Javier Milei: President of Argentina - Freedom, Economics, and Corruption

00:00:00.000 | So what is the difference between a madman and a genius?

00:00:05.000 | Success.

00:00:07.820 | - The following is a conversation with Javier Mele,

00:00:13.820 | the president of Argentina.

00:00:16.300 | He is a libertarian, a narco-capitalist, and economist,

00:00:21.220 | who campaigned with a chainsaw that symbolized his promise

00:00:25.720 | to slash the corrupt bureaucracy of the state.

00:00:29.200 | He stepped into the presidency one year ago,

00:00:32.640 | with a country on the brink of hyperinflation,

00:00:34.880 | deep in debt, and suffering

00:00:36.880 | from mass unemployment and poverty.

00:00:39.920 | He took this crisis head on,

00:00:42.040 | transforming one of Latin America's largest economies

00:00:45.460 | through pure free market principles.

00:00:48.680 | In just a few months in office,

00:00:50.600 | he already achieved Argentina's first fiscal surplus

00:00:53.840 | in 16 years, and not just avoided hyperinflation,

00:00:57.760 | but brought inflation down to its lowest in three years.

00:01:02.480 | We'll discuss all of this in detail,

00:01:04.520 | both the successes and the challenges.

00:01:07.200 | His depth of knowledge of economic principles,

00:01:09.920 | metrics, and data was truly impressive,

00:01:12.600 | and refreshing to hear from a world leader.

00:01:15.840 | But even bigger than the economic transformation

00:01:17.880 | of Argentina, Javier represents the universal fight

00:01:22.040 | against government corruption and the fight for freedom,

00:01:25.660 | economic freedom, political freedom,

00:01:27.640 | and freedom of speech.

00:01:29.500 | He has many critics, many of whom are part

00:01:32.280 | of the corrupt establishment he's seeking to dismantle.

00:01:35.680 | But many are simply Argentinian citizens,

00:01:38.560 | scared of the pain his radical policies may bring,

00:01:42.080 | at least in the short term.

00:01:43.660 | But whether one disagrees with his methods or not,

00:01:47.320 | no one can deny that his presidency marks

00:01:50.120 | one of the most ambitious attempts

00:01:52.160 | at economic transformation in modern history,

00:01:54.960 | and that Javier Mele is truly a force of nature,

00:01:58.880 | combining the rigor of an economist

00:02:00.840 | with the passion of a revolutionary

00:02:03.240 | in the fight for freedom of a nation he loves.

00:02:07.680 | Argentina is one of my favorite countries,

00:02:10.200 | so I sincerely hope he succeeds.

00:02:13.540 | This interview was conducted

00:02:15.300 | with the president speaking Spanish and me speaking English

00:02:19.080 | with an interpreter simultaneously translating.

00:02:22.680 | We make the episode available, overdubbed and subtitled

00:02:26.160 | in both English and Spanish,

00:02:27.880 | thanks to our great friends at Eleven Labs.

00:02:31.560 | If you're watching on YouTube,

00:02:32.920 | you can switch between English and Spanish

00:02:34.840 | by clicking the gear icon, selecting audio track,

00:02:37.660 | and then choosing the language.

00:02:39.480 | Same with the captions.

00:02:41.000 | If you're watching on X,

00:02:42.200 | I'll post both Spanish and English versions separately.

00:02:45.520 | If you're watching on Spotify or listening elsewhere,

00:02:48.440 | I'll probably only post the English version.

00:02:50.880 | This is a first time for me doing something like this

00:02:54.220 | in a foreign language.

00:02:55.720 | It was challenging, but illuminating.

00:02:58.440 | I hope to continue talking to many world leaders

00:03:00.880 | for two to three hours in this way,

00:03:02.880 | including Vladimir Zelensky, Vladimir Putin,

00:03:06.120 | Narendra Modi, and Xi Jinping.

00:03:09.720 | I want to explore who they are, how they think,

00:03:13.320 | and how they hope to help their country

00:03:15.440 | and humanity flourish.

00:03:16.840 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:03:19.540 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:03:21.400 | in the description.

00:03:22.680 | And now, dear friends, here's Javier Molay.

00:03:26.240 | When did you first understand the value of freedom,

00:03:30.820 | especially economic freedom?

