, I mean, that recreation area in particular is built in front of the San Francisco Bay. So the inmates could all see how San Francisco continued to build up and evolve and develop every day. While they were locked up in there, they couldn't take part in that. They were confined in that prison, and that made them fully aware of the value of freedom. In my experience, for me, the fight for freedom is. Relentless, okay? I mean, my greatest hero in all of human history is Moses.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If I am willing to give my life for my values, then what is the point of living without freedom? Look can I tell you something interesting that happened to me here in the United States? Let's say back in the year 1998. I came to the United States to take a series of courses to improve my English. Which I never used in formal terms because as president, as you can imagine, if I make a mistake, I can create a serious situation. Fortunately, I have an interpreter who is a superstar, and if I make a mistake even in Spanish, he corrects me in the version of the other language. And so back then, in that year, I went to San Francisco. And I visited Alcatraz. You're young, but I mean, the visit was an audio tour. You got a walkman, and you would choose the different tracks and listen to the story”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tell me what good is it to live life? I mean, in slavery Look, there is a song by a Spanish singer called Ninobravo. Just to be clear, he has already left this earth so we can say he has passed on to the beyond. The song is called Lib And the song it tells the story of Peter Fetcher, an eighteen year old boy. Who, when the separation was made And I mean, the construction of the Berlin Wall begins. His family ends up on the western side and he accidentally ends up on the eastern side. And for a whole year he plans to Escape to the western side, right? And in that context when he tries to escape, he gets murdered. So, really, what is the point of life if it's not in freedom, right? I mean, what is the point of living without fighting for your values”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then we will indeed be able to advance steadily. If you don't fight the cultural battle, what happened in Chile will happen to you? They had economic success. It was, let's say, sustained over time, but at some point it collapsed. Why did it collapse? Because they hadn't fought the cultural battle. Then socialism little by little took control of institutions in education and the media. So they took over the media and culture, and on that basis they attacked and broke up the system. And then they found themselves with increasing doses of socialism and the only thing socialism generates is poverty. Therefore, what you must keep in mind? That you have to fight the battles on all fronts. And if you don't keep that in mind, I can tell you are headed towards collapse”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What do we say? Then we must fight on the economic front, and I believe we are implementing an extremely successful economic program that is being recognized worldwide. In fact, the other night, the president-elect, Donald Trump indeed gave recognition for the achievements we are having in Argentina and the speed at which we have done it. At the same time, you have to fight the political battle because, well, soccer matches are not won by shouting from the stands, they are won by playing on the field. But that alone is not enough because you have to Say, you need to convey to society. The values of capitalism, the free market, what liberalism is, the value of freedom, right? And when you succeed in that,”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they establish that what they said was politically correct and that any idea outside of it was to be considered reactionary and had to be censored or even persecuted, and they claimed to be the ones defending freedom, even though they were the ones persecuting people. It's the same with journalists who get upset with Twitter. They say they defend freedom but can't stand it when those who think differently speak. Is that freedom? Yes for them but not for those who think differently. That's not freedom, that's fascism. Then, if”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Much of the blame was placed on Fukuyama when he said this is the end of history. No, it was not the end of history because the following year in nineteen ninety the socialists gathered at the Sao Paulo Forum and based on the ideas of Gramsci designed a strategy to infiltrate the media, culture and education which ended up changing the entire discourse.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It has been very successful politically because it was able to translate that political battle. In winning many elections, but why is it falling apart? Why? Because it produces misery and because the economic system is a disaster so people eventually realize that it is making things worse for them. Liberal libertarians are very good when it comes to economics. And those good economic results can actually lead, well, to the generation of solid political processes. But what happened? The liberals neglected the cultural battle.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is such a strange feminist. I mean, well, so within the ranks of feminists, let's say you will essentially find the largest number of rapists and women beat us. And it's more. Quite interesting what they do. Their hypocrisy is truly striking. It's not just about that, though, I mean. The battle is on three fronts. The economic front? Which is free enterprise capitalism. Then we have the political level. Currently, the system that the world has designed is a Republican liberal democracy with checks and balances. And I mean, at the cultural battle level, notice that socialism has been very successful in the cultural battle.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or, for example, another thing is Black Lives Matter that is black people against white people or indigenous people against the established communities. Or I mean everything related to LGBT agendas, definitely these are some of the ways in which you know socialism extended the class struggle into other aspects of society, creating divisions and fostering deceit with the sole purpose of absorbing taxes. I mean, what was the Ministry of Women in Argentina doing? Did it manage to reduce a single femicide? No. None at all. The number of femicides exploded just the same. In fact, the most feminist president in Argentine history, Mr. Alberto Fernandez, used to beat his wife.