#453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Lex Fridman Podcast

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Episode: #453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption

Author: Lex Fridman
Duration: 02:08:34

Episode Shownotes

Javier Milei is the President of Argentina. This episode is available in both English and Spanish. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep453-sc See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/javier-milei-transcript CONTACT LEX: Feedback - give feedback to Lex:

https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: Javier Milei's X: https://x.com/JMilei Javier Milei's Instagram: https://instagram.com/javiermilei Javier Milei's Facebook: https://facebook.com/JavierMileiEconomista SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Eight Sleep: Temp-controlled smart mattress. Go to https://eightsleep.com/lex NetSuite: Business management software. Go to http://netsuite.com/lex BetterHelp: Online therapy and counseling. Go to https://betterhelp.com/lex AG1: All-in-one daily nutrition drinks. Go to https://drinkag1.com/lex LMNT: Zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix. Go to https://drinkLMNT.com/lex OUTLINE: (00:00) - Introduction (14:44) - Economic freedom (20:09) - Anarcho-capitalism (30:02) - Presidency and reforms (49:22) - Poverty (55:54) - Corruption (1:04:32) - Freedom (1:18:43) - Elon Musk (1:24:11) - DOGE (1:26:13) - Donald Trump (1:32:13) - US and Argentina relations (1:39:22) - Messi vs Maradona (1:48:16) - God (1:50:22) - Elvis and Rolling Stones (1:54:02) - Free market (2:01:03) - Loyalty (2:03:40) - Advice for young people (2:05:06) - Hope for Argentina PODCAST LINKS: - Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast - Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr - Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 - RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ - Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 - Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips SOCIAL LINKS: - X: https://x.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://instagram.com/lexfridman - TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://facebook.com/lexfridman - Patreon: https://patreon.com/lexfridman - Telegram: https://t.me/lexfridman - Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/lexfridman

Summary

In this episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast, host Lex Fridman converses with Javier Milei, the President of Argentina, about his radical vision for economic freedom through anarcho-capitalism amid the backdrop of Argentina's severe economic crisis. Milei's presidency has led to significant milestones, including the first fiscal surplus in 16 years and the lowest inflation in three years. They discuss the critical reforms implemented to address issues of poverty and corruption, Milei's intellectual evolution in understanding freedom, and the role of deregulation. The episode further explores Milei's perspectives on notable figures and the importance of cultural battles in safeguarding freedom.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (#453 – Javier Milei: President of Argentina – Freedom, Economics, and Corruption) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_00
The following is a conversation with Javier Mele, the president of Argentina. He is a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist, and economist who campaigned with a chainsaw that symbolized his promise to slash the corrupt bureaucracy of the state.

00:00:18 Speaker_00
He stepped into the presidency one year ago with a country on the brink of hyperinflation, deep in debt, and suffering from mass unemployment and poverty.

00:00:29 Speaker_00
He took this crisis head on, transforming one of Latin America's largest economies through pure free market principles.

00:00:38 Speaker_00
In just a few months in office, he already achieved Argentina's first fiscal surplus in 16 years, and not just avoided hyperinflation, but brought inflation down to its lowest in three years.

00:00:51 Speaker_00
We discuss all of this in detail, both the successes and the challenges. His depth of knowledge of economic principles, metrics, and data was truly impressive and refreshing to hear from a world leader.

00:01:05 Speaker_00
But even bigger than the economic transformation of Argentina, Javier represents the universal fight against government corruption and the fight for freedom. Economic freedom, political freedom, and freedom of speech.

00:01:18 Speaker_00
He has many critics, many of whom are part of the corrupt establishment he's seeking to dismantle. But many are simply Argentinian citizens, scared of the pain his radical policies may bring, at least in the short term.

00:01:33 Speaker_00
But whether one disagrees with his methods or not, no one can deny that his presidency marks one of the most ambitious attempts at economic transformation in modern history, and that Javier Mele is truly a force of nature, combining the rigor of an economist with the passion of a revolutionary in the fight for freedom of a nation he loves.

00:01:57 Speaker_00
Argentina is one of my favorite countries, so I sincerely hope he succeeds. This interview was conducted with the president speaking Spanish and me speaking English, with an interpreter simultaneously translating.

00:02:12 Speaker_00
We make the episode available, overdubbed and subtitled in both English and Spanish, thanks to our great friends at Eleven Labs.

00:02:20 Speaker_00
If you're watching on YouTube, you can switch between English and Spanish by clicking the gear icon, selecting audio track, and then choosing a language. Same with the captions.

00:02:30 Speaker_00
If you're watching on X, I'll post both Spanish and English versions separately. If you're watching on Spotify or listening elsewhere, I'll probably only post the English version.

00:02:40 Speaker_00
This is the first time for me doing something like this in a foreign language. It was challenging, but illuminating.

00:02:47 Speaker_00
I hope to continue talking to many world leaders for two to three hours in this way, including Vladimir Zelensky, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, and Xi Jinping.

00:02:59 Speaker_00
I want to explore who they are, how they think, and how they hope to help their country and humanity flourish. And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast.

00:03:14 Speaker_00
We got Aidsleep for naps, NetSuite for business, BetterHelp for your mind, AG1 for your health, and Element for electrolytes. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to get in touch with me for whatever reason, go to lexfriedman.com slash contact.

00:03:32 Speaker_00
And now onto the full ad reads. I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep, and it's Pod4Ultra.

00:03:46 Speaker_00
The pod part is the thing that measures all the data from your body and cools the bed on each side of the bed separately, and then there's the ultra, which is the base that goes between the mattress and the bed frame.

00:03:59 Speaker_00
It can control the positioning of the bed. It's really incredible technology.

00:04:04 Speaker_00
They sent me some notes that are in theory supposed to be helpful, and it says, celebrities who use the pod, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Lex Friedman, I'm a celebrity, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Peter Atiyah. I didn't get a doctor.

00:04:26 Speaker_00
I do think doctor in front of the name is a useful thing for people that obviously got a PhD or are medical doctors. I think it's a useful shorthand to sort of let people know that there's some kind of expertise here.

00:04:41 Speaker_00
But there was a funny moment where I got a chance to get dinner. with Andrew Huberman and Peter Atiyah, and the person that sat us down for dinner said, Dr. Huberman, Dr. Atiyah, Mr. Friedman.

00:05:00 Speaker_00
And I kind of teased him about it, but obviously, I enjoy being called Mr. Please Never Call Me Doctor, and also just call me Lex, it really doesn't matter. And definitely, I don't think of myself, nor do I think I am a celebrity. Anywho,

00:05:13 Speaker_00
They have a special Black Friday offer. If you go to asleep.com slash Lex and use code Lex, you'll get up to $600 off your Pod for Ultra purchase when bundled. That's asleep.com slash Lex.

00:05:29 Speaker_00
This episode is brought to you by NetSuite, an all-in-one cloud business management system. For some reason, I just thought of Marc Andreessen, one of the great minds in Silicon Valley in tech, and I probably should talk to him soon.

00:05:45 Speaker_00
I've had several conversations with him and I've listened to him on his own podcast and sort of speak and tweet about just there's a depth of insight about how much should tech entrepreneurs care about government, about the way government works, about how to communicate with politicians, all that kind of stuff in order to have some regulation but not too much regulation so that they can build epic shit

00:06:10 Speaker_00
without government getting in the way unnecessarily. Actually, a company, Eleven Labs, that helped with the translation and the dubbing for this episode. Incredible group of folks. Great engineers, just a great company.

00:06:23 Speaker_00
I've been having a lot of conversation with the CEO, and I think they're doing a truly beautiful thing, breaking down the barriers that language creates. and doing that in a way that's accessible to a lot of people.

00:06:35 Speaker_00
It's still at this time very, very expensive, but it's cheaper than it would be done by human and hopefully better and better. As the technology improves, I really wanna be playing with this technology.

00:06:46 Speaker_00
But the thing I wanna comment on is it's just a great company and a great business and a great set of folks. And so I care about the running, the functioning, the ways of such great companies. How's that for a segue? NetSuite helps you.

00:07:02 Speaker_00
In fact, it helps over 37,000 companies who have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle. It helps businesses run all kinds of messy stuff. Take advantage of NetSuite's flexible financing plan at netsuite.com slash Lex. That's netsuite.com slash Lex.

00:07:19 Speaker_00
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P, help. They figure out what you need and match you with a licensed therapist in under 48 hours. I was really pumped talking to President Xavier Millet about life, frankly.

00:07:34 Speaker_00
I could probably talk to him for many more hours. Such a brilliant, but sort of a kind-hearted, warm person on mic, but I got a chance to interact with him a bunch before and after off mic, and just a warm person.

00:07:49 Speaker_00
Just a human being who saw me, who noticed me, who smiled and just had this way that's not just maybe a fake charisma, it's a real human charisma and a nervousness and a joy, all of that together.

00:08:05 Speaker_00
And obviously a brilliance, brilliance backed by a set of principles and a desire to see freedom win. And so there is a sense that freedom is a powerful force for the human mind.

00:08:21 Speaker_00
So a lot of our conversation was focused on economics, but the responsibility and the possibility of taking control of your own destiny, it's a powerful idea. It's an American idea.

00:08:34 Speaker_00
And there are many other places in the world that are captivated by that idea. And he's one of the great elucidators and implementers of that idea. I love Argentina, so I hope that he succeeds. Anyway, all that to say is freedom is good for the mind.

00:08:52 Speaker_00
And another thing that's good for the mind is BetterHelp. Check them out at betterhelp.com slash flex and save in your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash flex.

00:09:01 Speaker_00
This episode is brought to you by AG1, an all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. You know what I drink AG1 after? I drink AG1 after a long soccer, aka football game. I used to play a lot of both soccer and football.

00:09:19 Speaker_00
Obviously, I played a lot of soccer and I say that obviously because most of the world, except the United States, that's kind of the sport that every kid plays, because it's so accessible.

