LEADERSHIP VS NO LEADERSHIP - A COMPARISON

 

The following was originally written by Murray Hunter. But I have "adapted" it - not to an unrecognisable level - but to a certain degree. My 'changes' in red. My comments at the end.

For 25 years, the people (especially the nons) were tricked, cheated and conned into believing that Chameleon would bring reforms to the country.  The Pakatoons came to power with a pledge to focus upon the economy. Now we are looking at a situation, where the nons perceive they have no meaningful place.

After nearly 18 months, Chameleon appears to be continuing the same agenda he carried out while he was a jihadi back in the 1990s. Back in the 1990s, he  Islamized the government, and played a major role, alongside his former boss, nurturing crony capitalism in the country. Over the last 25 years, Chameleon has portrayed himself as a reformer.

Today, Chameleon oversees a nation plagued with vigilantism, religious inspired violence, terrorism, and the rapid advancement of crony capitalism in the economy. To make matters even worse, the Chameleon administration is embarking upon the most draconian censorship and loss of freedom of speech, the nation has ever seen.

Any hopes of reform have gone down the drain.

In contrast, Argentina’s new president Javier Milei, who pushed back on the World Economic Forum in person, at Davos last January, is trying to radically change the nature of his country’s economy. The libertarian and economist Milei presented a sweeping agenda to overhaul the economy and rid the nation of the ‘deep state’ within the bureaucracy.

• Milei has quickly acted to shrink the size of the bureaucracy 
• cutting ministries from 18 to 9 in the government
• Milei is reducing public spending by 5 percent of GDP
• while putting an end to subsidies at the same time
• A large number of public tenders have been cancelled to eliminate corruption. 
• Milei is also on the road to privatising Argentina’s state owned companies 
• to free up the economy and make it much more competitive. 
• Regulations are being slashed at unprecedented rates.

Although there is much congressional and provincial governor resistance through court challenges to Milei’s measures, he is attempting to crash through these barriers, or risk crashing himself. Milei hopes to break up the political forces that control Argentina, a country with 161 percent inflation, and 45 percent of the people live in poverty.

Milei has a small team of ministers in contrast to Chameleon's 38 senior ministers, not including deputies. The Milei government has an economic-libertarian bias. While Chameleon came to power with a similar philosophy, the government has been on the authoritarian side, maintaining much of the regulatory framework in place, and has heavily supported existing monopolies and government linked companies (GLCs). In addition, the Chameleon government is pursuing an Islamization objective.

There are challenges ahead for both Chameleon and Milei. Foreign investors are closely watching the paths and outcomes of both countries. Both leaders have disapproval ratings at present, and the lynchpin to both leaders’ survival will greatly depend upon economic performance.

Chameleon  is running his government on record deficits, while Milei is keeping hyperinflation down by achieving a fiscal surplus after 3 months in office. 

Milei is Dollarizing the economy in an attempt to stabilize inflation. Dollarization, could well be used as a short-term method to stabilize the local currency, in lieu of pegging the currency to the US Dollar. Once the threat to the local currency has passed, it may be wise to speed up the ASEAN proposed payment connectivity scheme, where the local currency can be exchanged with other currencies, without using the US Dollar and as a medium of comparison.

The greatest contrast between Chameleon and Milei is that Chameleon is trying to preserve the existing class system, while Milei is trying to rid the nation of those who exercise great power behind closed doors within the bureaucracy and GLCs.

There is no doubt fearless leadership of a nation is needed in these times. Milei has attacked the structural aspects of the economy that matter for a democratic country to exist. Chameleon hasn’t touched upon any of the deep structural problems of the economy, which will maintain the existing class system.

 

My Comments :

Hence the country is doomed. The final doom will come when either or both of these two things happen:

1. the existing class system runs out of taxpayers money, public funds and lucrative monopolies to be dished out among the elites.  The elites will start fighting over who gets more free money and plum monopolies. This fight has already begun. Hence the incessant turmoil in party politics in the country.

2. the people get fed up and begin expressing their displeasure publicly. We have seen this in other countries. In Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Tunisia and many other Third World countries the people have expedited change by expressing their displeasure with an unchanging, inefficient, non-competitive and corrupted system.

However in different societies (or different races) the breaking point can be triggered by different levels of deprivation. Poorer societies (or poorer races) whose people cannot get three square meals a day may revolt in the streets.

Wealthier societies where the honest, hard working citizen can only afford a Toyota when he should be able to buy a Mercedes or Ferrari (for the same level of education, hard work and productivity)   may vent his frustrations.

One way or another there will be a collapse of the corrupt system.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.