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where the most sinister idea of all is that there is no room for everyone on planet Earth, that is an idea that failed with Malthus at the beginning of the nineteenth century a murderous idea that was also applied by the Egyptians against the Jews and this is famously recorded in the book of Shemot or Exodus.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The consequences are that the results are worse than what you had before. I mean, in any state intervention, the subsequent result, Is often worse than what you originally had. So that's one thing. And not only that, but the other side of this is the environmental agenda, which sets man against nature involving all aspects of environmentalism and everything related to climate change. In other words, they can't stand any serious discussion, therefore all environmental policies are nothing more than an excuse to collect taxes. So that a group of parasitic bureaucrats can live at the expense of others and find their”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it's incredible because the first ones to defend equality before the law were the liberals, the first to defend women's rights where the liberals, Jeremy Bentham in the year seventeen fifty, was the first to demand equality before the law for women. I mean the cause of equality, equality before the law for women, and equality of rights, the first ones who advocated for this were the liberals, did you know? However What does the left do? They just go on to radicalize it. And then it moves to what is called female chauvinism. Female chauvinism is, let's say, the fight against males. And then, I mean, how do they do it? They do it by assigning rights. But when you assign a right, someone has to pay for it. And that has consequences. And in general, let's say this always happens.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They put what a wonderful system, right? So, I mean, they had to trap people, they couldn't let them go. I mean, these are such wonderful ideas that they had to apply them at gunpoint. It's quite, well, it's no coincidence that they killed 150 million human beings. So what happened then? The official fall of the wall in the year 1989 made it clear that socialism had failed. In that context, the socialists They moved the discussion of class struggle in economics and took it to other Arios, so for example socialism or what is of the twenty first century or cultural Marxism or post Marxism whatever definition you want is to take class struggle? Different aspects of life. For example, one of the aspects of life where you, let's say, have this is in gender ideology.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. I fight for freedom in all aspects of life. That is to say, one of the things that seems most interesting to me. Is that when the Berlin Wall fell It's true that officially fell in the year nineteen eighty nine. But the reality is that the wall or socialism fell in the year nineteen sixty one when they had to build the wall, I mean they built it because people were leaving communist Germany for capitalist Germany. They realized that those on the Side were much better off. And of course, to prevent people from leaving.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is to say, the fundamental characteristic of most journalists not all but the vast majority of journalists in Argentina with some honorable exceptions is that they are liars, slanderers, and defamers. And if the monopoly they demand were still in place that they want to reign again, I have no doubt that they would demand money in exchange for silence because that's what they are. They are extortionists, they are thieves, they are corrupt. And then, of course, obviously, when you take away a privilege from a sector, they get upset, well welcomed to freedom.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But that process is very slow, and in the meantime, they smeared so since the justice system takes a long time, so what is the problem? The problem is that in the meantime, your life got dartied. So why can journalists do all this? Well, that's why they dislike X. They dislike social media, they dislike the new form of communication because it took away their monopoly over the microphone and by taking away the monopoly over the microphone, it removed the economic benefits of extortion. So clearly that's another battle I'm fighting. You read a newspaper in Argentina and 85% of what you read is a lie.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's why journalists in Argentina are so violent. Why? Because before they could, for instance, a journalist went and, for example, he would go to a person and he would throw a folder at them and say, if you don't give me X amount of money, I am going to publish all of this and tarnish your reputation, and I know for a fact a case of a journalist who carried out this extortion twice to a businessman, that businessman told him that he wasn't going to pay, and evidently the journalist did it, obviously they went to court there was a trial, and that journalists lost both times.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hand to hand on a level playing field when it comes to ideas they would lose because they were a failure in the economic, social and cultural aspects. And also we must not forget that those murderers called socialists killed one hundred fifty million people. So they clearly cannot fight on equal terms. Therefore they demand that social networks have censorship and that the truth cannot be told to them. Because when you tell a socialist the truth, they cry, claiming its hate speech, no, it's not hate speech, it's that you are useless people who have ruined. Planet. They have made the planet much worse. And fortunately today, thanks to social media, especially due to the enormous and brave work of Elon Musk and their role of Twitter.