00:03:32.220 | - Well, actually, I came to understand the ideas of freedom.

00:03:37.940 | As an economic growth specialist

00:03:41.240 | back in the years of 2013 to 2014,

00:03:47.240 | I could see that per capita GDP statistics

00:03:51.020 | over the last 2,000 years of the Christian era

00:03:54.180 | essentially looked like a hockey stick,

00:03:57.740 | indicating that per capita GDP remained almost constant

00:04:02.300 | until around 1800, after which it accelerated sharply.

00:04:07.260 | In the same context of that phenomenal increase

00:04:10.220 | in productivity and per capita GDP,

00:04:14.060 | the population had multiplied sevenfold

00:04:16.940 | over the preceding 200 years.

00:04:20.100 | So basically, in economics,

00:04:22.900 | that means you get increasing returns,

00:04:25.960 | and the presence of increasing returns

00:04:28.460 | implies the existence of monopolies, concentrated structures,

00:04:33.460 | and according to traditional neoclassical economic theory,

00:04:37.900 | the presence of monopolies and concentrated structures

00:04:41.500 | is not a good thing.

00:04:43.780 | But at the same time,

00:04:45.500 | one could see that living standards

00:04:47.540 | had increased tremendously,

00:04:49.860 | and that middle-income people ended up living far better

00:04:53.380 | than emperors did in the Roman era,

00:04:55.980 | and the population had gone from having 95% of people

00:05:01.900 | in extreme poverty to less than 10%.

00:05:06.420 | And in that context, the question was

00:05:08.860 | how it could be that something

00:05:10.380 | that had lifted so many people out of poverty,

00:05:13.500 | that had improved human conditions so much,

00:05:15.900 | could be something bad for economic theory,

00:05:18.580 | meaning something was not right.

00:05:20.740 | So in that context,

00:05:23.060 | I remember that one of the people who worked on my team

00:05:28.060 | suggested I read an article by Murray Newton Rothbard

00:05:32.940 | called "Monopoly and Competition."

00:05:35.860 | I remember reading it like it was today.

00:05:39.540 | And after reading it carefully, I said,

00:05:42.140 | "Everything I've taught about market structure

00:05:44.620 | "in the last 20 years in courses on microeconomics is wrong."

00:05:49.180 | This caused a very strong internal commotion in me,

00:05:54.980 | so I called this person who used to work with me,

00:05:58.820 | and they recommended a place

00:06:00.700 | to buy Austrian School of Economics books,

00:06:04.540 | and I remember I bought at least 20 or 30 books,

00:06:08.380 | which I went to pick up one Saturday afternoon.

00:06:12.660 | And when I visited the bookstore,

00:06:15.180 | I was fascinated by all the stuff they had there.

00:06:18.740 | So I went back the next day,

00:06:20.380 | and I started calculating how much money

00:06:22.780 | I needed to pay for my dog's food.

00:06:25.260 | That's my four-legged child,

00:06:28.660 | and how much I needed to spend on the taxi fare and food.

00:06:33.060 | And then with what I have left,

00:06:36.380 | I spent all of it on more books.

00:06:38.780 | And then I started to read very intensively.

00:06:41.140 | And I remember, for example,

00:06:43.740 | the experience of reading "Human Action" by Mises,

00:06:48.740 | and this was a book that I didn't know about.

00:06:52.780 | And I remember that on the following weekend,

00:06:56.340 | I started to read this book right from the first page,

00:07:00.140 | and I didn't stop until I finished it,

00:07:03.460 | and that was a true revolution in my head.

00:07:06.380 | And having the chance to read Austrian authors

00:07:09.820 | like Rothbard, Mises, Hayek, Hoppe,

00:07:14.820 | and Jesus Huerta de Soto,

00:07:18.220 | or others like Juan Ramon Rallo,

00:07:21.460 | Philippe Bagus, and Walter Bloch, for example,

00:07:25.540 | that was very inspirational.

00:07:29.900 | And at one point, I got the opportunity to read

00:07:34.460 | related to the works of Alberto Venegas Linchijo,

00:07:38.460 | and I also had the pleasure and honor to meet him.

00:07:42.220 | And today, we are actually friends.

00:07:46.580 | So that paved the way for me

00:07:48.500 | to approach the ideas of freedom.

