I know that political topics are not suitable for HN.
But, as an Argentinian, I’d like to clarify that this financial rescue is intended for Milei.
We will have midterm elections soon, and the government is doing whatever it can to keep the USD exchange rate down so it doesn’t impact inflation and public perception. But this type of “rescue” is a band-aid, and it’s usually bad in the mid-long term.
In 2018, the IMF took a similar action. They extended the largest loan in their history, to cover bonds and provide some respite to Macri at the onset of an election year.
And if you wonder why this happens, it’s a combination of politicians who put their desire to stay in power over their country, geopolitics (a country in debt with you is easy to control), and high interest rates from high-risk bonds.
Sadly is a cycle repeated over and over in my country. In fact, the economy ministry that we have today it’s the same one involved in the 2018 negotiations with the IMF.
Krugman points out that while Trump may have been sold on this by the idea of bailing out Milei, in reality it’s likely Bessent bailing out his hedge fund friends.
Oh it's mostly just people pointing out that the tariffs caused China to cancel +10B in US soy bean contracts and buy Argentinian soy beans while we're also apparently sending them more tens of billions in bailout because their libertarian/fasc pres couldn't hold it together.
Just in varying wording in threads with varying citations.
> Trevor died from liver disease that would have been preventable if he had had access to health care. But until his dying breath, he agreed with the policies that prevented ACA improvements because he did not want his tax dollars to pay for Mexicans or "welfare queens".
I'm a US medical school drop out that has zero dependants and chooses NOT to pay for health insurance. We should have had single-payer healthcare decades ago...
My plan is to just die once my body eventually gives out. So far, on point.
The nature of human organization and political structure is based on a weighted asymmetry of power where some autonomy is given up in exchange for a greater survive-ability. This is inherent in the basic understanding of the social contract theory.
The structure of the system itself has flaws in the same way, because of that asymmetry, on the positive side it allows someone capable to do great things with the resources available, but equally when you have a rotten cancerous parasitic crop of leaders, it spreads that corruption and toxic love everywhere just like Hexxus as he gets out of the prison.
American's aren't on board when that sacred promise is broken by oathbreakers. It does take time for the abuses to accumulate before a population will be spurned to action, it always happens like this during the fall of empires.
The environment becomes so disadvantaged and rife with abuse that the average person understands that there is no out, you can't get away, there is only through. The same as was brilliant depicted in Andor.
People will starve, but the abuses are necessary to mobilize the population to action. It doesn't happen otherwise because the consequence is too great (existentially so).
Technically, the aid sent to Israel is an American jobs program. The money that is sent there goes directly to the military-industrial complex back in the United States.
But that frees up Israel to do other stuff with the money they would otherwise have spent on the types of military equipment they buy from the US, since the US money doesn't replace Israel's other sources of funding. It does increase Israel's total spending power, even if it also forces some of that spending to go to US vendors.
On the other hand, supporting the weaponmaking sector of the military-industrial complex silos domestic technical talent from otherwise working on problems that don't involve killing other people.
No, it's not. The dollars are simply a proxy for transferring weapons/value for free. If you want a jobs program, create one to build affordable housing, infra., etc., not fight endless wars.
> But the oligarchs and kings need a foreign residence
The political reason is saving the image of corporatism. Argentina under Milei was hyped as the libertarian paradise to happen real soon now. Unfortunately it went down-under even faster, exactly as everyone with a brain expected.
> I just don't understand why so many Americans are on board with this.
Citizens used to mostly talk to each other and make for a slow moving consensus, with a small overton window of broadcast mass media anchoring people to the status quo. Now they have a constant stream of grade A bullshit propaganda pumped into their eyes every time they check their phone, complete with a simulation of social proof as well. Remember the first Trump term when the party of "from my cold dead hands" was enthusiastically cheering on the jackboots for doing the exact type of night time home invasion that runs roughshod over the idea of self defense ? That's the level of extreme cognitive dissonance that social media can support.