00:09:29 Speaker_00
Anyway, I was a big fan of Diego Armando Maradona when I was growing up, and just seeing the World Cups in which he played, the famous goal of the century, and the head of God goal, and just the aura and the genius and the feel he had was mesmerizing and just inspiring for a kid.

00:09:50 Speaker_00
When Lionel Messi came around, I think I first saw him when he was in the youth league, 17, maybe 16, 17, I'm not sure. He was just, there was something else. There was just genius there.

00:10:02 Speaker_00
And I do consider it a huge gift to humanity that his genius only developed, it grew, it flourished. And it was a tragedy that he didn't win the World Cup for the longest time or didn't help Argentina win the World Cup.

00:10:17 Speaker_00
Until very recently, which he did, and he completed, he won everything he could possibly win. And that was such a beautiful, sort of historic moment. The greatest player of all time, Lionel Messi, in my opinion, in most people's opinion.

00:10:32 Speaker_00
and I do hope to talk to him. And this experiment, this chance I got to talk to Javier Mele with an interpreter and all this mess, and I apologize if I screwed it all up in different ways.

00:10:46 Speaker_00
I really tried, I tried to figure out how we can make it most accessible for both English and Spanish speakers and all that kind of stuff. All that had to come together in just a handful of days.

00:10:56 Speaker_00
I think like three days I had to figure it all out and never done anything like it. So this sort of emboldened me, gave me confidence that it's possible to do, and there is, of course, a Spanish speaker that I would very much love to talk to.

00:11:10 Speaker_00
And his name, like I said, is Lionel Messi. And so now I'm a little bit more confident that that is something I could handle if given the opportunity. And I hope to celebrate him properly if I ever get a chance to speak with him.

00:11:27 Speaker_00
Anyway, try out AG1, they'll give you one month supply of fish oil when you sign up at drinkag1.com slash lex. This episode is also brought to you by Element, my daily zero sugar and delicious electrolyte mix.

00:11:41 Speaker_00
Oh, and I should also say that I don't get a chance to play soccer that much these days, and I'm not sure why. I think for a couple of years I had a few injuries, like slight injuries related to jujitsu,

00:11:54 Speaker_00
that made sort of the sprinting and maybe the fast turning and the pivoting and the planting of feet, all that kind of stuff, for many hours at a time, difficult. Or rather, I should say, I was trying to let the injuries heal.

00:12:10 Speaker_00
If I played a lot of soccer, they just wouldn't heal. But soccer is, as a sport, one of my favorite sports to participate in. And as a form of exercise, it makes time just disappear.

00:12:21 Speaker_00
Like I could do sprint after sprint after sprint, running around the field for hours. And like a little kid, still, I just forget time. You don't realize how much calories you burn. You don't think about anything. You don't realize how exhausted you are.

00:12:37 Speaker_00
You're just full of joy. And the competition, the excitement, Maybe it puts me right back there to all the football games I've watched as a kid. Like I'm now pretending to be Maradona. I'm not pretending to be Leonardo Amessi.

00:12:52 Speaker_00
I'm not pretending to be all those sort of superstars and enjoying the fun of it. Yeah. Anyway, before and after, I would probably drink an Element. Get a sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it at drinkelement.com slash Lex.

00:13:13 Speaker_00
By the way, you know, this is the first time I'm trying something like this. The episode I'm publishing on this audio feed is a English dubbed audio track. And the voice cloning is done by AI. Thank you for our great help.

00:13:32 Speaker_00
Thank you for the help from the great Eleven Labs team. And there's a lot of human in the loop, improving the translation, improving the voice, all that kind of stuff.

00:13:40 Speaker_00
but I'm not sure what kind of thing makes it a pleasant experience for just audio listeners. And I, primarily myself, am usually an RSS audio listener, so I really care about this medium of podcasting.

00:13:58 Speaker_00
It is the original, the main, to me, way to consume podcasts. Freedom. As Javier said, viva la libertad carajo. Yeah, I truly believe that. RSS is freedom. That's what podcasting is all about. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:14:21 Speaker_00
To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Javier Mele. When did you first understand the value of freedom, especially economic freedom?

00:14:50 Speaker_01
Well, actually, I came to understand the ideas of freedom as an economic growth specialist back in the years of 2013 to 2014. I could see that per capita GDP statistics over the last 2,000 years of the Christian era

00:15:12 Speaker_01
essentially looked like a hockey stick, indicating that per capita GDP remained almost constant until around 1800, after which it accelerated sharply.

00:15:24 Speaker_01
In the same context of that phenomenal increase in productivity and per capita GDP, the population had multiplied sevenfold over the preceding 200 years.

00:15:37 Speaker_01
So basically, in economics, that means you get increasing returns, and the presence of increasing returns implies the existence of monopolies, concentrated structures, and according to traditional neoclassical economic theory, the presence of monopolies and concentrated structures is not a good thing.

00:16:00 Speaker_01
But at the same time, one could see that living standards had increased tremendously, and that middle-income people ended up living far better than emperors did in the Roman era, and the population had gone from having 95% of people in extreme poverty to less than 10%.

00:16:23 Speaker_01
And in that context, the question was how it could be that something that had lifted so many people out of poverty, that had improved human condition so much, could be something bad for economic theory, meaning something was not right.

00:16:37 Speaker_01
So in that context, I remember that one of the people who worked on my team suggested I read an article by Murray Newton Rothbard called Monopoly and Competition. I remember reading it like it was today.

00:16:56 Speaker_01
And after reading it carefully, I said, everything I've taught about market structure in the last 20 years in courses on microeconomics is wrong.

00:17:07 Speaker_01
This caused a very strong internal commotion in me, so I called this person who used to work with me, and they recommended a place to buy Austrian School of Economics books

00:17:21 Speaker_01
And I remember I bought at least 20 or 30 books, which I went to pick up one Saturday afternoon. And when I visited the bookstore, I was fascinated by all the stuff they had there.

00:17:35 Speaker_01
So I went back the next day and I started calculating how much money I needed to pay for my dog's food. That's my four-legged child and how much I needed to spend on the taxi fare and food.

00:17:50 Speaker_01
And then with what I have left, I spent all of it on more books. And then I started to read very intensively. And I remember, for example, the experience of reading Human Action by Mises. And this was a book that I didn't know about. And I remember that.

00:18:12 Speaker_01
On the following weekend, I started to read this book, right from the first page, and I didn't stop until I finished it, and that was a true revolution in my head.

00:18:24 Speaker_01
And having the chance to read Austrian authors like Rothbard, Mises, Hayek, Hoppe, and Jesus Huerta de Soto, or others like Juan Ramon Rallo, Philip Bagus, and Walter Block, for example. That was very inspirational.

00:18:47 Speaker_01
And at one point, I got the opportunity to read related to the works of Alberto Venegas Linchijo. And I also had the pleasure and honor to meet him. And today, we are actually friends. So that paved the way for me to approach the ideas of freedom.

00:19:08 Speaker_01
And another book that was a very significant influence and impact on me was The Principles of Political Economics by Menger. It was truly eye-opening.

00:19:20 Speaker_01
Or let's say, for reading Ugen von Böhm-Bawerk, these were things that really challenged all of my form of thinking. I had a vague idea and poor about the Austrian school.

00:19:39 Speaker_01
The only thing I had read about the Austrian school until then had been Money and Time, a very good book by Garrison. But now that I understand a little bit more about Austrian economics, I know that it was rather poor

00:19:59 Speaker_01
This doesn't mean that the book isn't good, but there were a whole lot of things to read that ended up being truly fascinating.

00:20:09 Speaker_00
So from that, what is now today, and maybe you can talk about the evolution, is your philosophy, economics philosophy. You've described yourself as an anarcho-capitalist, market anarchist, libertarian, that's the ideal.

00:20:26 Speaker_00
And then maybe in practice and reality, you've said that you're more of a minarchist. So lay it all out. What's your economics philosophy today?

00:20:36 Speaker_01
Strictly speaking, I am an anarcho-capitalist. I despise the state government. I despise violence. Let us suppose we take the definition of liberalism.

00:20:49 Speaker_01
I usually use the definition of liberalism given by Alberto Venegas Linchijo, which is very much in line with the definition.

00:20:59 Speaker_01
of John Locke, which essentially matches the definition by Alberto Benegas Lynch, Jr., who said that liberalism is the unrestricted respect for the life project of others based on the principle of non-aggression and in defense of the right to life, liberty, and property.

00:21:18 Speaker_01
So I frame all of the discussions within those terms And the fact is that when you get to that notion, I would dare say that you become an anarcho-capitalist de facto. And what that describes, it is an idea, which represents my ideal world.

00:21:37 Speaker_01
I mean, that is the ideal world. Now, real life poses a whole lot of restraints, and some of those you can lift, and those restrictions and others you can't. So, in real life I am a monarchist. I advocate for minimizing state size.

00:21:57 Speaker_01
I try to remove as many regulations as possible. In fact, that is what I used to say during my campaign, and let's say that is what I'm now carrying out. We have just carried out the largest structural reform in Argentine history.

00:22:11 Speaker_01
It is a structural reform that is eight times larger than Menem's, which had been the largest structural reform in history. And we did that with 15% of the representatives and 10% of the senators.

00:22:23 Speaker_01
Furthermore, we have a deregulation ministry where basically every day we eliminate between one and five regulations.

00:22:32 Speaker_01
On the other hand, we have 3,200 additional structural reforms pending to the point that the day we finish all these reforms, we will be the freest country on the planet with the consequences they have in terms of well-being.

00:22:47 Speaker_01
Think about this, when Ireland started market reforms just over 40 years ago, it was the poorest country in Europe. Today, its GDP per capita is 50% higher than that of the United States.

00:23:01 Speaker_01
So, this, I have a current situation, and what I am constantly looking for, whether from my academic works and my outreach notes and books, is the world we have today.