00:07:50.940 | And another book that was a very significant influence

00:07:54.660 | and impact on me was "The Principles of Political Economics"

00:07:59.500 | by Menger.

00:08:00.340 | It was truly eye-opening.

00:08:03.140 | Or let's say, for reading Ogen von Böhm-Bawerk,

00:08:06.460 | these were things that really,

00:08:08.180 | that really challenged all of my former thinking.

00:08:13.180 | I had a vague idea and poor about the Austrian school.

00:08:19.460 | The only thing I had read about the Austrian school

00:08:24.500 | until then had been "Money and Time,"

00:08:28.180 | a very good book by Garrison.

00:08:31.660 | But now that I understand a little bit more

00:08:36.340 | about Austrian economics,

00:08:38.900 | I know that it was rather poor.

00:08:41.500 | This doesn't mean that the book isn't good,

00:08:45.420 | but there were a whole lot of things to read

00:08:49.260 | that ended up being truly fascinating.

00:08:52.780 | - So from that, what is now today,

00:08:56.060 | and maybe you can talk about the evolution,

00:08:58.420 | is your philosophy, economics philosophy.

00:09:02.180 | You've described yourself as an anarcho-capitalist,

00:09:05.380 | market anarchist, libertarian.

00:09:07.500 | That's the ideal.

00:09:09.060 | And then maybe in practice and reality,

00:09:11.340 | you've said that you're more of a minarchist.

00:09:13.900 | So lay it all out.

00:09:16.260 | What's your economics philosophy today?

00:09:18.500 | - Strictly speaking, I am an anarcho-capitalist.

00:09:23.300 | I despise the state government.

00:09:25.660 | I despise violence.

00:09:27.420 | Let us suppose we take the definition of liberalism.

00:09:32.420 | I usually use the definition of liberalism

00:09:35.020 | given by Alberto Venegas Lynch,

00:09:37.700 | which is very much in line with the definition of John Locke,

00:09:42.700 | which essentially matches the definition

00:09:46.020 | by Alberto Venegas Lynch, Jr.,

00:09:48.780 | who said that liberalism is the unrestricted respect

00:09:52.740 | for the life project of others

00:09:54.860 | based on the principle of non-aggression

00:09:57.100 | and in defense of the right to life, liberty, and property.

00:10:01.300 | So I frame all of the discussions within those terms.

00:10:05.620 | And the fact is that when you get to that notion,

00:10:09.540 | I would dare say

00:10:10.580 | that you become an anarcho-capitalist de facto.

00:10:13.780 | And what that describes, it is an idea

00:10:17.860 | which represents my ideal world.

00:10:20.780 | I mean, that is the ideal world.

00:10:22.980 | Now, real life poses a whole lot of restraints,

00:10:26.660 | and some of those you can lift,

00:10:28.860 | and those restrictions and others you can't.

00:10:32.220 | So in real life, I am a minarchist.

00:10:36.660 | I advocate for minimizing state size.

00:10:39.860 | I try to remove as many regulations as possible.

00:10:43.340 | In fact, that is what I used to say during my campaign,

00:10:47.260 | and let's say that is what I'm now carrying out.

00:10:49.380 | We have just carried out the largest structural reform

00:10:52.460 | in Argentine history.

00:10:54.060 | It is a structural reform

00:10:55.540 | that is eight times larger than Menem's,

00:10:57.700 | which had been the largest structural reform in history.

00:11:00.700 | And we did that with 15% of the representatives

00:11:04.340 | and 10% of the senators.

00:11:06.700 | Furthermore, we have a deregulation ministry

00:11:09.740 | where basically every day

00:11:11.420 | we eliminate between one and five regulations.

00:11:14.860 | On the other hand,

00:11:15.780 | we have 3,200 additional structural reforms pending

00:11:20.100 | to the point that the day we finish all these reforms,

00:11:23.820 | we will be the freest country on the planet

00:11:26.780 | with the consequences they have in terms of well-being.

00:11:30.540 | Think about this.

00:11:31.740 | When Ireland started market reforms just over 40 years ago,

00:11:35.860 | it was the poorest country in Europe.

00:11:38.420 | Today, its GDP per capita is 50% higher

00:11:42.300 | than that of the United States.

