Argentina's Presidential Front Runner Vows To Slash Science Funding (nature.com) 151
Javier Milei, the current front runner for president of Argentina, pledged to eliminate government spending on research and shut down the country's main science agency, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), which provides funding for about 12,000 researchers at 300 institutions across the country. The libertarian candidate has said that shutting down CONICET, with its $400 million budget, could help to end Argentina's fiscal crisis. Martin De Ambrosio and Fermin Koop report via the scientific journal Nature: Milei is a relative newcomer to Argentine politics, having become a lawmaker in the lower chamber of the country's Congress only in 2021. Previously, he was an economic adviser to firms including Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, which manages airports in the country. He has also won notoriety as a guest on talk shows discussing economics and his services as a tantric sex coach. His rise was precipitated by eight years of economic turmoil in Argentina: the country owes billions to creditors such as the International Monetary Fund; annual inflation has reached more than 120%; and 40% of the population is living in poverty.
To tame the crisis, Milei has proposed not only privatizing science, but also closing the environment and health ministries, and abolishing the current public-health and education systems. The anti-establishment politician has even floated the idea of allowing people to sell their own organs for profit. On environmental issues, he is equally provocative, calling climate change "a socialist hoax," and saying that a company should be able to pollute a river as it sees fit. "From his perspective, any regulatory intervention by the state represents an attack against market freedom and, therefore, against individual freedom," says Maristella Svampa, a sociologist at the CONICET-funded Center for Documentation and Research of Left-Wing Culture in Buenos Aires.
Milei has tapped into the public's angst. He is currently leading the polls, although electoral experts don't necessarily trust the figures, and his competitors still hope to win the upper hand. [...] If Milei becomes president, say sources who spoke to Nature, researchers will leave the country to seek jobs. They will be able to make a living elsewhere because they are talented, [says Jorge Aliaga, a physicist at Hurlingham National University in Buenos Aires]. But "losing scientists is a problem for the country." Because of economic crises that have long dogged Argentina, brain drain is a regular threat. Hyperinflation in the late 1980s and a banking crisis in 2001 drove thousands of scientists to seek work in Europe and the United States. Even so, Argentina still has one of the best ratios of researchers to inhabitants in Latin America, Aliaga says. In 2014, for instance, it had about 1,200 researchers for every one million inhabitants. By contrast, Brazil had about 890 for every one million people. "In that sense, Argentina has better numbers than Brazil and Mexico," Aliaga adds.
To tame the crisis, Milei has proposed not only privatizing science, but also closing the environment and health ministries, and abolishing the current public-health and education systems. The anti-establishment politician has even floated the idea of allowing people to sell their own organs for profit. On environmental issues, he is equally provocative, calling climate change "a socialist hoax," and saying that a company should be able to pollute a river as it sees fit. "From his perspective, any regulatory intervention by the state represents an attack against market freedom and, therefore, against individual freedom," says Maristella Svampa, a sociologist at the CONICET-funded Center for Documentation and Research of Left-Wing Culture in Buenos Aires.
Milei has tapped into the public's angst. He is currently leading the polls, although electoral experts don't necessarily trust the figures, and his competitors still hope to win the upper hand. [...] If Milei becomes president, say sources who spoke to Nature, researchers will leave the country to seek jobs. They will be able to make a living elsewhere because they are talented, [says Jorge Aliaga, a physicist at Hurlingham National University in Buenos Aires]. But "losing scientists is a problem for the country." Because of economic crises that have long dogged Argentina, brain drain is a regular threat. Hyperinflation in the late 1980s and a banking crisis in 2001 drove thousands of scientists to seek work in Europe and the United States. Even so, Argentina still has one of the best ratios of researchers to inhabitants in Latin America, Aliaga says. In 2014, for instance, it had about 1,200 researchers for every one million inhabitants. By contrast, Brazil had about 890 for every one million people. "In that sense, Argentina has better numbers than Brazil and Mexico," Aliaga adds.
And with that (Score:3, Funny)
Republicans have found a new house speaker.
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I know you're joking, but I'd take Javier Milei over any of the clowns in our Congress.
Even cutting the science spending makes sense in context. Argentina is broke. They need to cut almost everything.