I wonder which will turn out to be a better investment for the US government, the Intel stock or the Argentine pesos. I really don’t think I’d care to hazard a guess either way…
Gun to my head, I might actually say Argentina. Countries can’t go bankrupt after all, but shareholders can always get wiped out.
Default isn’t the same as bankruptcy. If it were, Argentina wouldn’t have gotten shafted by Paul Singer or had one of its naval vessels seized on a port visit abroad.
I said countries can’t go bankrupt. You said yes they can, and yes, they can default on their debts. I said default and bankruptcy isn’t the same thing, so a.) being in default doesn’t mean you’re in bankruptcy and b.) as far as I know, there’s no bankruptcy regime for sovereign nations (with the possible exception of PROMESA for Puerto Rico if you squint but that’s probably the exception that proves the rule).
I assume I am misunderstanding something you are saying or we are just talking past each other.
> there’s no bankruptcy regime for sovereign nations (with the possible exception of PROMESA for Puerto Rico if you squint but that’s probably the exception that proves the rule).
Puerto Rico is not sovereign (either in the international sense, or even in the more limited US-specific legal sense that US states are), it is a dependent territory of the United States. PROMESA thus is no more, and aeguably less, of an exception than federal Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy (which applies to agencies, instrumentalities, and subdivisions of states, though not to states as a whole.)
Right, the distinction between Puerto Rico’s status …. whatever it is (yeah, yeah, organized unincorporated possession …. whatever that is) and U.S. states led me to surmise that Puerto Rico is actually slightly more sovereign than a U.S. state particularly in the context of insolvency, since it was granted powers that states lack under Title 11, and does have certain features of self-governance that states lack via the feds. But that was an off-the-cuff comment on my part, and I find your argument compelling.
Countries can default on their obligations or become insolvent, but there’s no sovereign bankruptcy forum for restructuring a country’s debts in an orderly process by which all creditors are bound. That’s the difference between insolvency and bankruptcy.
The rich bank depositors in Cyprus got pretty, pretty wiped out when they bailed-in the banks after the banking system collapsed. Lots of them were Russian oligarchs stashing funds abroad, so my sympathy for them is extremely extremely limited.
Not sure if they were completely wiped out, may be just a fraction of their wealth that did - ex: their insurance policy. The working and poor class have less room to cope for disasters.
All the semantic nonsense aside, the question is whether the U.S. cannot lose money by giving it to Argentina because they cannot go “bankrupt”.
Either the meaning of bankrupt is one which doesn’t apply to countries, in which case it’s a complete red herring to the question of whether an investment in a country can lose money, or we use a looser definition of the term “bankrupt” which the responder generously did that would allow a country to go “bankrupt” and an investment in it could lose money.
Either way, the only useful claim, that the US cannot lose money by investing in Argentina is almost certainly false.
I really would like my tax dollars to fund national parks and put out wildfires, not another nation. Doesn't matter who's in power, they all are terrible.
I know that political topics are not suitable for HN.
But, as an Argentinian, I’d like to clarify that this financial rescue is intended for Milei.
We will have midterm elections soon, and the government is doing whatever it can to keep the USD exchange rate down so it doesn’t impact inflation and public perception. But this type of “rescue” is a band-aid, and it’s usually bad in the mid-long term.
In 2018, the IMF took a similar action. They extended the largest loan in their history, to cover bonds and provide some respite to Macri at the onset of an election year.
And if you wonder why this happens, it’s a combination of politicians who put their desire to stay in power over their country, geopolitics (a country in debt with you is easy to control), and high interest rates from high-risk bonds.
Sadly is a cycle repeated over and over in my country. In fact, the economy ministry that we have today it’s the same one involved in the 2018 negotiations with the IMF.
This is the libertarian guy too, no? So he hard reset the economy, failed (?), and is now getting bailed out by the Americans so he can stay in power?
Why
https://archive.today/949zj
https://x.com/SecScottBessent/status/1976358303098662932 | https://archive.today/Imbkx
https://x.com/JMilei/status/1976367312329380180 | https://archive.today/9aEyd
Traditionally, defending a currency ends up with more defending of the currency. So best of luck to thee messieurs Bessent and Milei.