00:11:44.780 | So this, I have a current situation

00:11:49.780 | and what I am constantly looking for,

00:11:53.020 | whether from my academic works

00:11:55.300 | and my outreach notes and books,

00:11:57.980 | is the world we have today.

00:12:00.660 | That every day we are closer,

00:12:03.100 | that every day we gain more freedom

00:12:05.940 | because there are some very interesting things here.

00:12:10.380 | First, I would like to quote Milton Friedman.

00:12:15.420 | There is a moment when they do an interview

00:12:18.100 | with Milton Friedman and they ask him about liberals

00:12:21.780 | and then he says that there are three types of liberals.

00:12:25.140 | There are the classical liberals where, for example,

00:12:28.100 | Adam Smith or Milton Friedman himself could fit.

00:12:31.660 | Some say that Hayek could fit into that category.

00:12:34.820 | For me, Hayek is a minarchist.

00:12:37.980 | Then you have the minarchists

00:12:39.740 | where you could clearly find in that place,

00:12:43.460 | Mises, Hayek, one could find in philosophical terms,

00:12:48.460 | Nozick and basically Ayn Rand.

00:12:53.020 | And at one point, Milton Friedman, based on his own son,

00:12:57.820 | he says, "But if you look closely,

00:12:59.860 | "there are some who are anarchists."

00:13:02.820 | Let's say, probably from my point of view,

00:13:06.260 | the person who has been the greatest inspiration

00:13:09.260 | in my life is essentially Murray Newton Rothbard.

00:13:14.260 | So therefore, there are two dimensions.

00:13:19.300 | One is where I want to go and the topic is where I stand.

00:13:24.740 | So the most important thing is to try each day

00:13:27.500 | to advance further toward that ideal of anarcho-capitalism.

00:13:31.900 | In that sense, sometimes we face strong

00:13:38.460 | and harsh criticism regarding that ideal vision.

00:13:42.740 | I think that's the Nirvana fallacy.

00:13:45.300 | If you compare yourself against paradise,

00:13:48.260 | everything is horrible and miserable,

00:13:50.060 | but you don't live in paradise, you live on earth.

00:13:54.660 | Basically, what you need to understand

00:13:57.700 | is something called the state conditions.

00:14:00.340 | Let's suppose that you don't like rectangular tables,

00:14:04.820 | you prefer circular tables.

00:14:07.420 | Now, the reality is I have only a few hours

00:14:12.420 | until I go and catch my flight and the table is rectangular.

00:14:17.900 | You like a circular table, a round one, but there isn't one.

00:14:23.060 | What you have is a rectangular table.

00:14:26.860 | So either we do the interview here or we just can't do it.

00:14:30.540 | So what do you do?

00:14:31.740 | You adapt to the current conditions.

00:14:34.140 | This is what there is.

00:14:35.140 | Now, so then you have some restrictions that you can change

00:14:39.820 | and others that you cannot.

00:14:41.740 | The idea is to modify all the ones

00:14:44.420 | that can be changed in the short term

00:14:46.140 | and start working on those that can be modified

00:14:49.140 | in the medium or long term.

00:14:52.420 | For example, if you really like round tables,

00:14:57.260 | perhaps the next interview we may do at a round table,

00:14:59.980 | we're going to try and solve it.

00:15:01.700 | But today it's something that we couldn't possibly solve.

00:15:05.060 | So that's basically the idea, right?

00:15:09.140 | Let's say it's about understanding

00:15:11.420 | that some restrictions you can change,

00:15:13.980 | others you can,

00:15:15.820 | and there are institutional restrictions too.

00:15:18.420 | There are many anarcho-capitalists

00:15:22.340 | who are dedicated to criticizing,

00:15:24.940 | and incredibly they do so

00:15:26.700 | with more violence towards liberals,

00:15:29.100 | and many of them actually criticize me,

00:15:34.540 | which truly make no sense

00:15:36.180 | because it is precisely the Nirvana fallacy.

00:15:40.220 | But the reality is that,

00:15:45.580 | look, in Argentina, for example,

00:15:49.940 | the most popular sport is soccer.

00:15:52.220 | When you go to watch an Argentina match, it is beautiful.

00:15:57.500 | The stands are full

00:15:58.780 | and they're all painted with sky blue and white colors.