00:23:17 Speaker_01
that every day we are closer, that every day we gain more freedom, because there are some very interesting things here. First, I would like to quote Milton Friedman.

00:23:32 Speaker_01
There is a moment when they do an interview with Milton Friedman and they ask him about liberals, and then he says that there are three types of liberals.

00:23:42 Speaker_01
There are the classical liberals, where, for example, Adam Smith or Milton Friedman himself could fit. Some say that Hayek could fit into that category. For me, Hayek is a minarchist.

00:23:55 Speaker_01
Then you have the minarchists where you could clearly find in that place Mises, Hayek, One could find in philosophical terms Nozick, and basically Ayn Rand.

00:24:10 Speaker_01
And at one point, Milton Friedman, based on his own son, he says, but if you look closely, there are some who are anarchists.

00:24:20 Speaker_01
Let's say, probably from my point of view, the person who has been the greatest inspiration in my life is essentially Murray Newton Rothbard, so therefore, There are two dimensions. One is where I want to go, and the topic is where I stand.

00:24:41 Speaker_01
So the most important thing is to try each day to advance further toward that ideal of anarcho-capitalism. In that sense, Sometimes we face strong and harsh criticism regarding that ideal vision. I think that's the Nirvana fallacy.

00:25:02 Speaker_01
If you compare yourself against paradise, everything is horrible and miserable, but you don't live in paradise. You live on earth. Basically, what you need to understand is something called the state conditions.

00:25:17 Speaker_01
Let's suppose that you don't like rectangular tables. You prefer circular tables. Now, the reality is, I have only a few hours until I go and catch my flight, and the table is rectangular. You like a circular table, a round one, but there isn't one.

00:25:40 Speaker_01
What you have is a rectangular table. So either we do the interview here or we just can't do it. So what do you do? You adapt to the current conditions. This is what there is now.

00:25:53 Speaker_01
So then you have some restrictions that you can change and others that you cannot. The idea is to modify all the ones that can be changed in the short term and start working on those that can be modified in the medium or long term.

00:26:09 Speaker_01
For example, for example, if you really like round tables, perhaps the next interview we may do at a round table, we're going to try and solve it. But today it's something that we couldn't possibly solve. So that's basically the idea, right?

00:26:26 Speaker_01
Let's say it's about understanding that some restrictions you can change, others you can, and there are institutional restrictions too.

00:26:37 Speaker_01
There are many anarcho-capitalists who are dedicated to criticizing, and incredibly, they do so with more violence towards liberals, and many of them actually criticize me, which truly make no sense because it is precisely the Nirvana fallacy. But,

00:27:00 Speaker_01
The reality is that, look, in Argentina, for example, the most popular sport is soccer. When you go to watch an Argentina match, it is beautiful. The stands are full and they're all painted with sky blue and white colors. There is a lot of joy.

00:27:21 Speaker_01
People sing songs that are very fun, that are very distinctive. Very, it's very much part of Argentine folklore, so to speak. But, you see, that beautiful show is external. That is to say, it does not determine the outcome.

00:27:40 Speaker_01
You place the ball in the middle of the field and no matter how much people shout, the ball doesn't move. The one who moves the ball and scores the goals is messy. So, what do I mean? If you don't get involved and don't get into it,

00:27:55 Speaker_01
No, you don't do anything.

00:27:56 Speaker_01
So, I mean, what do I know is that there are many liberals, libertarians, and anarcho-capitalists who are really useless because all they do is criticize, let's say, those of us who wanna lead the world toward the ideas of freedom, and what they don't realize is that power is a zero-sum game.

00:28:18 Speaker_01
And if we don't have it, then the left will have it. Therefore, if you level your harshest criticism at those in your own ranks, you end up being subservient to socialism, probably.

00:28:33 Speaker_01
And also, for instance, you have cases of strong hypocrisy, let's say. I have seen cases of agorists. I mean, It's the anarcho-capitalists who criticize Rothbard because he said that you have to get into politics, otherwise the socialists will advance.

00:28:58 Speaker_01
And it's interesting because some of them, I have seen them criticizing, proposing egorism. And I remember one of them, one day, the police showed up and honestly, he was peeing himself. So, I mean, it's very easy to criticize, propose and suggest

00:29:20 Speaker_01
But if he was truly such an agonist, he should have been willing to endure going to jail.

00:29:26 Speaker_01
However, when it was time to face the consequences of the idea he was promoting, he froze, wet his pants, and ended up, let's say, accepting all the restrictions because clearly it was better to be out of jail than in jail.

00:29:41 Speaker_01
But in doing so, he sold out his ideas. So it seems to me that no, not taking into account the restrictions. of the situation only serves to be functional to socialism because all it does is strike against one's own.

00:30:03 Speaker_00
So you became president 11 months ago. Can you again describe some of the actions you took? For example, you cut half the number of government ministries, layoffs, removed price controls.

00:30:16 Speaker_00
It would be interesting to lay out the first steps and what's next.

00:30:21 Speaker_01
If you allow me, I will first give you a description of the situation we received, and based on that, I will tell you each of the things we did when we first took office.

00:30:37 Speaker_01
Basically, what we found was that in the first week of December, inflation was rising at a rate of 1% per day, which means 3,700% annually. In the first half of December, it had accelerated to 7,500% annually.

00:31:00 Speaker_01
When you look at wholesale inflation in December of last year, it was 54%, which if annualized, would equate to an inflation rate of 17,000% per year. And in addition, Argentina, for the previous 10 years, had not been growing.

00:31:21 Speaker_01
with a drop in GDP per capita of approximately 15%. And the reality was that nearly 50% were living in poverty. Now later I will get deeper into that discussion. And the reality is that we had a fiscal deficit which amounted to 15% of GDP

00:31:46 Speaker_01
Five points were in the treasury, 10 points were in the central bank, which was endogenous monetary issuance.

00:31:54 Speaker_01
And the reality is that we also had interest-bearing liabilities at the central bank equivalent to four monetary bases, maturing in one day, meaning we could have quintupled the amount of money in one day,

00:32:11 Speaker_01
We had peso-denominated maturities amounting to the equivalent of $90 billion. The central bank had negative net currency foreign reserves, minus $12 billion. We had commercial debts in the central bank equivalent to $50 billion.

00:32:31 Speaker_01
There were company dividends held back amounting to $10 billion. Therefore, if we, if we had instantly opened up, you see, I say we are liberal libertarians, we are not liberal fools.

00:32:48 Speaker_01
That's what some anarchist liberals suggested, meaning that we basically open everything on the first day. So in that context, of course, if we had done that, we would have encountered hyperinflation.

00:33:05 Speaker_01
Therefore, that would have led to the number of poor people being around 95% and probably, and by December, the Peronist party would have organized supermarkets lootings and would have done all sorts of things and would have probably been ousted.

00:33:25 Speaker_01
And by the first part of the year, the Peronists would have gone back to office. So to us, it was crucial to end fiscal deficit. One of the things we promised during the campaign had been to reduce the number of ministries.

00:33:44 Speaker_01
And indeed we reduced to less than half the number of ministries because we went to nine ministries, today we have eight. We have also laid off a large number of civil employees. Today I can say that we've already dismissed about 50,000 of them.

00:34:02 Speaker_01
and we practically don't renew any contracts unless the positions are absolutely necessary. At the same time, we have stopped public works and we have eliminated discretionary transfers to the provinces. We have also diluted public sector wages.

00:34:25 Speaker_01
Also, we have eliminated economic subsidies by restoring utility rates to the right levels. And in that, let's say in this context, we achieved fiscal balance as far as the treasury is concerned.

00:34:45 Speaker_01
This is very important because in the last 123 years, Argentina had a deficit for 113 of them, and in the 10 years it did not have a deficit because it was not paying the debt. So that was absolutely false.

00:35:00 Speaker_01
And they told us it would be impossible to do that. We had planned to do so within a year. And they said it wasn't possible to adjust by more than one percentage point.

00:35:13 Speaker_01
and we achieved fiscal balance in the month of January, that is the first month of administration. At the same time, we also cut social plans linked to intermediation.

00:35:27 Speaker_01
This is very important because we knew we were going to make a very tough adjustment and we knew that this was going to have

00:35:37 Speaker_01
a court in social terms, and we knew that we had to offer support during the first month, I mean the first quarter and second quarter in office. One of the things we did was to eliminate what are known as poverty managers, that is intermediaries.

00:35:56 Speaker_01
Basically, people have a guard through which they receive assistance but it happens that they had to provide a counter service, and that counter service was verified by a group called the Pikateros.

00:36:11 Speaker_01
So in that context, when they were going to sign, the counter service took away half of the money.

00:36:18 Speaker_01
So by removing that payoff, they stopped extorting them, stopped stealing their money, and with the same amount of money, they received double the resources. And of course, we also provided an additional boost.

00:36:34 Speaker_01
So, let's say that this is related to the five adjustment points in the treasury. Now what happens?

00:36:43 Speaker_01
As we began to achieve fiscal balance and no longer needed to issue money to finance ourselves, and as we also met interest payments and some capital repayments, One of the things that happened is that the debt market began to be recreated.

00:37:00 Speaker_01
So we were able to take debt out of the central bank and transfer it to the treasury where it should have always been. And that meant an adjustment of approximately 10% of GDP. Everyone said this would be impossible and couldn't be fixed.

00:37:15 Speaker_01
Essentially what we did was implement a fiscal adjustment at the central bank amounting to 10% of GDP.

00:37:23 Speaker_01
So if you ask me, it's clear that we have not only made the biggest fiscal adjustment in the history of humanity, because we made a fiscal adjustment of 15 points of the GDP, but also,

00:37:37 Speaker_01
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.

00:37:52 Speaker_01
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 and a half points of GDP because the real tax burden is the size of the state.

00:38:11 Speaker_01
So while back in December we were discussing hyperinflation, 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.