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is to say, I removed the official advertising. That's why you will see that even though we generate wonderful news. Every week in large quantity the media speak terribly. In other words, they demand to have a monopoly on the microphone, that is, they are entitled to insult, hurt, offend, and they don't want anyone to bother them, and they expect me not to even respond. That's why a large part of journalism in Argentina hates the X network, and that's why we, the liberal libertarians, love the X network, because we can all say what we want. However, let's say the supposed journalists who defend freedom of expression actually what they want is to censor the ideas they don't like, and of course because they are leftists, because they are wokes, because they can't stand the competition, because if they had to fight face to face,”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In other words, to give you an idea of the things being done in Argentina, and also in Argentina we have restored freedom to the judiciary, we do not pressure the judiciary. And this is so true that during my government not only was Christina Fernandez de Keshna convicted, but also the two terrorist attacks carried out by Iran were condemned. So, if there is a government that is truly fighting against corruption, it is us. Not only that, but also with each deregulation, it is a privilege that we take away either from a politician, a prebendary company, or a power group. That is also very powerful. No one in Argentina has ever fought against corruption the way we have. In fact, I will move on to something that is deeply corrupt and one of my great battles. The corruption of the media and social media”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Acts of corruption like never before in Argentine history, not only that but also in terms of condemning corruption, that is, we have done, for example, two days ago, it was condemned Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner got a sentence for corruption. I mean due to corruption and the next day that is yesterday we took away their privileged pensions. At the same time we are, for example, we have discovered that Kirchnerism used disability pensions for acts of corruption. For example, there is a city that has more disability pensions than people”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And from that point on, they didn't block the streets anymore. We also evidently put an end to that corruption. One of the things that also generated a lot of corruption was public works. Another thing that led to significant acto corruption were the discretionary transfers to provinces. In general, these transfers were made to the provinces with accounting as obscure as possible. So the national government, in collusion with the governors, let's say, the money ended up being used for other things, not only that with which we have already done many things. Furthermore, the Ministry of Human Capital is always filing complaints in court, not in the media in court”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two days later, one of the most renowned and influential Picateros called for a demonstration, he claimed that fifty thousand people would attend because he was actually expecting one hundred thousand, so he wanted to showcase it as a success. And so then, let's say with the decision made in human capital to cut their funding, the anti blockade protocol was also enacted, where those who blocked the streets wouldn't receive welfare benefits and those who broke the law would go to jail. All of that And also, we were informing this through. Transportation channels will in that March they expected to have 100,000 people there. And actually, it turned out to be 3,000 people.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, we have fought against corruption like never before in Argentina. In fact, when we took office, for example, there were about nine hundred roadblocks per year, that is people who made a habit of blocking the streets. They prevented free movement, and And besides, they were given social plans, and they were given a lot of money. If you remember when I started by explaining the cut, one of the things I said was that we removed the middlemen of poverty, in other words, the managers of poverty, those who lived by stealing from the poor. Well, that is a huge source of corruption, in fact, when we did that”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What do I mean? That translates into a lower country risk, an interest rates, and that generates an increase in investment also generates an increase in consumption. In other words, the Argentinian economy is currently in an absolutely flourishing moment, and how is that sustained in the long term with structural reforms which we implement daily deregulating the economy and introducing new laws that free Argentinians from the many oppressive measures that have burdened it over the past one hundred years?”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“15 points of the GDP? Not only that, but also when you eliminate inflation, you remove the distortion of relative prices, therefore the allocation of resources is much better, not only that but also with the strong fiscal adjustment we made we have reduced the country risk from three thousand basis points to seven hundred seventy. Today Fitch raised Argentina's rating to CCC.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have been growing every month above inflation, therefore nominal wages are beating inflation. In fact, we are already at level similar to those we had in November, the same goes for pensions. Moreover, also let's say there is a rebound in activity due to the recovery of the stock cycle. Therefore, this is also contributing to more and better paid jobs. In fact, this is so strong and evident that the wages growing the most are in the informal sector. This means that poverty and extreme poverty are decreasing much faster than we imagine. But not only that, by eliminating inflation you remove the inflationary tax, but the real burden is the fiscal deficit which was fifteen points of the GDP. Okay, we temporarily erase the country tax, now we lower it, but we return that to the Argentinians, we gave back.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the reality is you couldn't buy anything. You couldn't make it happen. So if you left the situation as it was, people were going to starve because they couldn't buy anything. Yes, they had a certain amount of money that could supposedly buy certain goods, but those goods were not available. What is the only thing you can do to save people? Make the prices transparent and allow products to reappear. Well, when you make the prices transparent, you also make transparent the cost of the basic food basket and the total basic basket, meaning the poverty line, sorry, the indigence line and the poverty line respectively. And when you do that, clearly you will see a jump in poverty. That brought poverty up to 57%. Argentina found its activity floor in the month of April. From that moment Argentina began to invent a sickle recovery.