00:16:03.380 | There is a lot of joy,

00:16:04.700 | people sing songs that are very fun,

00:16:07.100 | that are very distinctive,

00:16:08.740 | it's very much part of Argentine folklore, so to speak.

00:16:14.860 | But you see, that beautiful show is external.

00:16:19.860 | That is to say, it does not determine the outcome.

00:16:23.340 | You place the ball in the middle of the field

00:16:25.300 | and no matter how much people shout,

00:16:26.940 | the ball doesn't move.

00:16:28.540 | The one who moves the ball and scores the goals is messy.

00:16:31.820 | So, what do I mean?

00:16:34.660 | If you don't get involved and don't get into it,

00:16:37.860 | no, you don't do anything.

00:16:39.780 | So, I mean, what do I know

00:16:43.580 | is that there are many liberals, libertarians,

00:16:46.060 | and anarcho-capitalists who are really useless

00:16:48.740 | because all they do is criticize,

00:16:51.500 | let's say, those of us who want to lead the world

00:16:53.940 | toward the ideas of freedom,

00:16:56.220 | and what they don't realize is that power is a zero-sum game.

00:17:01.100 | And if we don't have it, then the left will have it.

00:17:04.700 | Therefore, if you level your harshest criticism

00:17:08.980 | at those in your own ranks,

00:17:11.220 | you end up being subservient to socialism, probably.

00:17:16.220 | And also, for instance,

00:17:18.660 | you have cases of strong hypocrisy, let's say.

00:17:23.660 | I have seen cases of agorists.

00:17:27.500 | I mean, it's the anarcho-capitalists

00:17:31.180 | who criticize Rothbard

00:17:32.660 | because he said that you have to get into politics,

00:17:36.100 | otherwise the socialists will advance.

00:17:38.540 | And it's interesting because some of them,

00:17:43.260 | I have seen them criticizing, proposing agorism.

00:17:47.420 | And I remember one of them, one day,

00:17:52.300 | the police showed up,

00:17:55.180 | and honestly, he was peeing himself.

00:17:57.700 | So, I mean, it's very easy to criticize, propose, and suggest,

00:18:02.700 | but if he was truly such an agonist,

00:18:05.860 | he should have been willing to endure going to jail.

00:18:09.020 | However, when it was time to face

00:18:10.900 | the consequences of the idea he was promoting,

00:18:13.940 | he froze, wet his pants,

00:18:16.540 | and ended up, let's say, accepting all the restrictions

00:18:19.660 | because clearly it was better to be out of jail than in jail.

00:18:24.660 | But in doing so, he sold out his ideas.

00:18:29.340 | So, it seems to me that no,

00:18:31.940 | not taking into account the restrictions of the situation

00:18:38.100 | only serves to be functional to socialism

00:18:42.220 | because all it does is strike against one's own.

00:18:45.900 | - So, you became president 11 months ago.

00:18:48.860 | Can you, again, describe some of the actions you took?

00:18:53.300 | For example, you cut half the number

00:18:55.060 | of government ministries, layoffs, removed price controls.

00:18:59.540 | It'll be interesting to lay out the first steps.

00:19:02.980 | And what's next?

00:19:04.300 | - If you allow me, I will first give you a description

00:19:07.300 | of the situation we received.

00:19:09.700 | And based on that, I will tell you each of the things we did

00:19:13.500 | when we first took office.

00:19:20.540 | Basically, what we found was that in the first week

00:19:24.180 | of December, inflation was rising at a rate of 1% per day,

00:19:29.180 | which means 3,700% annually.

00:19:34.260 | In the first half of December,

00:19:38.060 | it had accelerated to 7,500% annually.

00:19:42.220 | When you look at wholesale inflation in December

00:19:45.980 | of last year, it was 54%, which if annualized,

00:19:50.980 | would equate to an inflation rate of 17,000% per year.

00:19:55.500 | And in addition, Argentina, for the previous 10 years,

00:20:01.700 | had not been growing, with a drop in GDP per capita

00:20:06.180 | of approximately 15%.

00:20:09.620 | And the reality was that nearly 50% were living in poverty.

00:20:15.620 | Now, later, I will get deeper into that discussion.

