How About Two ‘Persons of the Year’

Maybe there should be two “persons of the year.” It would be hard to deny President-elect Trump’s bona fides in the wake of his astounding comeback. Yet there’s a close runner up in President Javier Milei, who won a mandate for radical reform such as has rarely, if ever, been seen before in the hemisphere. On his first anniversary, it looks like he’s off to a promising start. It’s hard to overstate Argentina’s newsworthiness.Feature the Financial Times, which griped in an editorial before Mr. Milei’s win that “populism is not the way to prosperity for Argentina.” Now, the FT wonders, “has Mr. Milei proved his critics wrong?” The answer, the FT begrudgingly concludes, is looking like yes. It reckons that he has “taken over an economy on the brink of hyperinflation” and “slashed the monthly inflation rate from 26 per cent last December to 2.7 per cent in October.”Plus, too, “Argentina’s long-distressed sovereign bond prices have roughly tripled,” the FT reports, in another sign of economic recovery. The nation’s “chronically depreciating peso,” it adds, is strengthening, at least, on the black market, against the fiat dollar, though that may be a mixed blessing, given Mr. Milei’s campaign pledge to dollarize the economy. It would be better for Argentina’s growth, we’ve noted, if he moves toward honest money.The New York Times, too, is changing its tune on Mr. Milei — at least to a degree. After his victory in November 2023, the Times described him to readers as a “combative television personality with an unruly hairdo and a tendency to insult his critics,” noting many had dismissed him as a “sideshow.” Now, the Times concedes that Mr. Milei has a 56 percent approval rating, “making him one of the most popular presidents in the country’s recent history.”The Times, moreover, points to “signs that Mr. Milei’s strategy is working.” Inflation is “plunging,” the Times reports, and “government revenue exceeds spending for the first time in 16 years.” The economy appears to be “stabilizing and may be on track to slowly start growing,” the Times adds. Yet the Grey Lady still deplores what it calls the “brutal cuts” that made possible Mr. Milei’s “remarkable progress.”That progress, indeed, would suggest that Mr. Milei is getting the political room that would enable him to escalate his reform agenda to encompass his campaign promises for monetary reform. Argentines, the Times reports, are already reaping the benefits from a more stable peso. Before Mr. Milei, one shopkeeper says, “There was a price in the morning, and at noon everything increased again — and again two days later.”Now, the Times reports, the Argentine shopkeeper “is able to plan his inventory without worrying about sudden price shocks.” This encapsulates the advantage of Mr. Milei’s policy of stabilizing his country’s fiat currency. It suggests he learned a lesson from his predecessors, these columns have noted, as “for decades Argentina ignored its currency while trying to fix its economy.” That proved, indeed, to be a case of putting the cart before the horse. The choice between currency reform and economic revival echoes a similar debate in America when Eisenhower took office, we noted, but the GOP’s push to restore honest money got derailed by those who wanted to wait for a “stable economy.” Thus was lost one of the best chances to restore America’s gold standard. We urged Mr. Milei to pursue his agenda of dollarization, or better, noting “there could be no bigger bang than going for the gold.”That, in turn, could blaze a trail for monetary reform in America. The Times’ star columnist, Michelle Goldberg, reports that Trump calls Mr. Milei his “favorite president.” The Argentine leader, she adds, “has lately edged out Hungary’s Viktor Orban as the MAGA movement’s chief international inspiration.” She calls it “a sign of an important ideological shift on the right.” If Trump follows Mr. Milei’s lead, it will be good news for America as well as Argentina.

How About Two ‘Persons of the Year’

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