Krugman points out that while Trump may have been sold on this by the idea of bailing out Milei, in reality it’s likely Bessent bailing out his hedge fund friends.
https://open.substack.com/pub/paulkrugman/p/bailing-out-bess...
Cf GBP exit from the ERM inc Soros
As they've been pointing out: https://bsky.app/search?q=tariffs+argentina+farmers+soy
> Search is currently unavailable when logged out.
Could soneone post a screenshot or a summary, or is this just the same as the topthread archive links?
Oh it's mostly just people pointing out that the tariffs caused China to cancel +10B in US soy bean contracts and buy Argentinian soy beans while we're also apparently sending them more tens of billions in bailout because their libertarian/fasc pres couldn't hold it together.
Just in varying wording in threads with varying citations.
Thanks!
No universal healthcare and college education costs through the roof, but Israel and Argentina getting handouts like it's Xmas day.
Your farmers are collapsing and going bankrupt, your job creation is falling, you are cutting SNAP benefits and billionaires are getting tax breaks.
I just don't understand why so many Americans are on board with this.
The people crowing about states' rights are quick to cheer national guard deployments in cities that didn't vote for the sitting head of state.
The people who shout down calls for student loan forgiveness are in full support of it if it helps ICE hit their recruitment targets.
Why wouldn't those same people, who want international aid to go to zero be fine with a multi billion bailout of a South American country?
America is effectively two different countries at this point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness explained a lot for me.
> Trevor died from liver disease that would have been preventable if he had had access to health care. But until his dying breath, he agreed with the policies that prevented ACA improvements because he did not want his tax dollars to pay for Mexicans or "welfare queens".
I'm a US medical school drop out that has zero dependants and chooses NOT to pay for health insurance. We should have had single-payer healthcare decades ago...
My plan is to just die once my body eventually gives out. So far, on point.
It is hard to describe how misinformed and underinformed so many people are. But mostly just how susceptible they are to obvious propaganda.
The nature of human organization and political structure is based on a weighted asymmetry of power where some autonomy is given up in exchange for a greater survive-ability. This is inherent in the basic understanding of the social contract theory.
The structure of the system itself has flaws in the same way, because of that asymmetry, on the positive side it allows someone capable to do great things with the resources available, but equally when you have a rotten cancerous parasitic crop of leaders, it spreads that corruption and toxic love everywhere just like Hexxus as he gets out of the prison.
American's aren't on board when that sacred promise is broken by oathbreakers. It does take time for the abuses to accumulate before a population will be spurned to action, it always happens like this during the fall of empires.
The environment becomes so disadvantaged and rife with abuse that the average person understands that there is no out, you can't get away, there is only through. The same as was brilliant depicted in Andor.
People will starve, but the abuses are necessary to mobilize the population to action. It doesn't happen otherwise because the consequence is too great (existentially so).
Technically, the aid sent to Israel is an American jobs program. The money that is sent there goes directly to the military-industrial complex back in the United States.
But that frees up Israel to do other stuff with the money they would otherwise have spent on the types of military equipment they buy from the US, since the US money doesn't replace Israel's other sources of funding. It does increase Israel's total spending power, even if it also forces some of that spending to go to US vendors.
On the other hand, supporting the weaponmaking sector of the military-industrial complex silos domestic technical talent from otherwise working on problems that don't involve killing other people.
> The money that is sent there goes directly to the military-industrial complex back in the United States.
So it's a ploy to expand the military budget beyond what was allocated by Congress. Either way, that's a money sink, not an investment.
Reminds me of the AMD <—> OpenAI circular financing.
America has practiced this trick well.
No, it's not. The dollars are simply a proxy for transferring weapons/value for free. If you want a jobs program, create one to build affordable housing, infra., etc., not fight endless wars.
They are not onboard. But the oligarchs and kings need a foreign residence to loot.
> But the oligarchs and kings need a foreign residence
The political reason is saving the image of corporatism. Argentina under Milei was hyped as the libertarian paradise to happen real soon now. Unfortunately it went down-under even faster, exactly as everyone with a brain expected.