00:20:20.620 | And the reality is that we had a fiscal deficit,

00:20:25.220 | which amounted to 15% of GDP.

00:20:28.900 | Five points were in the Treasury,

00:20:31.740 | 10 points were in the Central Bank,

00:20:34.380 | which was endogenous monetary issuance.

00:20:37.740 | And the reality is that we also had interest-bearing

00:20:41.980 | liabilities at the Central Bank equivalent

00:20:45.020 | to four monetary bases, maturing in one day,

00:20:49.900 | meaning we could have quintupled

00:20:51.780 | the amount of money in one day.

00:20:54.420 | We had peso-denominated maturities

00:20:57.300 | amounting to the equivalent of $90 billion.

00:21:00.100 | The Central Bank had negative net currency

00:21:04.060 | foreign reserves, minus $12 billion.

00:21:07.260 | We had commercial debts in the Central Bank

00:21:11.180 | equivalent to $50 billion.

00:21:13.460 | There were company dividends held back

00:21:16.900 | amounting to $10 billion.

00:21:18.660 | Therefore, if we had instantly opened up,

00:21:24.700 | you see, I say we are liberal libertarians,

00:21:28.300 | we are not liberal fools.

00:21:30.260 | That's what some anarchist liberals suggested,

00:21:34.780 | meaning that we basically open everything on the first day.

00:21:40.340 | So in that context, of course,

00:21:43.060 | if we had done that,

00:21:45.380 | we would have encountered hyperinflation.

00:21:48.700 | Therefore, that would have led to the number

00:21:51.300 | of poor people being around 95%.

00:21:55.500 | And probably, and by December,

00:21:59.340 | the Peronist Party would have organized

00:22:01.500 | supermarkets lootings and would have done

00:22:04.140 | all sorts of things and would have probably been ousted.

00:22:08.220 | And by the first part of the year,

00:22:10.420 | the Peronists would have gone back to office.

00:22:12.860 | So to us, it was crucial to end fiscal deficit.

00:22:18.140 | One of the things we promised during the campaign

00:22:22.660 | had been to reduce the number of ministries.

00:22:25.900 | And indeed, we reduced to less than half

00:22:30.900 | the number of ministries because we went

00:22:32.620 | to nine ministries, today we have eight.

00:22:36.300 | We have also laid off a large number of civil employees.

00:22:39.700 | Today, I can say that we have already

00:22:41.820 | dismissed about 50,000 of them.

00:22:44.020 | And we practically don't renew any contracts

00:22:49.180 | unless the positions are absolutely necessary.

00:22:54.180 | At the same time, we have stopped public works

00:22:58.460 | and we have eliminated discretionary transfers

00:23:01.300 | to the provinces.

00:23:04.260 | We have also diluted public sector wages.

00:23:07.620 | Also, we have eliminated economic subsidies

00:23:12.940 | by restoring utility rates to the right levels.

00:23:15.860 | And well, and in that, let's say in this context,

00:23:22.060 | we achieved fiscal deficit as far

00:23:25.820 | as the treasury is concerned.

00:23:27.460 | This is very important because in the last 123 years,

00:23:32.820 | Argentina had a deficit for 113 of them.

00:23:36.020 | And in the 10 years, it did not have a deficit

00:23:38.540 | because it was not paying the debt.

00:23:40.580 | So that was absolutely false.

00:23:43.540 | And they told us it would be impossible to do that.

00:23:47.780 | We had planned to do so within a year.

00:23:50.540 | And they said it wasn't possible to adjust

00:23:52.940 | by more than one percentage point.

00:23:54.860 | And we achieved fiscal balance in the month of January,

00:24:00.940 | that is the first month of administration.

00:24:04.020 | At the same time, we also cut social plans

00:24:07.740 | linked to intermediation.

00:24:10.100 | This is very important because we knew

00:24:12.660 | we were going to make a very tough adjustment.

00:24:16.060 | And we knew that this was going to have

00:24:18.860 | a cot in social terms.

00:24:22.660 | And we knew that we had to offer support

00:24:25.780 | during the first month.

00:24:27.580 | I mean, the first quarter and second quarter in office,

00:24:30.820 | one of the things we did was to eliminate

00:24:34.660 | what are known as poverty managers,

00:24:36.860 | that is intermediaries.

