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Comment by ryandamm | Hacker News Reader

Or to put it another way: extreme steps were probably required in Argentina to tackle a truly hidebound, rentier-dominated and corruption riddled government. Inflation expectations were strong and justified. Government deficits were out of control. And the population was truly ready to bear some pain for the sake of reform. (Source: My guide in Argentina this past November; Milei’s approval rating has stayed high despite economic contraction.)

Argentina is what Trump’s team imagines the US to be. They’re not the same.

EDIT: fixed some typos.

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>Inflation expectations were strong and justified. Government deficits were out of control. And the population was truly ready to bear some pain for the sake of reform

We went from 25% inlation where prices changed every single week to discussing whether the government will be able to lower inlation from a monthly 2% (still high, o course). The goal post was moved but I'm just glad not to have prices change every week, it was complete madness. And the 2% is the average, of course, you can find some prices the same as they were 2 months ago.

Would love to hear more from Argentinians! Thank you for your perspective.

Why aren’t they the same? They look the same to me.

Unless you're not looking very hard I presume you're making a polemic point here. i.e. it's not a good faith response to the person you're replying to.

They are obviously saying "the differences are significant enough for these measures to be misplaced" and you probably mean something like "I think the differences in these areas are closer than you claim".

So - go ahead and make the argument you intended to make so we can engage with it.

That which is asserted without evidence can be refuted without evidence.

So, how are they different?

I'm not even disagreeing, but it needs to be elaborated upon.

US enjoyed decades of stable 2% inflation per year, but even in the recent spate of inflation it only got as bad as 9% per year.

Argentina suffered 25% inflation per month.

Did you seriously not know this, or were you just being obtuse?

I was more referring to the types of economies.

Let me help you. Point one, of many: Argentina's economy is more agrarian than the USAs.

See? Wasn't that hard.

I'm not sure why every conversation about politics on HN brings out everyone's inner asshole. I asked a simple question—how are they different? I'm not being polemic or "making a point". I asked a simple question because I am a simple man and do not understand what makes these situations so different.

On the surface, a popular president is voted into office on promises of "cutting government inefficiencies" and then proceeds to do just that. Not sure if that's "not looking very hard", but those look pretty similar to me.

I happen to hold my politics very loosely, and so (at the risk of being downvoted by angry HN commenters) I asked, "How are they different?"

Sorry I don't spend hours every day reading up on politics and comparing international presidential trends.

Very short answers are often intended as offhand snark. Combined that with the fact that it seemed to me (and I assume many others) that the large differences between the Argentinian situation and the US one was incredibly obvious - I was drawn to the conclusion that you were most likely being snarky.

I did however moderate my reply to be respectful and I attempted to draw out a more thoughtful response. The fact you categorise me as the asshole in this leaves me even more uncertain as to your sincerity.

The Argentinian peso not being the worlds reserve currency for starters

That's an interesting point. But why would that impact how Trumps cuts are different than Milei's? Beyond possibly just having a bigger global impact?

Many of the things Argentina is doing are getting Argentina closer to what the US was. Labor unions have much less power in the US - and so the US was not seeing the problems of a too powerful labor union (or at least not near as many, depending on if you are pro or anti-union you will also argue if we are seeing problems with too weak a union)

In particular Argentina is moving to free trade, while Trump is moving away. Trump also isn't working within the law/constitution to make his cuts while it appears Argentina is.

What is Trump doing that isn’t lawful or constitutional? And why aren’t there any repercussions (as far as I know) for that?

Interesting point regarding unions. I hadn’t considered that.

There are a number of open court cases on if he can fire people like that. There are some injections in place already, and the supreme court is likely to get involved. It isn't clear if Musk's job is even legally something he can hire someone for. All of this will take years to work out in the courts and so there won't be repercussions for a while.

The above is really complex. I don't pretend to understand the laws.

> What is Trump doing that isn’t lawful or constitutional?

Quite a lot of things. Many of them that might be Constitutional for the government but are illegal and unconstitutional for Trump because they would require Congressional action to make or change law to be valid, and that hasn't happened. That applies to, for instance, most of the spending cuts that are not done through the budget process and the mass firings.

> And why aren’t there any repercussions (as far as I know) for that?

There have been legal reversals, but court processes are slow. There aren't other consequence, because most other consequences for malfeasance by the Chief Executive require active Congressional action, and while Congress has not actively done what is necessary to make actions legal, it also hasn't been interested in taking corrective action against Trump, largely because the majority tacitly supports the illegal actions (both in their substance and the decision to do them by unlawful means.)

The US economy pre Trump was one of the best performing in the developed world, the Argentinian one one of the worst. There's a saying - if it ain't broken don't fix it.

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