00:38:27 Speaker_01
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 54% to 2%, so it went down by 27 times.

00:38:44 Speaker_01
It was divided into 27, so we had inflation at a rate of 17,000% annually, and it's now close to about 28% a year. But it's not only that. You could consider consumer inflation. The latest consumer inflation rate was 2.7%.

00:39:04 Speaker_01
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, we still have controls in place and we are eliminating restrictions day by day.

00:39:20 Speaker_01
Now, the interesting thing is that we have a 2% 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.

00:39:37 Speaker_01
This indicates that inflation in Argentina, the true inflation, not the induced one, but the actual monetary inflation, is 0.2% per month. At 0.2% per month, this equates to 2.4% annually.

00:39:53 Speaker_01
What I'm saying is, the original discussion was about whether inflation could reach 17,000%. 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. The first one is,

00:40:14 Speaker_01
that we did not experience a previous hyperinflation, which would have simplified the process of implementing a stabilization program.

00:40:23 Speaker_01
Typically, when hyperinflation occurs, monetary assets are diluted, leading to a natural restoration of demand, and besides, we did not resort to any expropriation.

00:40:36 Speaker_01
For example, before the Convertibility Plan, which was the most successful program in Argentina's history, Argentina experienced two instances of hyperinflation.

00:40:45 Speaker_01
During Alfonsín'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.

00:40:57 Speaker_01
In other words, what we did instead was clean up the central bank balance sheet. So with that, we cleaned up the central bank's balance sheet. We cleared a loss of $45 billion, all voluntarily.

00:41:13 Speaker_01
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.

00:41:25 Speaker_01
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.

00:41:41 Speaker_01
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 covered only about 10%, whereas today they cover 80%, so you get the picture.

00:42:01 Speaker_01
Just imagine the adjustment we are making. And in that sense, it is also incredible what we have achieved.

00:42:08 Speaker_01
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.

00:42:27 Speaker_01
And in fact, there is an article called Passing the Buck, which is by Gerardo de la Paulera Bozzoli and Irigoyen, that demonstrates that Menem's first government was the best government in history.

00:42:40 Speaker_01
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, when you account for all these factors,

00:42:56 Speaker_01
Our disinflation process is actually much more genuine. And not only that, it's also much deeper. We restored freedoms to Argentinians while simultaneously implementing a structural reform eight times larger. And we accomplished this with only...

00:43:14 Speaker_01
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 3,200 structural reforms pending.

00:43:29 Speaker_01
This will ultimately make Argentina the freest country in the world.

00:43:35 Speaker_01
Moreover, to have a sense of magnitude, the reforms that we already have made with the Executive Order 7023 and with the Basis Law, we have actually jumped 90 places in terms of economic freedom.

00:43:49 Speaker_01
What this means is that today, Argentina has institutions similar to those of Germany, France, Italy, and we obviously want this to continue.

00:43:59 Speaker_01
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.

00:44:13 Speaker_01
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 2.5 times when you apply the relevant correction.

00:44:32 Speaker_01
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.

00:44:46 Speaker_01
And we can say, analysts' hypotheses were suggesting that next year we would be growing between 5 and 6%. Today, JP Morgan has now corrected, or let's say revised the projections upwards.

00:45:00 Speaker_01
And besides, when we normalized the price situation, the true poverty rate came up and it was 57% in January. Today it is at 46%, meaning we lowered poverty by 11 percentage points. Let's say, I mean, it seems truly like a miracle.

00:45:18 Speaker_01
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 would collapse.

00:45:29 Speaker_01
And actually, when you look at the de-seasonalized data, you see that in August, there was a recovery that took us back to December levels, to December levels.

00:45:41 Speaker_01
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.

00:45:56 Speaker_01
And if you look at it in dollars, I can assure you that the numbers are phenomenal because basically today the dollar is below the levels we had when we took office.

00:46:10 Speaker_01
So the reality is that in 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.

00:46:26 Speaker_01
Therefore, this means that far from 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.

00:46:43 Speaker_01
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.

00:46:55 Speaker_01
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 10 years, we can double the GDP per capita, meaning that Argentina could grow at rates of 7% annually.

00:47:13 Speaker_01
which is very much, very much, and that has strong consequences in terms of improving quality of life, reducing poverty, reducing indigence.

00:47:25 Speaker_01
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? On the contrary, we are ready to redouble the bet

00:47:43 Speaker_01
to redouble our efforts because we've 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.

00:47:56 Speaker_01
Argentina used to vote with huge ballots, which were very, above all, very costly, and that reform, it never paid off. Let's say it wasn't done because it always harmed the ruling party.

00:48:12 Speaker_01
So everyone talked about going to the single paper ballot, but no one did it when they were in power.

00:48:19 Speaker_01
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.

00:48:35 Speaker_01
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.

00:48:49 Speaker_01
If you look, we have reduced the fiscal pressure by 15 points to the Argentinians. We are restoring freedoms with a deep set of structural and regulatory reforms. That is, I think that

00:49:07 Speaker_01
Any sensible liberal could 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.

00:49:22 Speaker_00
Maybe you can explain to me the metrics of poverty and unemployment. As you said, unemployment went down, real unemployment went down, real poverty went down. But even that aside, what have been the most painful impacts of these radical reforms?

00:49:41 Speaker_00
And how many of them are required in the short term to have a big positive impact in the long term? Let's take it step by step, all right?

00:49:50 Speaker_01
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.

00:50:07 Speaker_01
I'll try to explain it with an example that I think clarifies what's happening in Argentina. Argentina was an economy 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.

00:50:29 Speaker_01
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 provoke this artificially demand and puts pressure on prices.

00:50:45 Speaker_01
The issue is that price controls are applied additionally over the prices that They enter the price index with which inflation was, I'm not saying they were lying about it, it was distorted.

00:51:00 Speaker_01
And since Argentina measures poverty and indigence by income line, then what happens? That distorted the true levels of poverty, of course. but that's not the only effect.

00:51:15 Speaker_01
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.

00:51:26 Speaker_01
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.

00:51:41 Speaker_01
But not only that, imagine that you are also given, you are in the middle of an island alone, and they give you $1 million, what can you do with that? You cannot do anything because you cannot buy anything.

00:51:59 Speaker_01
It's the same as if someone tells you that the price of glasses is $10, but when you want to buy it, it's not available.

00:52:10 Speaker_01
Actually, there's a joke told by an Argentinian professor named Juan Carlos de Pablo, who says that a man goes to a bazaar and asks for a vase. Then he says to him, well, I want that vase. How much would you charge me? Then he says, $5,000.

00:52:27 Speaker_01
Oh, okay, $5,000, but why $5,000 if across the street it's 1,000? He says, well, go buy it across the street for 1,000. Ah, there's none for 1,000. Well, then here when there's more, it'll also cost 1,000.

00:52:41 Speaker_01
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?

00:52:55 Speaker_01
You left those prices, the shelves were empty, so the statistics showed that you were much better. But the reality is you couldn't buy anything. You couldn't make it happen.

00:53:05 Speaker_01
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.

00:53:19 Speaker_01
What is the only thing you can do to save people? make the prices transparent and allow products to reappear.

00:53:26 Speaker_01
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.

00:53:38 Speaker_01
And when you do that, clearly you will see a jump in poverty. That brought poverty up to 57%. Now Argentina found its activity floor in the month of April. From that moment, Argentina began to invent a cyclical recovery.

00:53:55 Speaker_01
Real wages have been growing every month above inflation. Therefore, nominal wages are beating inflation. In fact, we are already at levels similar to those we had in November. The same goes for pensions. Moreover,

00:54:11 Speaker_01
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.

00:54:21 Speaker_01
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 imagined.

00:54:33 Speaker_01
But not only that, by eliminating inflation, you remove the inflationary tax, but the real burden is the fiscal deficit, which was 15 points of the GDP.

00:54:44 Speaker_01
Okay, we temporarily raised the country tax, now we lower it, but we return that to the Argentinians. We gave back 15 points of the GDP.

00:54:54 Speaker_01
Not only that, but also, when you eliminate inflation, you remove the distortion of relative prices, therefore the allocation of resources is much better.

00:55:04 Speaker_01
Not only that, but also with the strong fiscal adjustment we made, we have reduced the country risk from 3,000 basis points to 770. Today, Fitch raised Argentina's rating to triple C. So, What do I mean?

00:55:21 Speaker_01
That translates into a lower country risk and 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.

00:55:36 Speaker_01
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 100 years.

00:55:54 Speaker_00
You've spoken about the caste, the corrupt political establishment. So there's a lot of powerful people and groups that are against your ideas. What does it take to fight when so much power is against you?

00:56:11 Speaker_01
Look, we have fought against corruption like never before in Argentina. In fact, when we took office, for example, there were about 900 roadblocks per year. That is people who made a habit of blocking the streets. They prevented free movement.

00:56:31 Speaker_01
And besides, they were given social plans and they were given a lot of money.

00:56:36 Speaker_01
If you remember when I started by explaining the cuts, one of the things I said was that we remove the middlemen of poverty, in other words, the managers of poverty, those who live by stealing from the poor. Well, that is a huge source of corruption.

00:56:53 Speaker_01
In fact, when we did that, Two days later, one of the most renowned and influential piqueteros called for a demonstration. He claimed that 50,000 people would attend because he was actually expecting 100,000. So he wanted to showcase it as a success.

00:57:17 Speaker_01
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 block the streets wouldn't receive welfare benefits, and those who broke the law would go to jail.

00:57:34 Speaker_01
All of that. And also, we were informing this through transportation channels. Well, in that march, they expected to have 100,000 people there, and actually it turned out to be 3,000 people. And from that point on, they didn't block the streets anymore.

00:57:55 Speaker_01
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 Act of corruption were the discretionary transfers to provinces.

00:58:13 Speaker_01
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.

00:58:30 Speaker_01
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.