When the lifeboat is sinking, it's not the time to make long-term investments.
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Plus the government grant model is completely broken.
Instead of Physicists we wind up with Dark Matter Theorists, or whatever Current Thing is, except they lobby to keep Current Thing for the entire length of their careers.
The grants around Alzheimer's have stolen billions in fraud, which didn't go to legitimate research, so people will die because of the corruption.
We need to reboot how science is funded.
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Point proven. All the usual conservative morons replying.
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Well then, got any suggestions but "throw out the baby with the bathwater"?
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Well then, got any suggestions but "throw out the baby with the bathwater"?
Sure. But first, you need to understand why the current system is broken. Researchers spend way too much time writing proposals, chasing funding, trying to get published, and way too little time actually doing research. When the research is done, it is often inaccessible, sitting behind paywalls, or even unpublished. Negative results are rarely published, and there is way too little incentive to do reproducibility studies. Finally, most research is useless drek, read by nobody, especially actual practitione
Re:And with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, the current system is broken. I grant anything and everything you want.
Now for the improved system. Let's see...
What there should be more of is incentives for results rather than upfront funding.
So... you first have to secure funding, then if you're successful, we pay for it. You know how you secure funding from investors? By writing proposals and selling your idea to them. That part won't change. Actually, it's likely you'll spend even more time running door to door trying to find a sponsor. And in the end, you might actually end up with less innovation instead of more because some companies might actually have a vested interest in you not discovering a more efficient, cheaper or more environmentally friendly way of doing something because they already corner the market with their existing technology and they would actually pay you to sit on your ass and do nothing because that's more profitable for them.
Of course not without first patenting the shit out of your idea so nobody else can implement it either.
Why would a company that makes millions with their current technology in solar panels or batteries, where they have an edge over the competition because they have years of experience with it and optimized the production process, want to let you ruin their profits by leveling the playing field?
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Just because some one doesnt have better ideas doesnt mean their critique of bad ideas is incorrect or invaluable.
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It doesn't make the critique invalid, but it also means that until someone offers a better alternative, or at least an alternative, whether it's better or not may be up for debate, the old proposal is still unchallenged. So yes, his critique of my critique is valid, I didn't offer a better solution.
I offered him an alternative now.
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I just dont think a person should ever have to put forth a superior proposal to critique something. Pointing out the flaws of an idea has value all on its own as it brings people back to the drawing board to try to create something better rather push forward with something that's not a good idea. A plan cant be improved if no one is aware it has problems!
Even if in the end a bad plan is the best that can be come up with at least everyone will be aware of the plan's flaws which is bound to be helpful.
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It depends mostly on whether what you point out is something nobody else noticed. If it is, yes, it's sensible.
Pointing out that "people abuse social services" or "grant money is handed to ridiculous projects" is not likely something nobody noticed before. It's actually likely that everyone knows that already, the problem is that nobody managed to find a sensible solution to the problem that doesn't make the problem actually worse. So if you want to point out something that everyone already knows without of
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I dunno, I just didnt think there was anything wrong with you pointing out that their solution did nothing to solve the problem even if you didnt mention a better one. Basically, why change things if the problem is going to stay exactly the same? The need for researchers to "spend way too much time writing proposals, chasing funding, trying to get published, and way too little time actually doing research" (as they stated) to get a research project going doesnt change one little bit with the government goin
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Just because a system is not working perfectly it doesn't mean that change will improve it. Some things are just as good as they get. In this case, yes, some review would probably be sensible because it does look like quite a few grants are handed to "friends", which in some more honest jurisdictions would be called corruption. So that should be addressed. How about publishing what (public) grants are handed to what studies, what institutes and universities are sponsoring this and what happens with the mone
Re:And with that (Score:4, Informative)
The DARPA Grand Challenge is a great example of what can happen by flipping the funding. After 20 years of stagnation, the Grand Challenge got fast and actionable results in just two years.
Well, no, this flat out isn't true.
The DARPA grand challenge was won for the first time in 2005. That was a time of massive developments and advancements in computer vision, a huge number of which were nothing to do with the challenge. The DARPA grand challenge also brought in vast amounts of funding from non DARPA sources. Just look at the massive list of sponsors for the winning teams.
