Latest news with #JavierMilei
Bloomberg
4 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Luxury Boom in Milei's Argentina Masks Despair Among the Masses
The housing market is thriving in Javier Milei's Argentina. Cars are flying off the lots, and major airlines are adding Buenos Aires flights to meet surging travel demand. Yet restaurants are evermore empty, hotels are at best half-full and shop vacancies are increasing as the economic recovery starts to lose momentum, at least for the masses. Two contrasting realities are emerging in Argentina three months before the midterm elections, in which voters' perceptions of the economy stands to determine how successful Milei's party will be in winning more support for his austerity and pro-market approach. Income inequality is nothing new in Argentina. But a strong currency is just as much a pillar of Milei's early accomplishments — lower inflation and poverty — as it is a driver of the country's uneven recovery led by the libertarian, who is opening up a protectionist economy not used to foreign competition.
News.com.au
a day ago
- Politics
- News.com.au
‘Make Japan Great Again' movement gains momentum as right-wing party rallies against immigration, gender policies
Japan has always revered quirky parts of US culture. First it was baseball, then it was rock music. And now ... populist Trump-styled conservatism. Rightâ€'wing firebrands like Javier Milei in Argenitna and Giorgia Meloni of Italy have made strong careers railing against 'elitism,' 'globalism' and immigration. It's part of a movement capitalising on widespread frustration with left-wing politics. In all cases, mainstream parties were accused of virtueâ€'signalling by championing diversity and climate goals at the expense of working-class costs. And now, a growing cohort in Japan is following suit. On Sunday, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's coalition lost its upperâ€'house majority, but out of that redux emerged Sanseito, the 'Japanese first' party. Founded just five years ago, it surged from just two seats to 15 in one election, marking a massive shift in the political tendencies of the nation's 124 million citizens. Sanseito's playbook mirrors the arcs of Trump's 'Make America Great Again,' Germany's AfD and Nigel Farage's Reform UK. They call for tighter immigration controls, a pushback to 'globalism,' a rollback of 'radical' gender policies, and skepticism toward decarbonisation, vaccines, and pesticides. Leader Sohei Kamiya, a 47-year-old former teacher and supermarket manager, pledges to 'bring power back to the people' and squeeze out what his party believes to be a deeply corrupt political system. It's a line that has worked exceptionally well throughout history, especially when targeting audiences disillusioned with mainstream parties. While the party is picking up speed, public polling paints a slightly different picture. Immigrants in the island nation rank low on voters' worry lists. Inflation and employment prospects are more widely accepted as the biggest issues facing Japan. The nation's immigration intake is tiny by developed-nation standards, but it hasn't stopped Sanseito from mining the all-too-familiar vein. 'Too many newcomers equals crime, rising housing costs, dangerous driving — and, critically, suppressed wages,' Kamiya says. 'It's fine if they visit as tourists, but if you take in more and more foreigners, saying they're cheap labour, then Japanese people's wages won't rise. 'We are not exclusionary. We have never called to drive out foreigners.' Online fact-checkers have flagged claims propagated by the group's supporters, including ones accusing foreigners of racking up 'almost $3 billion of unpaid medical bills annually' or a doubling of Chinese welfare recipients in just half a decade. Fact-checkers aside, it is clear there is a mounting exhaustion amongst the population, which has for decades endured a rigorous and demanding working culture based on sacrifice, only to feel as if their nation and their own future prospects are moving backwards. Japan's disillusioned wageâ€'earners are fed up with stagnation, employment opportunities and rising costs. Many believe mainstream leftâ€'leaning parties prioritise gender agendas, climate policies or openâ€'borders moral posturing at the expense of ordinary households. 'They put into words what I had been thinking about but couldn't put into words for many years. When foreigners go to university, the Japanese government provides subsidies to them, but when we were going to university, everyone had huge debts,' a 44â€'yearâ€'old IT worker, locked into a precarious shortâ€'term contract, told AFP reporters. Just like in the US, analysts from the Japan Institute of Law and Information Systems warn of Russian bot networks fuelling 'largeâ€'scale information manipulation,' aided by AIâ€'powered language translation. Sanseito's campaign included proâ€'Russia interviews via Russian state media. Kamiya, however, claimed he's no Moscow puppet and publicly denounced the war in Ukraine. 'Russia's military invasion (of Ukraine) was of course bad, but there are forces in the United States that drove Russia into doing that,' he said. But as Sanseito gained momentum, Ishiba's ruling LDP party quickly pivoted. It declared a mission of 'zero illegal foreign nationals' and promised tighter residency enforcement. Eight NGOs, backed by over 1,000 groups, protested that move, warning it strayed too close to xenophobia and that the argument that 'foreigners are prioritised' is totally unfounded'. There has also been a significant resistance movement against the party, with demonstrators taking part in a 'protest rave against racism' ahead of the upper house election over the weekend.