00:24:39.020 | Basically, people have a guard

00:24:41.260 | through which they receive assistance,

00:24:45.380 | but it happens that they had to provide a counter service.

00:24:50.020 | And that counter service was verified

00:24:52.060 | by a group called the Picateros.

00:24:54.260 | So in that context, when they were going to sign,

00:24:58.580 | the counter service took away half of the money.

00:25:01.580 | So by removing that payoff, they stopped extorting them,

00:25:06.100 | stopped stealing their money,

00:25:08.060 | and with the same amount of money,

00:25:09.860 | they received double the resources.

00:25:12.380 | And of course, we also provided an additional boost.

00:25:16.540 | So let's say that this is related

00:25:20.700 | to the five adjustment points in the treasury.

00:25:24.180 | Now what happens?

00:25:25.940 | As we began to achieve fiscal balance

00:25:28.260 | and no longer needed to issue money to finance ourselves,

00:25:32.340 | and as we also met interest payments

00:25:34.580 | and some capital repayments,

00:25:36.420 | one of the things that happened

00:25:39.700 | is that the debt market began to be recreated.

00:25:43.020 | So we were able to take debt out of the central bank

00:25:46.260 | and transfer it to the treasury

00:25:48.180 | where it should have always been.

00:25:50.380 | And that meant an adjustment

00:25:51.980 | of approximately 10% of GDP.

00:25:55.140 | Everyone said this would be impossible

00:25:57.420 | and couldn't be fixed.

00:25:58.900 | Essentially, what we did was implement a fiscal adjustment

00:26:02.340 | at the central bank amounting to 10% of GDP.

00:26:06.620 | So if you ask me,

00:26:08.580 | it's clear that we have not only made

00:26:10.820 | the biggest fiscal adjustment in the history of humanity,

00:26:13.940 | because we made a fiscal adjustment

00:26:15.660 | of 15 points of the GDP,

00:26:18.100 | but also most of that went back to the people

00:26:22.620 | as less seniorage, as a lower inflation rate.

00:26:26.660 | It's true that we temporarily raised the country tax,

00:26:29.980 | but we lowered it in September.

00:26:32.180 | And now in December, we're going to eliminate it.

00:26:35.020 | Today, for example, we also announced that in December

00:26:38.060 | we are eliminating import taxes.

00:26:40.420 | In fact, in that regard,

00:26:42.940 | what you have is that we return

00:26:46.900 | to the people 13.5 points of GDP

00:26:50.260 | because the real tax burden is the size of the state.

00:26:54.140 | So while back in December we were discussing hyperinflation,

00:26:59.140 | today we are discussing 30-year loans.

00:27:03.500 | In other words, all those resources

00:27:05.540 | that the national government used to take

00:27:07.860 | are now back in the private sector.

00:27:10.300 | And that's what has allowed it to be very dynamic.

00:27:13.660 | And this has two very strong impacts.

00:27:17.300 | The first one is that if you look at wholesale inflation,

00:27:20.540 | it went down from 54% to 2%.

00:27:23.900 | So it went down by 27 times.

00:27:26.900 | It was divided into 27.

00:27:29.380 | So we had inflation at a rate of 17,000% annually,

00:27:33.700 | and it's now close to about 28% a year.

00:27:37.020 | But it's not only that.

00:27:39.500 | You could consider consumer inflation,

00:27:43.020 | the latest consumer inflation rate was 2.7%.

00:27:47.660 | Now it happens that we essentially,

00:27:50.540 | due to a matter that is related

00:27:52.580 | to the central bank's balance sheets,

00:27:55.500 | and also due to the debt stocks,

00:27:57.380 | we still have controls in place

00:27:59.980 | and we are eliminating restrictions day by day.

00:28:03.180 | Now, the interesting thing is that

00:28:06.300 | we have a 2% monthly devaluation standard,

00:28:10.500 | and there's international inflation, of course,

00:28:13.580 | which means that you then have to subtract

00:28:17.020 | two and a half points from the inflation

00:28:18.860 | observed by the consumer.

00:28:20.420 | This indicates that inflation in Argentina,

00:28:23.540 | the true inflation, not the induced one,

00:28:25.540 | but the actual monetary inflation, is 0.2% per month.

00:28:30.540 | At 0.2% per month, this equates to 2.4% annually.