Just look at the kinds of relevant things which were published around 2005 or so, many of them nothing to do with the grand challenge.
Not going to knock either the challenge or any of the teams involved, but you have way overestimated its importance.
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It's also worth noting that the DARPA Grand Challenge, after the first year wiping out 100% of the competitors, got a great deal easier. So most of the problem space was eliminated.
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That too! And of course the people who did it the first year had to find that money from somewhere.
Not too dis it though, the 2005 entries were impressive and I didn't think they'd do it. It did show what's possible by integrating all the latest tech really well.
Re: And with that (Score:2)
Should they legalize drugs, prostitution, euthanasia, gambling, and homelessness too?
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Euthanasia is legal in Canada, called MAID.
Being extended this year to mental health and next year to children.
Drugs are being legalised accross the West.
Prostitution is ignored.
Gambling is generaly legalised.
Homelessness is expanding in the US at speeds not seen for decades. (San Fran poop patrol anyone?)
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... (San Fran poop patrol anyone?)
Houston and Midlands too
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Immorality abounds! It sounds like we need moral panic!
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Are you asking on behalf of the party of small government?
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As a small-l libertarian (IE I'm not a fundamentalist/extremist, and often trend more "practical minarchist"), I can see having legal frameworks for all of those.
Legalize drugs: The war on drugs has proven to be an utter failure; stop throwing good money after bad, take a step back and maybe treat it as a medical issue. It has worked as a mitigation strategy for countries that have decriminalized. Note: "mitigation" means that you acknowledge that there are still bad effects, just that the bad effects o
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The problem is that treating drugs as criminal exacerbates the underlying social issues, plus adds an incentive for criminals to get involved and greatly increases their revenues which in turns increases their power and influence. So you end up with a negative feedback loop.
If you legalize you can mitigate some of the problems and by taxing the sources (the drugs) you can also defray the costs of dealing with the social consequences, and reduce some of the negative health side-effects by ensuring quality of
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Are you looking forward to seeing the Mayor of New York City leading the Junkie Pride Parade through Times Square?
Will the gamblers, druggies and prostitutes get a stripe on the pride flag, or do they get their own flag?
Why do they even need a flag? Drug users, for example, are apparently 30% of the country. Prostitution is a job. Gamblers is probably up there with the 30%.
Are you looking forward to the anti-discrimination laws to prevent you from firing or refusing to hire people who come to work loaded?
Slippery slope dude. Note that I said "treat as a medical issue". Also, as a libertarian leaning individual, the government stepping in to tell you that you can't fire somebody would be illegitimate interference. Employers shouldn't be told by
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Prostitution and gambling kept Nevada afloat when the silver ran out.
At one point there was talk of disbanding it as a state.
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Should they legalize drugs, prostitution, euthanasia, gambling, and homelessness too?
Homelessness isn't a crime in most places.
But for the others, yes, they should be legal and regulated.
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Don't forget indentured servitude.
Re: And with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Should they legalize drugs,
Yes. The war on drugs has been an unmitigated failure.
prostitution,
Yes. Of course.
euthanasia,
Why on earth not? If, for example, Alzheimers looms in my life, I do not want to stick it out to the end when every part of my mind and personality is burned away leaving behind a rotting shell.
gambling,
Isn't that legal most places?
and homelessness too?
what kind of barbaric place makes it illegal to be too poor?
One of these is not like the others (Score:2)
Yes, yes, no, yes, yes.
If you're by chance talking about killing yourself with your own medication. I will remind you that killing yourself with your very own for other use everyday medication is just an internet search away. No barbiturates needed. (Legally obtained of course, but that would be your point, no?)
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Eliminate the military?
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Eliminate the military?
Sure. Costa Rica eliminated their military and used the money for education and healthcare. They are happy with the result.
List of countries without armed forces [wikipedia.org]
Re: And with that (Score:1)
A lot of things we do, we do because we can (Score:2, Insightful)
Not everyone can.
Papua New Guinea has no business spending public money on a space program. The Central African Republic ought to refrain from spending public money on theoretical physics. Ukraine has more important things to be doing right now than spending public money on speculative gene therapy techniques.