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Argentina eases visa requirements for Chinese nationals in new overture to Beijing
Argentina on Monday announced a loosening of visa requirements for Chinese citizens in a new overture to Beijing as President Javier Milei seeks to recalibrate his foreign policy amid delayed trade negotiations with the US. Under the new policy, effective Tuesday, Chinese nationals with US or European Union visas will not need Argentine visas to enter the country for tourism or business. Until now, all Chinese citizens were subject to Argentina's full visa requirements. The policy change follows weeks of uncertainty around the timing of a long-anticipated tariff agreement with Washington and comes amid growing US discomfort over Argentina's warming ties with Beijing. In early April, US Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone publicly criticised a long-standing currency swap agreement between China and Argentina, calling it a form of 'extortion' and urging Buenos Aires to sever the deal. China's foreign ministry responded at the time by accusing Washington of attempting to 'drive a wedge' between China and its Latin American partners. The dispute highlighted the delicate position Milei faces as he courts both superpowers.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
This is how we reboot Britain's decimated economy
It was meant to be turning Britain into the fastest-growing economy in the G7. It was meant to be shaking up planning laws, picking the fast-growing new industries to prioritise for investment and unlocking a wave of inward investment by restoring 'stability' and 'grown-up' government. Labour made plenty of bold promises during the election campaign last year. And yet, as this week's shocking employment data made painfully clear, the British economy is stagnating. Even worse, gilt yields are far too high, with the markets increasingly deeming HM Government's to be a risky credit. The two main parties of the Right, the Conservatives and Reform, must urgently start devising a compelling free-market, pro-growth alternative, an adulterated version of the sorts of much-needed changes pushed through in Argentina by Javier Milei. Whatever its other faults, and there were plenty of them, over the past 20 years the British economy was at least very good at generating lots of jobs. They were not necessarily very skilled, or productive, but they were plentiful. This is not the case anymore. On Wednesday, the Office for National Statistics published the latest employment data. It made for depressing reading. Another 40,000 people dropped off the payrolls in June, the fourth month in a row that the number of employees has fallen. Over the past year, almost 200,000 net salaried roles have vanished, the most significant decline since the Covid pandemic. The vacancy data is even more worrying, with the number of openings falling for 36 consecutive months. The welfare rolls are the only metric that is booming. The public sector is still expanding as if money would keep flowing forever. But the private sector has stopped hiring. The reason is simple: GDP is barely going up, and yet the cost of employing workers is rising. The minimum wage has been pushed too high for many companies and the Chancellor made a catastrophic error of judgment when she increased employers' National Insurance contributions and lowered the threshold at which these have to be paid. NI is a tax on jobs; it is no great surprise that we now have fewer of them. It is only going to get worse over the next few months. It takes time for the companies to slim down their workforce, as most of them prefer 'natural wastage' to risking the hassle and expense of an employment tribunal by laying people off. As people leave they won't be replaced. And the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner's draconian extension of employment rights will further undermine the economy. Why risk hiring someone if you can't get rid of them? Without new jobs, the economy can't grow; while it will be impossible to shift people off welfare benefits, the tax base will shrink; and the burden on the Treasury will grow ever larger. Britain will be tapped in a doom loop where taxes crush employment, leading to lower revenues, which in turn means taxes have to be pushed even higher, starting the whole dismal cycle all over again. There is only one way to fix the malaise. The Conservatives and Reform have to make the case for a free-market revolution. It is not exactly hard. The time has come to stop pushing up the 'living wage' by more than the rate of inflation every year. We need to deregulate the labour market, repealing Rayner's idiotic reforms and also blocking the madness of judges effectively setting wage rates by using equalities legislation. It is better to be hired and fired than to never be hired at all. We need to rein in the public sector to reduce the deficit and allow room for supply-side tax cuts. We need a radical programme of liberalisation to fire up the animal spirits of entrepreneurship once again. Net zero should be scrapped. The lower capital gains rate for entrepreneurs should be restored in full, and the lifetime limit put back to £10m. We need a better monetary policy that actually targets price stability. Planning laws should be genuinely liberalised so that firms can start building. Ridiculous laws left over from the European Union, such as the GDPR rules (perhaps the worst piece of internet legislation ever devised), should be repealed to allow start-ups to flourish. 'Opportunity Zones' based on the successful experiment from president Trump's first term should be launched, with lower taxes and lighter regulation, to reboot run-down urban areas. Each one of these policies would help fix some of the damage from Labour's disastrous first year. Taken together, they would get the economy moving again, laying the foundations for the long project of restoring the nation's prosperity. The campaign needs to start now. For too long, the British political establishment has complacently assumed the economy could withstand whatever taxes and regulations were thrown at it. We learnt this week that is no longer true. Like much of the rest of the country, it is now broken.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