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You cannot do anything because you cannot buy anything. It's the same as if someone tells you that the price of glasses is ten dollars and But when you want to buy it, it's not available. Actually, there's a joke told by an Argentinian professor named Juan Carlos de Pablo who says that a man goes to a bassar and asks for a vase. Then he says to him, Well, I want that vase, how much would you charge me? Then he says five thousand dollars. Oh, okay, five thousand dollars, but why five thousand dollars if across the street it's one thousand? He says, well, go buy it across the street for a thousand. Ah, there's none for a thousand. Well, then here when there's more it'll also cost a thousand. In other words, prices at which they are available. So what happens? When you are faced with that situation, the supermarket shelves were empty. So what was the point of having a price at which you couldn't buy anything? You left those prices the shelves were empty so the statistics showed that you were much better.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They enter the price index with which inflation was I'm not saying they were lying about it, it was distorted, and since Argentina measures poverty and indigence by income line, then the What happens That distorted the true levels of poverty, of course. But that's not the only effect. I mean, let's say the real poverty levels were higher, quite a bit higher than those shown by the previous government, which showed them at 41% and also did so on a six-monthly basis. So if you, let's say, have a growing trend, they are actually leaving you a bomb and you don't see it because let's say basically the indicator was measured. With a delayed form, but not only that, imagine that you are also given the You are in the middle of an island And they give you $1 million. What can you do with that?”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's take it step by step, all right? That is We, in fact, we started to do things right. Therefore, we did not create poverty. The poverty was an inherited poverty. The point is that what we did was to reveal it. I'll try to explain it with an example that I think clarifies what's happening in Argentina Argentina was an economist that had. A total price controls It had a fiscal deficit which was financed through money printing just for you to give you an idea In the last year, Argentina financed 13 points of the gross domestic product with money printing. In other words, a real disaster. So that situation provoked this artificially demand and puts pressure on prices. The issue is that price controls are applied additionally over the prices that”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Perceive we are already delivering a wonderful government. In fact, it's the best government in the history of Argentina. If the best had been that of Menem, we've already outpaced him.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's say it wasn't done because it always harmed the ruling party. So everyone talked about going to the single paper ballot, but no one did it when they were in power. They didn't want to implement it because they preferred to commit fraud or use some kind of trickery to avoid applying that rule that makes the election more competitive. Well, what's interesting we sent that law and it was approved. What's more now we are finishing with the open, simultaneous and mandatory primaries because it was a mechanism by which politics was also stealing. We are eliminating the financing of political parties. If you look we have reduced the fiscal pressure by fifteen points to the Argentinians. We are restoring freedoms with a deep set of structural and regulatory reforms. I think that Any sensible liberal”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On the contrary, we are ready to redouble the bet, to redouble our efforts because we have done things that no one else has done. I will give you an example there's something that seems trivial, but there's what's called the single paper ballot. Argentina used to vote with huge ballots which were very above all very costly and that reform was”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Resting on our laurels with this, we're going for more reforms. We're going to deepen the reforms. And I tell you, we won't stop until Argentina is the freest country in the world Furthermore, a recent work by an Argentinian economist named Juan Pablo Nicolini was presented at the Central Bank's Monetary Meetings, and he works at the Federal Reserve, and it's interesting because he shows that only on the basis of what we have done in fiscal matters it ensures that in the span of ten years we can double the GDP per capita, meaning that Argentina could grow at rates of seven percent annually, which is very much, very much, and that has strong consequences in terms of improving quality of life, reducing poverty, reducing indigence. Therefore, if during the worst moment our image didn't suffer and we stayed strong in our ideas, now that everything is working much better, why should we change?”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would collapse. And actually, when you look at the deseasonalized data, you see that in August there was a recovery that took us back to December levels, to December levels. That means that in the year we made the largest fiscal adjustment in the history of humanity, we will end up with less inflation, fewer poor people, better real wages, and additionally a GDP higher than what we started with. And if you look at it in Dolos, I can assure you that the numbers are phenomenal, because basically today the dollar is below the levels we had when we took office. So the reality is that, and all of this, when you take my popularity levels and the government's acceptance levels, today they are above the moment we assumed office, if you know that the moment of maximum popularity is when you take office. Therefore, this means that far from”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this, of course, is something very interesting because it implies a huge increase in well being, and furthermore, today the Argentinian economy is already strongly and amazingly recovering, and we can say analyst hypotheses were suggesting that next year we would be growing between five and six percent. Today, JP Morgan has now corrected, or let's say revised the projections upwards, and besides, when we normalize the price situation, the true poverty rate came up and it was fifty seven