00:58:42 Speaker_01
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.

00:59:02 Speaker_01
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.

00:59:18 Speaker_01
For example, there is a city that has more disability pensions than people. 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.

00:59:36 Speaker_01
And this is so true that during my government, not only was Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner convicted, but also the two terrorist attacks carried out by Iran were condemned.

00:59:49 Speaker_01
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 preliminary company, or a power group.

01:00:08 Speaker_01
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.

01:00:30 Speaker_01
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.

01:00:48 Speaker_01
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.

01:00:59 Speaker_01
And that's why we, the liberal libertarians, love the X network. Because we can all say what we want. However, let's say these supposed journalists who defend freedom of expression, actually what they want is to censor the ideas they don't like.

01:01:16 Speaker_01
And of course, because they are leftists, because they are wokes, because they can't stand the competition,

01:01:22 Speaker_01
because if they had to fight face-to-face, 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.

01:01:35 Speaker_01
And also, we must not forget that those murderers called socialists killed 150 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.

01:01:52 Speaker_01
Because when you tell a socialist the truth, they cry, claiming it's hate speech. No, it's not hate speech. It's that you are useless people who have ruined the planet. They have made the planet much worse.

01:02:07 Speaker_01
And fortunately today, thanks to social media, especially due to the enormous and brave work of Elon Musk and the role of Twitter,

01:02:17 Speaker_01
Today, X, right, allows information to flow, which makes it possible, let's say, to expose politicians and also expose the media. And that's why journalists in Argentina are so violent. Why? Because before,

01:02:37 Speaker_01
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.

01:02:52 Speaker_01
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 gonna pay. And evidently, the journalists did it.

01:03:05 Speaker_01
Obviously, they went to court, there was a trial, and that journalist lost both times. 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?

01:03:18 Speaker_01
The problem is that in the meantime, your life got dirtied. So why can journalists do all this? Well, that's why they dislike X. They dislike social media.

01:03:29 Speaker_01
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.

01:03:45 Speaker_01
You read a newspaper in Argentina and 85% of what you read is a lie.

01:03:52 Speaker_01
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.

01:04:07 Speaker_01
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.

01:04:22 Speaker_01
And then, of course, obviously, when you take away a privilege from a sector, they get upset. Well, welcome to freedom.

01:04:32 Speaker_00
So you're not only fighting for economic freedom, you're fighting for freedom of speech. Exactly.

01:04:37 Speaker_01
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,

01:04:50 Speaker_01
It's true that officially fell in the year 1989, but the reality is that the wall or socialism fell in the year 1961 when they had to build the wall. I mean, they built it because people were leaving communist Germany for capitalist Germany.

01:05:08 Speaker_01
They realized that those on the Western side were much better off. And of course, to prevent people from leaving. They put, what a wonderful system, right? So, I mean, they had to trap people. They couldn't let them go.

01:05:25 Speaker_01
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?

01:05:39 Speaker_01
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 areas.

01:05:59 Speaker_01
So for example, socialism, or what is of the 21st century, or cultural Marxism or post-Marxism, whatever definition you want, is to take class struggle to different aspects of life.

01:06:15 Speaker_01
For example, one of the aspects of life where you, let's say, have this, is in gender ideology. 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 were the liberals.

01:06:34 Speaker_01
Jeremy Bentham, in the year 1750, 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?

01:06:50 Speaker_01
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.

01:07:08 Speaker_01
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. The consequences are that the results are worse than what you had before.

01:07:23 Speaker_01
I mean, in any state intervention, the subsequent result is often worse than what you originally had.

01:07:32 Speaker_01
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.

01:07:47 Speaker_01
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 finance sinister ideas.

01:08:02 Speaker_01
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.

01:08:11 Speaker_01
At the beginning of the 19th 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. Or for example, another thing is Black Lives Matter.

01:08:28 Speaker_01
That is, black people against white people, or indigenous people against the established communities. Or, I mean everything related to LGBT agendas.

01:08:40 Speaker_01
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.

01:08:58 Speaker_01
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.

01:09:08 Speaker_01
In fact, the most feminist president in Argentine history, Mr. Alberto Fernandez, used to beat his wife. That is such a strange feminist.

01:09:19 Speaker_01
I mean, well, so within the ranks of feminists, let's say, you will essentially find the largest number of rapists and women beaters. And it's quite interesting what they do. Their hypocrisy is truly striking. It's not just about that, though.

01:09:38 Speaker_01
I mean, the battle is on three fronts. You have 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.

01:10:05 Speaker_01
And I mean, at the cultural battle level, notice that socialism has been very successful in the cultural battle.

01:10:13 Speaker_01
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?

01:10:25 Speaker_01
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.

01:10:39 Speaker_01
Yes, 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.

01:10:52 Speaker_01
Much of the blame was placed on Fukuyama when he said, this is the end of history.

01:10:57 Speaker_01
No, it was not the end of history because the following year in 1990, 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.

01:11:14 Speaker_01
And they established that what they said was politically correct.

01:11:20 Speaker_01
and that any idea outside of it was to be considered reactionary and had to be censored or even persecuted, and they claim to be the ones defending freedom, even though they were the ones persecuting people.

01:11:33 Speaker_01
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.

01:11:47 Speaker_01
Then, 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.

01:11:58 Speaker_01
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.

01:12:11 Speaker_01
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.

01:12:21 Speaker_01
But that alone is not enough because you have to, let's 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,

01:12:40 Speaker_01
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?

01:12:56 Speaker_01
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.

01:13:13 Speaker_01
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 is that you have to fight the battles on all fronts.

01:13:28 Speaker_01
And if you don't keep that in mind, I can tell you are headed towards collapse.

01:13:34 Speaker_00
Like you said, in this fight against corruption, you're challenging some very powerful people, a powerful establishment. Are you ever afraid for your life? Potential assassinations?

01:13:50 Speaker_01
No. Tell me, what good is it to live life I mean, in slavery. Look, there is a song by a Spanish singer called Nino Bravo. 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 Libre.

01:14:17 Speaker_01
And the song, it tells the story of Peter Fetcher, an 18 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.

01:14:40 Speaker_01
And for a whole year he plans his 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?

01:15:00 Speaker_01
I mean, what is the point of living without fighting for your values? If I am willing to give my life for my values, then what is the point of living without freedom?

01:15:09 Speaker_01
Look, can I tell you something interesting that happened to me here in the United States? I, let's say, back in the year 1998,

01:15:23 Speaker_01
I came to the United States to take a series of courses to improve my English, which I never use in formal terms because as president, as you can imagine, if I make a mistake, I can create a serious situation.

01:15:39 Speaker_01
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.

01:16:00 Speaker_01
You're young, but I mean, the visit was an audio tour. You got to walk, man. And you would choose the different tracks and listen to the story. The most interesting thing is that the Alcatraz tour ended in the recreation yard

01:16:21 Speaker_01
where the basketball court, exercise areas, and all recreational facilities were located. So anyone would have thought that this was the best part of Alcatraz. And yet, what they said in the guide was that that was the hardest part for the inmates.

01:16:39 Speaker_01
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.

01:16:57 Speaker_01
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. So, in my experience, for me, the fight for freedom is relentless, okay?

01:17:17 Speaker_01
I mean, my greatest hero in all of human history is Moses. 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.

01:17:37 Speaker_01
And it was Moses who said to Ramses, let my people go. Well, Ramses resisted and the forces of heaven ran him over. But what I mean is,

01:17:52 Speaker_01
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.

01:18:08 Speaker_01
I mean, I'm not going to make do with living any other way other than with freedom. I will fight everything I'm gonna 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?

01:18:24 Speaker_01
What good is it to be alive if you're not free? It's no good. What good was it for Peter Fetcher to be alive in communist Germany? Well, at least he had a moment of happiness while he tried to escape.

01:18:44 Speaker_00
Another guy who fights for freedom, freedom of speech in this case, is your new friend Elon Musk. What do you admire and what have you learned from your interactions with Elon?

01:18:56 Speaker_01
I have a huge admiration for Elon Musk. He is an absolutely unconventional person. He's a great fighter for the ideas of freedom.

01:19:14 Speaker_01
What he has done on Twitter, now known as X, and how he is helping the world nowadays, to 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.

01:19:39 Speaker_01
But it's not just that.

01:19:42 Speaker_01
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 business is slightly more exotic, but that's the kind of talk you would expect to have, and business people,

01:20:10 Speaker_01
are truly admirable, right? Because they are true benefactors of society. But they're usually very much focused on their own business.

01:20:22 Speaker_01
And one of the things that really, really shocked me when I met Elon Musk, we had scheduled a meeting for no more than 15 minutes. The first time we were in the meeting, for a little over 45 minutes because he was about to miss his flight.

01:20:45 Speaker_01
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.

01:20:59 Speaker_01
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?

01:21:19 Speaker_01
And another very fun thing was that, something funny he said to me was that, since we shared our vision regarding demographic issues, and the need to populate the planet, he asked me, now what about you? When are you gonna move in that direction?

01:21:36 Speaker_01
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

01:21:58 Speaker_01
seeing anti-Semitic demonstrations where basically Palestinian flags were displayed and Jews were harassed and persecuted.

01:22:08 Speaker_01
And at that moment, when we had that second meeting, he showed himself to be very deeply involved with that and brought up the issue of the cultural battle. So, I mean, it's not quite conventional even in the political field.

01:22:31 Speaker_01
during our last talk, which lasted for about two and a half hours, right? One of the things we talked about was freedom and what was at stake for the United States in this election.

01:22:46 Speaker_01
Therefore, he is a person, you know, honestly, I can say he is well above average. I mean, a person of unconventional intelligence, right? And also he is very charming. So, I mean, again, I have a great admiration for him.

01:23:09 Speaker_01
And I really interact very closely with him. He is very interested in what our ministry of deregulation is doing, which seeks to remove regulations. But at the same time, he works with another person who is also interested in the chainsaw approach.