Similarly, perhaps a 100%-plus official inflation rate is a sign that Argentina ought to forgo some nice things now in exchange for sounder finances later.
Need to Maintain Balance (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure austerity is the solution here (Score:2)
What I can tell though
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Well austerity doesn't seem to be a solution anywhere because the main piece of research that supported it was based on bad math:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine... [www.cbc.ca]
Implemented measures certainly haven't propelled countries like Greece or Italy to become EU economic superstars.
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Or the UK. 13 years of austerity has meant 13 years of decline.
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Did you read the article you linked to?
It states that, yes, there was an error in the math but after fixing the error the results were the same.
Implemented measures certainly haven't propelled countries like Greece or Italy to become EU economic superstars.
There is this notion that a lot of people have that an economy moves like a person walking. As soon as a direction is changed the effects will be immediate. In reality a country's economy is like a supertanker. It takes time to move or change direction. Greece's implemented measures have turned the country around. It will be one of the better performers in the EU e
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Austerity fixes an economy in the same way your vet fixes your pet.
Thus proving that libertarians are imbeciles. (Score:5, Insightful)
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But on economics they are Nucking Futs. I always get a kick out of when they say "good ideas don't require force" when they'll be the first ones to enforce their property rights if you were to, say, sign a lease to rent some of their property and then decide it's a good idea to not pay them the agreed amount.
Libertarians tend to favor free trade (the single largest producer of wealth the world has ever known) and use property rights to adjudicate things like pollution. Good ideas do not require force to get the governed to accept them but they may involve the use of force as part of the idea, for example: self-defense requires the use of force against the aggressor or preventing robbery might require use of force on the robber. Conflating of the two ideas is not helpful, unless it's simply to take a cheap shot.
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The reason why you do need a government for this is because you need to maintain some kind of registries of who actually owns what,
Strangely, many countries survived without such registries for centuries. In the UK, the land registry wasn't created until 1862 and registration was voluntary. Even now, there are many properties that are not registered.
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Libertarians do nothing about any of that. It's just rhetoric. Their only real priorities are cutting rich people's taxes and reducing regulations on business, with a subset of racists who use libertarianism as a fig leaf for a Neo-Confederate agenda. Any libertarian who thoroughly believes in what they say and yet still associates with the Libertarian Party is just a fool wit
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"That's libertarians for you -- anarchists who want police protection from their slaves." -Kim Stanley Robinson
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You seem to lack the capacity of making a distinction between forcing ideas on others and protecting people from bad actors.
researchers ratio (Score:2)
I am not dissing any Argentinian researchers .. but a raw measure like researcher ratio is stupid. What kinds of research are they doing, how impactful? Are they being properly funded? Those are the things we should look at.
CONICET is a money sink (Score:2, Informative)
Granted, Argentina had its share of Nobel Prizes (e.g., Leloir and Houssay), but now CONICET, with a staff of over 30K, is a massive bureaucracy giving grants to some of the most bizarre research, which is questionable for a developing country. This is a sample:
Title: "Sexualities, Bodies and Love Stories in Romantic Music: Configuration of Gender Identities in a Ricardo Arjona Fan Club"
From the description:
"This work shall perform an analysis on two planes of the Ricardo Arjona figure both as a product of
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How much was the grant for that?
Re: CONICET is a money sink (Score:3)
Or this research paper that analyzes comics from an anal perspective (whatever that means): https://ri.conicet.gov.ar/hand... [conicet.gov.ar]
Seriously though, itâ(TM)s really not about shutting down science but shutting down political funding facades.
certified nutcase (Score:2)
if you remember Pinochet's Chile, you haven't seen nothing yet...
this dude needs to be committed to an asylum for the good of society
Ah (Score:2, Insightful)
His rise was precipitated by eight years of economic turmoil in Argentina: the country owes billions to creditors such as the International Monetary Fund; annual inflation has reached more than 120%; and 40% of the population is living in poverty.
Ah.
So the sane, scientific, professional Argentine politicians - all wearing red rubber noses and floppy pants - are all like: "who let this clown in here"?
Sounds familiar ...
Has anyone told him how much public schools cost? (Score:3)
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You want to kill a county (Score:2)
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The country is already on its deathbed.