percent in January, today it is at forty six percent, meaning we lowered poverty by eleven percentage points, let's say, I mean, it seems truly like a miracle, and not only that, but actually not a single job was lost in the process when it comes to all of this inflation reduction process, people said that our economy and economic activity”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Moreover, to have a sense of magnitude, the reforms that we already have made with the Executive Order seventy twenty three and with the basis law, we have actually jumped ninety places in terms of economic freedom. What this means is that today, Argentina has institutions similar to those of Germany, France, Italy, and we obviously want this to continue. And let's say we are going to surpass no doubt the levels of economic freedom that Ireland reached in its best moment, and not only that, we're going to exceed the levels of economic freedom of Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland. We are undoubtedly going to be the freest country in the world, and this And this means that thanks to what we've done today, we are on a path that allows us to multiply our per capita GDP by two point five times when you apply the relevant correction.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you account for all these factors, our disinflation process is actually much more genuine. And not only that, it's also much deeper. We are restored freedoms to Argentinians while simultaneously implementing a structural reform eight times larger, and we accomplish this with only With 15% of the representatives, 10% of the senators, and within the first six months of government. In other words, our deregulation agenda continues daily, and we still have three thousand two hundred structural reforms pending. This will ultimately make Argentina the freest country in the world.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Today they cover 80%, so you get the picture. Just imagine the adjustment we are making, and in that sense it is also incredible what we have achieved. Because if we were to work with the inflation we have in our country today, considering the exchange rate situation, the figures are even better than during the convertibility program, which was the most successful economic program in Argentina's history. And in fact, there is an article called Passing the Buck, which is by Sherado de la Paulera Bozzoli and Irigoin that demonstrates that Menem's first government was the best government in history, and basically it argues two things in the success of the stabilization of the convertibility program. So if you take a closer look, when you examine it carefully, you see”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, with that, we cleaned up the central bank's balance sheet, we cleared a loss of $45 billion all voluntarily, and the most amazing thing is that we did it in just six months. And at the same time, we have not controlled prices, nor have we fixed the exchange rate. And this is very important. All previous stabilization programs in an effort to show quick results used to do this. What they would do is before announcing the plan, they would adjust the rates, and once the rates were adjusted, they would launch the plan. But in our case, we couldn't afford that luxury, so we had to implement it on the go. And also over the past few months, that is to say companies brought in rates that governed only about ten percent.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The first one is that we did not experience a previous hyperinflation which would have simplified the process of implementing a stabilization program, typically when hyperinflation occurs, monetary assets are diluted, leading to a natural restoration of demand, and besides We did not resort to any expropriation. For example, before the convertibility plan, which was the most successful program in Argentina's history, Argentina experienced two instances of hyperinflation. During Alfonsine's administration, inflation reached 5,000%, and under Menem, it was 1,200%. Additionally, there was the Bonex plan, under which debt was exchanged on a compulsory basis. In other words, what we did instead was clean up the central bank balance sheet.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We still have controls in place, and we are eliminating restrictions day by day. Now, the interesting thing is that we have a two percent monthly devaluation standard, and there's international inflation, of course, Which means that you then have to subtract two and a half points from the inflation observed by the consumer. This indicates that inflation in Argentina, the true inflation not the induced one but the actual monetary inflation is zero point two percent per month. At zero point two percent per month this equates to two point four percent annually. What I'm saying is the original discussion was about whether inflation could reach seventeen thousand percent. Now we are bringing inflation down to levels of 2.5% annually, and that is amazing. And we achieve this by considering a number of factors.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Today we are discussing 30 year loans. In other words, all those resources that the national government used to take are now back in the private sector, and that's what has allowed it to be very dynamic. And this has two very strong impacts. The first one is that if you look at wholesale inflation, it went down from fifty four percent to two percent, so it went down by twenty seven times. It was divided into twenty seven, so we had inflation at a rate of seventeen thousand percent annually, and it's now close to about twenty eight percent a year. But it's not only that. You could consider consumer inflation the latest consumer inflation rate was 2.7%. Now it happens that we essentially due to a matter that is related to the central bank's balance sheets and also due to the debt stocks.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most of that went back to the people as less seniorage, as a lower inflation rate, it's true that we temporarily raised the country tax, but we lowered it in September, and now in December we're going to eliminate it. Today, for example, we also announced that in December we are eliminating import taxes. In fact, in that regard What you have is that we return to the people 13.5 points of GDP because the real tax burden is the size of the state. So while back in December we were discussing hyperinflation.”
2024-11-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source