01:23:27 Speaker_01
And so, I'm very pleased because they are going to try and replicate the model we are implementing in Argentina. And also Donald Trump himself is very enthusiastic about this.

01:23:43 Speaker_01
So, and anything in the way of reducing regulations and cutting public spending and taking government out of the equation means more freedom for the people. So I'm very pleased with what's going on.

01:23:56 Speaker_01
And with Trump's victory, because the United States will be better off, Argentina is going to be better too. And the whole world is going to be better off. Today, the world is a much better place than it was just a few days ago.

01:24:11 Speaker_00
Like you said, Elon and Vivek Ramaswamy are heading the DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency.

01:24:18 Speaker_00
So from your experience this year as president of Argentina and every chainsaw economic policies that you've implemented, what advice would you give to Elon and Vivek about how to do it in the United States? Just cut to the chase, cut to the chase.

01:24:35 Speaker_01
Simple as that. I'll tell you a story and you're going to love it.

01:24:41 Speaker_01
Currently in Argentina, due to the political balance we've achieved, we have had certain powers delegated from Congress to the executive branch, and therefore we can resolve it by decree.

01:24:57 Speaker_01
The deregulation minister, Federico Storzenegger, in his ministry, shows a counter that displays in front of everyone there. He displays the number of days, all right? during which the delegated powers will continue to be valid.

01:25:17 Speaker_01
Therefore, he has a whole deregulation division, also a public spending cut division, and government structure reduction division. And he also has an elite core that's cleaning up all of the laws that hinder the economic system and progress.

01:25:36 Speaker_01
And every day, he removes between one and five economic restrictions. So my advice would be for them to go all the way, to push it to the very limit. And do not give up. Do not let down their guard.

01:25:53 Speaker_01
Furthermore, that agenda does not have political purpose, because at the end of the day, you are removing privileges.

01:26:01 Speaker_01
Of course, there will be people complaining, but those are people, these are people who are losing privileges, so they will have to explain to society why they are keeping those privileges. And that is quite uncomfortable.

01:26:14 Speaker_00
You've spoken with Donald Trump. Allegedly, he called you his favorite president. What did you discuss? And maybe again, what do you admire about President Trump, and what do you learn from him?

01:26:27 Speaker_01
There are several things that I I admire about President Trump, the first is that he probably, I think he's provided ample proof of this in his first presidency. He understands the nature of the cultural battle. He has openly confronted socialism.

01:26:49 Speaker_01
His speeches openly target socialism. He perfectly understands the woke virus. And that is, you know, of great value, because it means understanding what it's all about. Another thing I truly admire about him is his courage, in fact.

01:27:15 Speaker_01
Thankfully, thank goodness he didn't get assassinated or killed. But it was by a small chance occurrence that could have killed him, just because he moved at the right moment. And yet that didn't intimidate him, and he went on.

01:27:33 Speaker_01
And in fact, during his first campaign, and in this one as well, in the second one and third one, they criticized him, insulted him, offended him, said awful things about him, made up all sorts of horrible stories about him.

01:27:54 Speaker_01
In that respect, I can say I deeply relate because Probably no one in our history has had such a negative campaign from all the media like they did to me, but let's say they were quite similar.

01:28:11 Speaker_01
This is why it's so interesting and I was so deeply moved when last night I also got to meet Sylvester Stallone, you know?

01:28:20 Speaker_01
Because Sylvester Stallone talks about, well, how important is that no matter how hard they hit you and keep on hitting you all the time, despite all that, you keep going on and on and on. What I'm trying to say is that many of the

01:28:42 Speaker_01
Many, so many of Sylvester Stallone's approaches are truly inspirational, don't you think? So imagine I'm about to give the speech and I see Sylvester Stallone and Sylvester Stallone knows me. It was truly insane. I had to pinch myself.

01:29:00 Speaker_01
I mean, this can't be true. And besides, well, The people were wonderful with me last night. They've been wonderful today. I've taken hundreds of selfies.

01:29:11 Speaker_01
I mean, it's truly been... I would say it's been my break, let me say, after almost a year in office and having to face all sorts of media torture because the journalists who have vested interests and are corrupt are professional torturers.

01:29:31 Speaker_01
Yes, because they invade your personal life, your family, and your privacy. Let me tell you something to show you the kind of garbage the media in Argentina can do. They sent three drones to spy on me at my presidential residence. To spy on me.

01:29:47 Speaker_01
Do you think that's right? Exactly. But that kind of thing happens in Argentina, not to mention the many lies and horrible things they say. I, for instance, remember that time when my father was hospitalized.

01:30:02 Speaker_01
My father is a man of a really strong character who has had two heart surgeries, all right? And one day a journalist was saying all sorts of lies about my father. My father was hospitalized and, well, and he almost died of a heart attack.

01:30:23 Speaker_01
So that kind of thing is what journalism and the press do in Argentina. So they start to attack your private life, your mother, your father, your sister, even my dogs that I absolutely adore. They are the most wonderful beings in the universe.

01:30:37 Speaker_01
They even target my four-legged children. So imagine that I've been in office for nearly a year.

01:30:45 Speaker_01
a year as president, and since they can't criticize my management, except by lying and distorting the numbers, they meddle with all these things, things they have been doing all the time since the year 2021, when I officially entered politics.

01:31:05 Speaker_01
So, and I've seen what they've done to Trump. So, that also makes me relate a lot to him. because he's a true warrior, he's truly, he's a Viking, he's a Viking, he's literally a Viking.

01:31:22 Speaker_01
I mean, he is someone I admire for how he has kept fighting in the face of adversity, even against all odds, and still he managed to win. Amazing. And well, and that's why I can relate that much.

01:31:43 Speaker_01
And I've also seen how he's been unfairly criticized, like when he was accused of protectionism or when he wanted to discuss some matters within the context of public debate regarding the design of monetary policy as regards the Fed.

01:32:02 Speaker_01
Basically, they have accused him of things. I mean, isn't he entitled to give an opinion as a president? I mean, any citizen could give their opinion, even more so a president.

01:32:14 Speaker_00
Why is it important to you that Argentina has a close relationship with the United States?

01:32:20 Speaker_01
Well, to us, that is truly important, okay? You know, because we've decided to be geopolitical allies of the United States ever since our campaign, that our allies, we have decided that our allies will be the United States and Israel.

01:32:41 Speaker_01
because they basically represent the ideas of the Western world. They represent the free world. That is to say what we would call today, let's say a liberal democracy, okay, by confronting the autocrats.

01:32:57 Speaker_01
And in that sense, that is the geopolitical alignment. Moreover, in our campaign, we were very, very clear on three main points. One, the economic pillar. We talked about cutting public spending, and I would make my appearances with a chainsaw.

01:33:15 Speaker_01
We talked about economic freedom, deregulation, that is, and I talked about a competition of currencies, and people, you know, obviously were interested in the dollar. So it was obvious that the economic policy was clear, all right?

01:33:28 Speaker_01
And not only was it clear, but we are also fulfilling it. That is the first point. Second was our policy on security. The idea being to fight crime, I mean, relentlessly as well as security. No mercy, right?

01:33:45 Speaker_01
And in fact, in Argentina, there are no more roadblocks, which they said were impossible to end.

01:33:54 Speaker_01
Not only that, we have strengthened the security forces and also our armed forces, and we are waging a tough battle against drug trafficking and narco-terrorism. Therefore, we are also strongly fulfilling that.

01:34:06 Speaker_01
Notice that these two points, which were the main concerns, they were the biggest concerns of Argentinians. when we took office are now in fifth and sixth place.

01:34:16 Speaker_01
Today, the problem for Argentinians is corruption, whether there is unemployment, if there is poverty, but they don't mention inflation and insecurity anymore.

01:34:27 Speaker_01
And besides, a third point that I made clear was that I would align with the United States and Israel internationally. And at my campaign rallies, there would be groups that would come along with flags of Israel,

01:34:43 Speaker_01
So it's clear that our international policy approach was always very clear and this is something I state during my speeches when I talk about the values of the West and the civilization of the West. In fact, yesterday, and even more so today.

01:35:04 Speaker_01
During my speeches, I talked about how the different Greek groups or tribes go together to confront the Persians. That is to say, it seemed that from that time 500 years before Christ until today, that struggle continues, right? But well, so of course,

01:35:32 Speaker_01
We're all in. We are betting on the United States becoming, once again, a leader in the West. We needed someone to come back to make America great again. And as part of that process, being a commercial ally is also a great idea.

01:35:56 Speaker_01
So we would really like to move forward and deepen our trade ties and our investment ties, you know? And well, we would also like to be part of the NATO as well.

01:36:09 Speaker_00
Do you think it's still possible? One of the radical ideas you had as you were running for president was to dollarize the Argentine economy. Do you think that's still a good idea? Are you still thinking about that? Let's see. Let's break it down.

01:36:24 Speaker_01
Let's say I If you review all my statements, I talk about currency competition. I'm not strictly talking about dollarization. I'm talking about currency competition and eliminating the central bank.

01:36:41 Speaker_01
If people later decide to embrace the dollar, that is their choice. Ultimately, in the model I propose, what happens is the formation of a currency basket tailored to the needs of individuals. But, I won't avoid the discussion.

01:36:58 Speaker_01
Today there is currency competition. If, for instance, today in Argentina you wanna make transactions in any currency, you can do it, and it's allowed. Today there is currency competition.

01:37:09 Speaker_01
The other thing we talk about is the concept of, let's suppose we were discussing dollarization, we talk about endogenous dollarization. The first point is that you need to clean up the central bank.

01:37:23 Speaker_01
We had to deal with the issue of the CIRA, that is the central bank's commercial debt, which was $50 billion. We still have to resolve the dividend problem of $10 billion.

01:37:32 Speaker_01
And in the meantime, we did a write-off and cleaned up the central bank's balance sheet by $45 billion.