> I just don't understand why so many Americans are on board with this.
Citizens used to mostly talk to each other and make for a slow moving consensus, with a small overton window of broadcast mass media anchoring people to the status quo. Now they have a constant stream of grade A bullshit propaganda pumped into their eyes every time they check their phone, complete with a simulation of social proof as well. Remember the first Trump term when the party of "from my cold dead hands" was enthusiastically cheering on the jackboots for doing the exact type of night time home invasion that runs roughshod over the idea of self defense ? That's the level of extreme cognitive dissonance that social media can support.
Solidarity forever.
https://youtu.be/R8eK9ZXf-Ow?si=k6eOTo0YxaGbDyMk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidus_(coin)
I wonder which will turn out to be a better investment for the US government, the Intel stock or the Argentine pesos. I really don’t think I’d care to hazard a guess either way…
Gun to my head, I might actually say Argentina. Countries can’t go bankrupt after all, but shareholders can always get wiped out.
> Countries can’t go bankrupt after all, but shareholders can always get wiped out.
Yes they can, and they can default on their debts. Argentina has defaulted several times:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_debt_restructuring
Default isn’t the same as bankruptcy. If it were, Argentina wouldn’t have gotten shafted by Paul Singer or had one of its naval vessels seized on a port visit abroad.
I didn't say they were the same. Did you read my comment or mean to respond to something else?
I said countries can’t go bankrupt. You said yes they can, and yes, they can default on their debts. I said default and bankruptcy isn’t the same thing, so a.) being in default doesn’t mean you’re in bankruptcy and b.) as far as I know, there’s no bankruptcy regime for sovereign nations (with the possible exception of PROMESA for Puerto Rico if you squint but that’s probably the exception that proves the rule).
I assume I am misunderstanding something you are saying or we are just talking past each other.
> there’s no bankruptcy regime for sovereign nations (with the possible exception of PROMESA for Puerto Rico if you squint but that’s probably the exception that proves the rule).
Puerto Rico is not sovereign (either in the international sense, or even in the more limited US-specific legal sense that US states are), it is a dependent territory of the United States. PROMESA thus is no more, and aeguably less, of an exception than federal Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy (which applies to agencies, instrumentalities, and subdivisions of states, though not to states as a whole.)
Right, the distinction between Puerto Rico’s status …. whatever it is (yeah, yeah, organized unincorporated possession …. whatever that is) and U.S. states led me to surmise that Puerto Rico is actually slightly more sovereign than a U.S. state particularly in the context of insolvency, since it was granted powers that states lack under Title 11, and does have certain features of self-governance that states lack via the feds. But that was an off-the-cuff comment on my part, and I find your argument compelling.
Countries can go bankrupt, it is just not shareholders, but the population that gets wiped out.
Countries can default on their obligations or become insolvent, but there’s no sovereign bankruptcy forum for restructuring a country’s debts in an orderly process by which all creditors are bound. That’s the difference between insolvency and bankruptcy.
Sure terms aside, someone still pays the consequences, just not necessarily the rich.
The rich bank depositors in Cyprus got pretty, pretty wiped out when they bailed-in the banks after the banking system collapsed. Lots of them were Russian oligarchs stashing funds abroad, so my sympathy for them is extremely extremely limited.
Not sure if they were completely wiped out, may be just a fraction of their wealth that did - ex: their insurance policy. The working and poor class have less room to cope for disasters.
All the semantic nonsense aside, the question is whether the U.S. cannot lose money by giving it to Argentina because they cannot go “bankrupt”.
Either the meaning of bankrupt is one which doesn’t apply to countries, in which case it’s a complete red herring to the question of whether an investment in a country can lose money, or we use a looser definition of the term “bankrupt” which the responder generously did that would allow a country to go “bankrupt” and an investment in it could lose money.
Either way, the only useful claim, that the US cannot lose money by investing in Argentina is almost certainly false.
I really would like my tax dollars to fund national parks and put out wildfires, not another nation. Doesn't matter who's in power, they all are terrible.