Cutting out the cancer, or maybe a better analogy, taking out half the liver, so it grows back strong, is a valid strategy.
Agree (Score:4, Insightful)
Normally I'm very pro-science and research, but if 40% of the population is below the poverty line I don't think their economy has sufficient extra funds to pursue scientific discovery. Get your basics back in order and restore funding when the economy is in better shape.
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The problem with that is that if you don't do research, your competitor countries will hold all the patents and therefore all the money. You can't ever budget cut your way to financial security.
Balance (Score:2)
The problem with that is that if you don't do research, your competitor countries will hold all the patents and therefore all the money. You can't ever budget cut your way to financial security.
That only makes sense if engineering and patents are large industries in your country. Argentina's main exports are agricultural, ore, and outsourced manufactured goods for the South American market. When your country is broke, you have double digit inflation, and you are deficit spending on programs with no significant economic benefit, you cut those programs. You can re-instate those programs, if you want, when the economy has stabilized.
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I agree about cutting Science / R&D when you can't afford it.
But the rest?
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To tame the crisis, Milei has proposed not only privatizing science, but also closing the environment and health ministries, and abolishing the current public-health and education systems. The anti-establishment politician has even floated the idea of allowing people to sell their own organs for profit. On environmental issues, he is equally provocative, calling climate change "a socialist hoax," and saying that a company should
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I sympathise with Argentina (Score:5, Interesting)
But I disagree with this approach. Argentina is poor because it is a hotbed of corruption, with very rich, powerful, families controlling the wealth and the real politics. That needs to be cleaned up. Simply giving them more money won't solve anything, it'll only make a bad situation worse.
Increasing pollution won't help matters, either. If you destroy the natural world, you're (a) eliminating species that are highly useful for our survival, and (b) polluting an environment from which we get our resources. (Contaminated water and polluted air damage health and damage intellect, both of these damage the productivity of the nation and increase the costs because your workforce will be alive for less time.)
Eliminating science isn't going to have the impact that is claimed. Science is where you get patents and patents mean money. If you're basically giving your competing nations carte blanche to own all the patents, then you're basically funding those other nations with your tax money. That's... not bright. Furthermore, science is where you get innovative products, which are also a significant source of income. Letting rival nations do all the innovation means letting rival nations claim all of the profits.
I can sympathise with Argentinians wanting something different, but absolute purist libertarianism is a path to economic disaster, just as absolute purist following of any doctrine is a path to economic disaster. There's a reason all the rich companies mix and match their approaches according to the situation and why those rich nations suffer hardship when they forget this and follow ideology over and above rationality.
Make Argentina Religious Again (Score:2)
I guess with science out of the way, the people of Argentina truly can turn to religion for all their daily needs. From medicine, to healthcare, to HVAC, to plumbing, religion has you covered. As simple as some thoughts and prayers, your life in Argentina will be transformed to the likes that you've never seen before since the time Jesus walked the face of the earth.
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I pray every day that God will oscillate electrons inside these copper wires so that I may boil water for my coffee in the morning. Praise Skyfather!
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LOL!!!!!!! Oh man that was good, hahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Makes sense (Score:2)
Great short term planning. Let the long process of rebuilding your science and research organizations be a problem for a later date.
What else might possibly work? (Score:2)
I dunno, how 'bout something wild and crazy, like taxing the fuck out of the wealthy?
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Argentina has a big problem with argentinian capital on tax havens.
If you steal from people they start hiding the cash. That's a natural consequence if you think about it. Rather than try to find the last cash-stash of the .001% why not just embrace free market principles, increase economic freedom, and create a larger tax base instead (also known as "make everyone rich" [omniawealth.com]) ?
I read that the Argentine government wants to tax something like $100B USD [reuters.com] worth of offshore tax haven money. However, the government is running well over a $350B USD YoY deficit. [economy.com] So, even if the money
Australian podcast on this topic (Score:2)
The "If You're Listening" podcast did an episode [youtube.com] (visuals 100% optional) on Argentina's economy and Javier Milei recently. It's very accessible, mildly entertaining, and well-worth a listen.