01:37:40 Speaker_01
So you can't just close the central bank if it is bankrupt because you need to redeem the whole central bank debt, which is about the issuing of money and the interest bearing liabilities.

01:37:50 Speaker_01
So once we finished with the interest bearing liabilities, it'll leave us with the monetary base.

01:37:57 Speaker_01
Therefore, today we have a regime where the amount of money is fixed, the monetary base is not growing, and as demand for money increases since people can use dollars, they don't need to go and sell the dollars and make the peso appreciate, but they can do transactions in dollars.

01:38:16 Speaker_01
So as the economy grows, you will have a greater share of dollars relative to pesos.

01:38:22 Speaker_01
And at some point, the amount of pesos compared to the dollars will be so huge, relatively, that closing down the central bank will be done easily, which means this is working.

01:38:36 Speaker_01
Of course, if you were to give me the money right now, I would go ahead and dollarize. I'd have no problem with that.

01:38:45 Speaker_01
For example, I did have a proposal for this and this could have worked because the bonds, because the largest creditor of the Argentine treasury is the central bank. But central bank bond were trading at 20 cents.

01:39:00 Speaker_01
If I had sold those bonds at 20 cents and nowadays, they are trading between 60 and 70 with the whole bunch of Neanderthals that are the opposition. who, besides being ignorant in economics, also have bad intentions, I would be in jail today.

01:39:22 Speaker_00
Let me ask you a very important, difficult question. I'm a huge fan, have been my whole life, of Diego Maradona and Messi. So, who to you is the greatest football player of all time?

01:39:35 Speaker_01
The way I see it, I have seen Maradona play, all right? I saw Maradona play in the past, I used to watch him and I saw him during his last year at Argentino Juniors before Boca Juniors in the year 1980 and I saw him in 81.

01:39:55 Speaker_01
Playing for Boca, I saw him play in the youth selection in Japan in 1979. I truly have immensely enjoyed the talent of Maradona.

01:40:10 Speaker_01
But without a doubt, the best soccer player of all time, not just from Argentina, of all time, even better than Pele, is Messi, of course. There is an article which is quite old already now, titled, Messi is Impossible.

01:40:28 Speaker_01
And it looks at all of the positions a soccer player plays in. That is all positions a soccer player can play in from midfield forward, okay? And the most incredible thing is that Messi is the best in each of those positions.

01:40:53 Speaker_01
You can be the best in one or two positions. You see, Cristiano Ronaldo, for example, was very good in two areas of the game. So much so that he was almost like Messi, but he didn't take part in the rest.

01:41:09 Speaker_01
However, Messi is the best one in all respects, but at that time, of course. Nowadays, you know, he is an older player, right? And...

01:41:23 Speaker_01
And I'm not sure whether he can still keep that performance on all fronts, but honestly, I have never in my life seen a player like Messi. I have never seen no one like him, for real. If you look at the number of goals he scored,

01:41:40 Speaker_01
I correct that, considering the goal average in the days of Pelé. Compared to Messi's golden era and his career now, the number of equivalent goals is much greater than that of Pelé.

01:41:52 Speaker_01
Therefore, without a doubt, Messi is the greatest soccer player of all time. Of all time, no one compares to him.

01:42:01 Speaker_00
But it's not just the numbers or the World Cup win. It's the moments of genius on the field. Messi is unlike any other in that way.

01:42:13 Speaker_01
Messi does things that seem technically impossible. They seem physically impossible. The moves he makes don't respect human logic. It's like watching Usain Bolt run. It doesn't feel possible. He moves in a way that doesn't respect human logic.

01:42:31 Speaker_00
Am I right? Did you watch the 1986 World Cup with Maradona, with the Hand of God, with the game against England? What was that like?

01:42:41 Speaker_01
Oh, yes. I do remember that very well. We watched it in the home of my godfather and saw how he did his gambit and dodged the team, the England team, that was truly, it was absolutely, Absolutely indescribable. There's no way to put it into words.

01:43:08 Speaker_01
It's as if I asked you to describe for me the love you have for your partner. You can't do that, right? I mean, it's something wonderful. You can't describe it. You cannot put it into words. There are things where words, I mean, you know,

01:43:31 Speaker_01
just seem to fail, am I right? I really think that there are times when humans, or some humans, not all of them actually, some humans have the privilege of being able to vibrate closer to God.

01:43:52 Speaker_01
Some Puccini arias, for example, when you listen to them, when you listen to the famous aria from La Rondine or the famous aria from Gianni Schicci. I mean, you get the feeling that he was getting sat dictated by God. How can you put that into words?

01:44:11 Speaker_01
You can't. There's no way you do that. I mean, those moments where we humans are, that we have the privilege, I say it as human beings, right? Because I mean, I'm speaking from that perspective, okay? I say this only as an admirer.

01:44:31 Speaker_01
Some human beings have the ability to vibrate so close to God that you can't describe it, you can only enjoy it. This is why in Judaism, they don't use the name of God, of the creator, because how could you put in words something like that?

01:44:52 Speaker_01
And I believe those are times when Us humans connect closer to the creator and create things. Unique things, you cannot describe them. There are no words to describe that. The only thing you can do is enjoy it and be thankful that you can witness it.

01:45:13 Speaker_00
You were a great footballer yourself in your youth. You were a goalkeeper. Many people would say that's the toughest and the most important position in football.

01:45:23 Speaker_00
Maybe you could speak about that experience, and in general, what's harder, being a goalkeeper or a president? Lovely question.

01:45:32 Speaker_01
Well, indeed. I used to be a goalkeeper, but I'm not so sure about whether I was any good. But the experience of having been a goalkeeper is very valuable.

01:45:51 Speaker_01
First, the goalkeeper is the only player that can use their hands in a certain sector of the pitch, in the area. The other thing is that he's also the only player who dresses differently, right? Moreover, their training is a solitary one.

01:46:17 Speaker_01
And the most important, I mean, it is the very climax, the goal, right? When the goal is called by their team, everyone is celebrating on the other side and the goalkeeper is on his own.

01:46:35 Speaker_01
And at the same time, he is the one who suffers the most when a goal is scored because he gets the direct impact. In fact, when the goalkeeper makes a mistake, it's an own goal. Imagine a teammate scores a wonderful goal like the one Maradona did.

01:46:55 Speaker_01
It's marvelous, and that's just one goal. And imagine the goalkeeper picks up the ball and then if they bring it into the area wrongly, It's like two goals, it's a complete lack of proportion.

01:47:08 Speaker_01
So, therefore, and this, in my opinion, makes goalkeepers have a very strong temperament, right? They are used to being alone, and power is precisely that. Because when you make decisions, you are on your own.

01:47:33 Speaker_01
And not just that, but also when you have a responsibility, like that of a president, when you make a decision, it has an impact on millions of people.

01:47:47 Speaker_01
So just like goalkeepers, if you make a mistake and score an own goal, and in this context, it's negative consequences for millions of people, Therefore, that has been part of the university of life that has given me the tools to be president today.

01:48:06 Speaker_01
That is my training in economics, my training in liberalism, having been a goalkeeper, and also having had a very tough childhood.

01:48:16 Speaker_00
How hard is it? What's been the personal toll of carrying the hope of a nation on your shoulders?

01:48:24 Speaker_01
Well, you know, being defamed, insulted, and attacked every single day. But again, there's no point in life if it's not with freedom.

01:48:38 Speaker_01
So like Sylvester Stallone once said, the secret to life is to carry on in spite of the blows you get, the punches you take.

01:48:49 Speaker_01
And fortunately, we have been able to carry on in spite of the blows, both coming at us from in front and from behind our backs. because it'd have been more honest if we had been attacked directly.

01:49:03 Speaker_01
But well, you know, in Argentina, politics and the mass media, they do love to attack behind your back.

01:49:14 Speaker_00
What role has God played in your life? And who is God?

01:49:21 Speaker_01
Well, faith, I'd say, has been a very fundamental element, you know? And especially in recent times, during which I've become actively involved, particularly in the teachings of Judaism and in the study of the Torah, this has given me a huge,

01:49:54 Speaker_01
let's say a huge background to face the many adversities which I've encountered and had to overcome in the last few years. And as to who God is, he's the creator, the maker, I call him the one.

01:50:11 Speaker_00
What is a better guide for humanity, the invisible hand of the market or the hand of God? They're perfectly in sync. Well, enough. Again, going back to your youth, you're a lead singer in a rock band. Who is the greatest rock star of all time?

01:50:29 Speaker_01
Okay. Well, the way I see it, the most amazing rock singer in history of mankind was definitely Elvis Presley. And my favorite band is the Rolling Stones. So I also greatly admire Mick Jagger, you know?

01:50:51 Speaker_01
And I still have this dream of getting to meet him in person.

01:50:55 Speaker_00
How fun would it be to play together with the Stones?

01:51:02 Speaker_01
That would be a big, big dream. Don't get my hopes up because I set goals and then I go and achieve them.

01:51:12 Speaker_00
Well, I'm close friends with the band that opens for the Stones, so I would love to see this happen. Oh, well, that would be great.

01:51:20 Speaker_01
Or we could also watch the whole concert from the stage. I mean, I can't keep ruining the Rolling Stones' music. I already had a tribute band and did quite a lot of damage to their music.

01:51:33 Speaker_00
How much of your rock star roots define your approach to politics, to life? Do you see yourself as a kind of showman in part? Of course.

01:51:45 Speaker_01
Absolutely. My idea is that when you attend one of our events, it feels like going to a Rolling Stones concert. In fact, in one of my most recent performances at Luna Park, I even had the pleasure of singing in front of 10,000 people. It's on YouTube.

01:52:08 Speaker_01
No, sorry, not on YouTube. It's on my Instagram feed. At that event, I sang a song called Panic Show, and the song starts by saying, hi everybody, I am the lion.