It's time the world woke up and noticed the Argentinian miracle
Okay, it is still only on a par with Egypt and Suriname. But the credit ratings agency Moody's this week gave Argentina its second upgrade since its radical libertarian president Javier Milei took power. It is yet more evidence of the dramatic improvement in the country's fortunes. Growth has accelerated, inflation is coming under control, rents are falling and its debts are steadily becoming more manageable. The dire warnings from the economic establishment that Milei's bold experiment in slashing the burden of the state have been proved woefully wide of the mark. The only question now is this: when will the rest of the world wake up to the Argentinian miracle? While France scraps bank holidays to keep the bond markets happy, while the Chancellor Rachel Reeves struggles to fill the latest 'black hole' in the nation's books, and while even the United States bond market frets about the independence of the Federal Reserve, one country – and a very unlikely one as well – is getting upgraded. Moody's this week bumped up Argentina, a nation that for 50 years has been characterised by bailouts and mismanagement, from Caa3 to Caa1. It cited 'the extensive liberalisation of exchange and (to a lesser extent) capital controls' for the improving outlook. Sure, it is still technically rated as 'junk' – after all, this is a country with nine debt defaults, including the largest in IMF history, over the last 200 years. But the direction of travel is clearly right. That is just one indicator among many. The economy overall is expected to expand by 5.7pc this year despite the huge cuts to public spending and the 'chainsaw' applied to government employment by the president. Inflation came down to a monthly rate of 1.6pc last month, which may not exactly count as Swiss-style stability, but is a lot lower than the 200pc-plus it was running at when Milei took office. The IMF has rolled over the massive loan it extended to the country under the previous administration. Rents, a major problem with housing unaffordable to many people, have fallen by 40pc over the last year after the government scrapped all rent controls, bringing a flood of properties on to the market. Bond prices are rising, with the government able to borrow money on the global markets again. Sure, there are plenty of challenges ahead. Poverty is widespread, and there are still relatively few new industries, although its shale oil and gas sector is starting to boom, with Vista Energy reporting a 57pc increase in output this year, and forecasting it will double over the next 24 months. One point is surely clear, however: in the 18 months since Milei took office, Argentina's economy has been transformed. It has been achieved by radically slashing the size of the state. Promising a 'shock therapy' for the economy, the government has laid off more than 50,000 public sector workers, closed or merged more than 100 state departments and agencies, frozen public infrastructure projects, cut energy and transport subsidies, and even returned the state budget to a surplus. Milei has not followed through on all his promises. Argentina has not switched to the dollar as its official currency, as he pledged it would, and doesn't look likely to any time soon (although come to think of it, on current trends its peso may be a better bet than the American currency). But he has gone further and faster in deregulating the economy than any politician in modern times. The improvements in its performance are a stark contrast to the catastrophe that was forecast, and probably quietly hoped for, by a majority of the Left-leaning economic establishment. On taking office, 103 prominent economists, including France's Thomas Piketty, wrote a public letter warning that 'apparently simple solutions may be appealing, they are likely to cause more devastation in the real world'. It hasn't happened. Instead, Argentina is steadily recovering from decades of mismanagement. The real question is this: when will the rest of the world wake up and notice? The bulk of the policy-making and financial establishment still inhabits a mental universe where government spending is what drives growth, where regulation is seen as the key to innovation, where 'national champions' are expected to lead new industries, while industrial strategies will pick the winners of the future, and the only role for the private sector is a 'partner' for the finance ministry. We see that in the UK, with the National Wealth Fund getting billions in funding even though no one knows what it will actually do, and with GB Energy getting even more for the green transition. We see it across the European Union, with endless regulations that are bizarrely designed to promote competitiveness, and with the Commission in Brussels only this week proposing a turnover tax on every business of any significant size within the bloc. We even see it in the US, with Donald Trump, hardly an economic liberal, imposing tariffs to try to reshape the economy instead of leaving it to the market to decide where companies should invest. And we see it most of all in China, with industries from autos to aerospace to artificial intelligence receiving huge state support to conquer the world. Argentina under Javier Milei is the only major country taking a different path. Perhaps because subsidies, controls and protectionism have turned it into a basket-case, it was ready to try the alternative. The results are now clear. In reality, open, free markets and a smaller state are the only way to restore growth, and Milei is proving it all over again.