Basically Argentina's economy was ruined by short-sighted populists back in the 60s (Evita and her husband), and it's been see-sawing between populist and austerity policies ever since.
Milei's economic policy may be necessary. His social policies are pretty horrid though. It's pretty hard to agree with "legalising selli
Re:Name last innovation you remember from Argentin (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an economist friend who told me there are three places that fascinate economists: Japan, Kerala, and Argentina.
Japan was the first non-Western country to become a developed country. Others followed, including Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong, but Japan was first.
Kerala has high education, long life expectancy, low corruption, and all the other characteristics of a developed country, yet is dirt poor.
Argentina is fascinating because it is the only 3rd world country that used to be a 1st world country.
Re: Name last innovation you remember from Argenti (Score:5, Insightful)
Any country is just a few consequential decisions away from pissing away its wealth and turning into yet another 3rd world country that used to be a 1st world country.
Cambodia is an excellent example: it was poor before the Khmer Rouge, but moreso after. Venezuela too. Not but 15 years ago they were still plugged in to the rest of the world and attracting investment. Never assume it can't happen here just because we speak English.
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Japan is a colony? Stop taking drugs.
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> Kerala has high education, long life expectancy, low corruption, and all the other characteristics of a developed country, yet is dirt poor.
If that were true, then all the people from other parts of India would have moved there long ago.
They just doctored the statistics or had stupidly thrown everything into meeting some meaningless targets like standardized tests in education or similar crap. See Goodhart's Law [wikipedia.org]. I've read somewhere that a country of infinitely rich illiterate immortals would have a HD
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Japan is also the leading edge of an aging population.
Much of what they're dealing with economically will happen to the rest of the developed world, so what works for Japan is very relevant.
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Give back taxes? Oh that’s a good one. You think the people will see any of that money? I’ll give the money back, you can trust me!
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Trump played people like you for suckers, and this guy is doing the same.
Just saying whatever sticks, like getting you surprised about his varied beliefs, none of which you're able to verify whether it's his real belief, or just words.
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You defined populism well. And it works just as well all over the globe.
Yeah, it's true, communism was the dictatorship of the proletariat, democracy is being turned into the dictatorship of the proles.
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a company should be able to pollute a river as it sees fit.
You also want this?
If you like what this guy is selling, how about you show us how to live in your libertarian wonderland of polluted water.
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By cutting off the blood flow?
Dude, putting on a tourniquet is a good idea, but not when your patient has a head wound!
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A better example of this idiocy is calling President Obama an Islamic Socialist lead-from-behind empty-suit dictator anti-christ who brought Sharia law to the U.S..
Obama is not a Muslim. At best, he is an ex-Muslim, and it's well known that ex-Muslims are the worst enemies of Islam.
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He is creating a new Ministry, the Ministry of Human Capital. Includes the right to quality education, food if a child is malnourished and health. But it is all merit based and preparing people to be free, productive and to pursue their dreams.
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"human capital" has all the red flags of fascism showing up in 2 words... you are to be a numbered slave worker belonging to the (preferably US) multinationals this nutcase CIA operative intends to sell the country too...
Argentina is going to become Pinochet's Chile squared
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Yeah, because Argentina never had any problems with dictatorships before.
Argentina already was Chile squared.
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is willing to risk it all to see them through
Is willing to risk everyone and everything except himself to see it through.
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Don't forget that assassination is an active thing down there right now. He's definitely risking himself.
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Re:A true Libertarian (Score:4, Insightful)
And if his policies piss people off, he might end up eating a bullet or case of them.
I'm not seeing how he's not going to be affected by them.
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Ecuador is further away from Argentina than Ukraine is from Italy. I don't see many Italians worry about a Russian invasion either.
Just because something happens in a country "somewhere in the area" doesn't mean it will happen where you live. Twice so if it's a totally different country.
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"Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
Argentina may become a cautionary tale of a country. Many years from now, they may be setting university essays - 'in less than 5000 words explain problems resulting from shutting down a number of essential government functions using Argentina 2024 - [whenever that guy ends up being kicked out] as an example'. Very useful for sociologists and economists, very good for the political opponents of libertarian politicians in other countries who may
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I think they'd go a step further and fund some voodoo pseudoscience with it. You know, to "study the controversy".
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