01:52:23 Speaker_00
Your intensity and passion have earned you the nickname El Loco, the madman. Do you think some madness is necessary to challenge the powerful establishment?

01:52:36 Speaker_01
Well, maybe it's a matter of perspective, right? It could be the other way around. That everyone else is crazy by living in a way contrary to the ideas of freedom. And so maybe the sane person who wants to fix that is then considered a madman.

01:52:53 Speaker_01
Anyway, the nickname doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I even enjoy it because I've been called like that since I was 10 years old.

01:53:03 Speaker_01
it's not something that particularly bothers me, you know, because it's a nickname that, well, it has been used for many years, but actually, if I present to you the case of San Martin, when he said he was going to cross the Andes to liberate not only Argentina,

01:53:25 Speaker_01
not only our country, but also Chile and Peru, and people called him crazy. Imagine if you had tried and spoken with, I don't know, with Michelangelo, you would have called him crazy too.

01:53:39 Speaker_01
Or if you had talked to, I don't know, hundreds of people who have changed the world, surely they would have thought that Einstein was crazy and so on, the list would be infinite. So what is the difference between a madman and a genius, success.

01:54:03 Speaker_00
Let me ask you about the market. It's so interesting, from your view of the world, how powerful the market is at figuring out what's best for society. Why do you think the market works so well as a guide for humanity?

01:54:20 Speaker_01
One must first understand what the market is. Simply put, the market is a process of voluntary exchange, where individuals cooperate through the transfer of property rights, in which private property is upheld.

01:54:40 Speaker_01
This is the system that drives the allocation of resources. In essence, socialism, and this is what Mises condemns in his book, Socialism, shows is that without private property, prices cease to exist, and therefore resources are diverted.

01:55:00 Speaker_01
Why don't you think it's the same to make a road of asphalt or gold? Why not make it of gold? Because you have an understanding of economic calculation, you have an idea of prices in your mind.

01:55:11 Speaker_01
So in this context, if there is no private property, there are no prices, and as a result, The free market capitalism, you know, is the best mechanism ever developed by humankind for resource allocation.

01:55:30 Speaker_01
This also implies that markets must be free, free from state intervention, because when the state intervenes, it creates interference. And markets need to allow free entry and exit, what we call competition.

01:55:48 Speaker_01
However, it's better to understand competition in the sense described by Israel Gerstner, one of the foremost figures of the Austrian school, or in the neoclassical framework as William Baumol understood it, which was the concept of free entry and exit in so-called contestable markets.

01:56:06 Speaker_01
And also, let's talk about what pertains to the division of labor and social cooperation. You know, the most wonderful thing about capitalism is that you can only be successful by serving others with better quality goods at a better price.

01:56:24 Speaker_01
If you are successful, In the free market capitalism, you are a hero. You are a social benefactor. You are a prosperity machine. So the better you do, you know, the better you do, the better it is for society. This is very important.

01:56:42 Speaker_01
I remember when I had my first meeting with Elon Musk, and this made me admire him greatly. And this is something my sister commented on too, you know? Elon Musk told me something he does every day.

01:56:57 Speaker_01
He wakes up every morning thinking about what problem he could fix for humanity. That's amazing. Of course, what is the counterpart? Being successful. Therefore, in that sense, and moreover, in my view, on how the system works,

01:57:22 Speaker_01
on how the market works, market failures do not exist. That is to say, that is a problem, all right? A problem for neoclassical economies because of the mathematical tools they've used to develop economic analysis, but actually,

01:57:43 Speaker_01
It's not a real issue in everyday life. It's a problem in the minds of economists. In fact, my latest book called Capitalism, Socialism, and the Neoclassical Trap deals precisely with this issue.

01:57:56 Speaker_00
Yeah, you've outlined these ideas in Capitalism, Socialism, and then Neoclassical Trap. So the trap is that there's no such thing as a middle ground. It's either capitalism or socialism, and every middle ground ends up in a state of socialism.

01:58:12 Speaker_01
Well, actually that is what Mises said, that there were, he said that there are only two systems, free enterprise capitalism and socialism. And he also pointed out,

01:58:27 Speaker_01
And this is proven in Hayek's book, The Road to Serfdom, that any middle ground solution is unstable in terms of capitalism, meaning it tends towards socialism.

01:58:37 Speaker_01
So when you implement an intervention, it causes government failure, which then triggers further intervention, setting up a trap that results in more and more intervention.

01:58:47 Speaker_01
And in this context, the neoclassicals with their market failure theory are in fact dealing with problems that are fundamentally mathematical,

01:58:57 Speaker_01
Rather than making the world a better place, they have, if you will, been instrumental in increasing the levels of intervention. Let me tell you something. Well, you know, I have an economist as chairman of the President's Advisory Council.

01:59:18 Speaker_01
Dr. Damien Radel, who studied here at Harvard University and completed his PhD, was mentored by Kenneth Rogoff, the American economist. And Rogoff has said that Dr. Riedel was his best student.

01:59:38 Speaker_01
Nowadays, we're actually working with Dr. Riedel specifically on all these issues that arise from, you know, the interventions proposed by the by the mainstream, such as the so-called correction of market failures.

02:00:02 Speaker_01
And a few days ago, he conducted a survey of search algorithms and policy recommendations. And that resulted in a map painted from red to blue. And well, The redder it was, the more it was linked to socialism.

02:00:27 Speaker_01
There was an intermediate thing that was yellow and blue was free market ideas. And one of the things he discovered as part of that graph or chart was that the largest,

02:00:45 Speaker_01
The largest number of policy recommendations, scandalously, are actually left-leaning. So that is the empirical evidence of what I pointed out in the book, capitalism, socialism, and the neoclassical trap.

02:01:03 Speaker_00
You mentioned your four-legged children. What have you learned about life from your dogs?

02:01:11 Speaker_01
Well, from my four-legged children, I have learned unconditional love. In fact, well, my name in Hebrew means loyal friend, faithful friend, and on the Chinese horoscope, I am dog. And if there's one thing that defines me is loyalty being decent.

02:01:40 Speaker_01
And those virtues, you know, You can find them in those wonderful beings that dogs are who love unconditionally. In fact, they are superior beings, right? Spiritually speaking, in my case, because I don't forget or forgive those who have harmed me.

02:02:07 Speaker_01
That is to say, all those who have insulted, defamed me and criticized me, I remember each one of them, but I don't have the greatness needed to forgive them.

02:02:21 Speaker_00
On the topic of loyalty in politics, I'm sure there's been a lot of people, some people who have betrayed you. Does that hurt your heart?

02:02:34 Speaker_01
It depends. Because, uh, You sometimes think that you can expect some people to be loyal, and if they betray you, of course, that hurts.

02:02:53 Speaker_01
But some people, you actually don't expect anything from them, so if there's betrayal, I mean, you won't be annoyed or feel bad because you owe it to someone who didn't share your values, but politics does have that, you know?

02:03:11 Speaker_01
Sometimes many of the people you may come across don't have the values you advocate for, but it's cost benefit. You need to let the ship sail on, right? Or would you rather let it sink? That's not my case. I fight until the end.

02:03:30 Speaker_01
There are traitors, but that's part of politics. And that's not my line, but of course they do exist.

02:03:41 Speaker_00
There are a lot of people who admire your revolutionary spirit. What advice would you give them, maybe young people, on how to live a life like yours and have an impact on the world like you have begun to do?

02:03:57 Speaker_01
I didn't do this thinking about having an impact on the world. I have defined what makes me happy and I live according to that. I live consistently by that. And most importantly, I would say never give up. Moreover, and above all, never be half-hearted.

02:04:28 Speaker_01
I would rather cry because I failed rather than not crying because I never tried. I mean, I'm a perfectionist, so when I do err, of course, I have a bad time. But still, I prefer to go and get things done.

02:04:53 Speaker_01
If it goes wrong, it's part of life, but I will never, never have to regret not having done what I thought needed to be done at that moment, all right?

02:05:07 Speaker_00
What gives you hope about the future of Argentina and the future of humanity?

02:05:13 Speaker_01
Well, the fact that thanks to social media and to the whole tech revolution going on, every day more and more people are becoming aware of how important freedom is to live, to live in peace and prosperity.

02:05:37 Speaker_01
And I believe even though bureaucrats and the elites fight untiringly to enslave us, a wave of freedom has been unleashed, which if we do wage the fight, we'll have a much better world.

02:05:59 Speaker_00
What does your famous words of viva la libertad, how did that come about and what does it mean to you? Long live freedom, damn it.

02:06:09 Speaker_01
You know, that first started while I was giving my book presentations, at the end of my presentation, I would say, viva la libertad, carajo. And that really stuck with me since then.

02:06:26 Speaker_01
Without thinking about it, throughout my life, it was going to continue being present. In fact, today, my presentations, all of my speeches end with, may God bless the Argentinians, may the forces of heaven be with us, and viva la libertad, Carajo.

02:06:48 Speaker_01
The first phrase reflects my faith in God fervently. and that I'm deeply thankful to the creator for the wonderful things he has bestowed upon me daily.

02:07:05 Speaker_01
The second one has to do with a quote from the book of Maccabees 3.19, which says that victory in battle doesn't depend on the size of the army, but on the forces of heaven.

02:07:17 Speaker_01
This has to do with the victory of the Jewish people, the Maccabeans against the Greeks and how they recovered the temple And the last one, well, is my war cry.

02:07:32 Speaker_00
Well, there's no better way to end it. Thank you for being a warrior for freedom. And thank you for talking today.

02:07:39 Speaker_01
Thank you very much indeed for your interview. And thank you for being so well educated because very often interviewers are not like that. And you did have windows to play foul and you didn't. And I recognize that. And I thank you for that. Thank you.

02:07:56 Speaker_00
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Javier Mele. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from George Orwell.

02:08:07 Speaker_00
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Thank you for listening. I hope to see you next time.