00:28:35.900 | What I'm saying is the original discussion

00:28:39.020 | was about whether inflation could reach 17,000%.

00:28:43.580 | Now, we are bringing inflation down

00:28:45.980 | to levels of 2.5% annually, and that is amazing.

00:28:50.980 | And we achieve this by considering a number of factors.

00:28:54.820 | The first one is that we did not experience

00:28:59.500 | a previous hyperinflation,

00:29:01.500 | which would have simplified the process

00:29:03.540 | of implementing a stabilization program.

00:29:06.620 | Typically, when hyperinflation occurs,

00:29:09.180 | monetary assets are diluted,

00:29:11.500 | leading to a natural restoration of demand.

00:29:14.780 | And besides, we did not resort to any expropriation.

00:29:19.300 | For example, before the Convertibility Plan,

00:29:21.820 | which was the most successful program

00:29:23.380 | in Argentina's history,

00:29:24.700 | Argentina experienced two instances of hyperinflation.

00:29:27.980 | During Alfonsín's administration,

00:29:29.540 | inflation reached 5,000%,

00:29:31.420 | and under Menem, it was 1,200%.

00:29:34.300 | Additionally, there was the Bonex Plan,

00:29:36.660 | under which debt was exchanged on a compulsory basis.

00:29:40.220 | In other words, what we did instead

00:29:42.180 | was clean up the central bank balance sheet.

00:29:44.780 | So with that, we cleaned up the central bank's balance sheet,

00:29:50.980 | we cleared a loss of $45 billion, all voluntarily.

00:29:56.260 | And the most amazing thing

00:29:57.940 | is that we did it in just six months.

00:30:00.780 | And at the same time, we have not controlled prices,

00:30:04.140 | nor have we fixed the exchange rate.

00:30:06.780 | And this is very important.

00:30:08.660 | All previous stabilization programs,

00:30:11.580 | in an effort to show quick results, used to do this.

00:30:16.300 | What they would do is, before announcing the plan,

00:30:19.940 | they would adjust the rates,

00:30:21.540 | and once the rates were adjusted,

00:30:23.300 | they would launch the plan.

00:30:24.780 | But in our case, we couldn't afford that luxury,

00:30:28.100 | so we had to implement it on the go.

00:30:31.260 | And also, over the past few months, that is to say,

00:30:35.900 | companies brought in rates that covered only about 10%.

00:30:40.580 | Whereas today, they cover 80%, so you get the picture.

00:30:44.700 | Just imagine the adjustment we are making.

00:30:47.420 | And in that sense,

00:30:48.420 | it is also incredible what we have achieved,

00:30:51.620 | because if we were to work with the inflation

00:30:54.100 | we have in our country today,

00:30:56.180 | considering the exchange rate situation,

00:30:58.980 | the figures are even better than during

00:31:01.300 | the Convertibility Program,

00:31:03.620 | which was the most successful economic program

00:31:06.900 | in Argentina's history.

00:31:08.780 | And in fact, there is an article called Passing the Buck,

00:31:13.060 | which is by Gerardo de la Paulera Bozzoli and Irigoyen,

00:31:17.220 | that demonstrates that Menem's first government

00:31:20.300 | was the best government in history.

00:31:23.300 | And basically, it argues two things.

00:31:26.100 | In the success of the stabilization

00:31:28.980 | of the Convertibility Program.

00:31:31.060 | So if you take a closer look,

00:31:33.700 | when you examine it carefully,

00:31:35.860 | when you account for all these factors,

00:31:39.380 | our disinflation process is actually much more genuine.

00:31:42.140 | And not only that, it's also much deeper.

00:31:44.900 | We restored freedoms to Argentinians

00:31:47.540 | while simultaneously implementing a structural reform

00:31:51.260 | eight times larger.

00:31:53.340 | And we accomplished this with only,

00:31:56.020 | with 15% of the representatives, 10% of the senators,

00:32:01.180 | and within the first six months of government.

00:32:04.100 | In other words, our deregulation agenda continues daily,

00:32:08.100 | and we still have 3,200 structural reforms pending.

00:32:12.900 | This will ultimately make Argentina

00:32:15.140 | the freest country in the world.

00:32:16.900 | Moreover, to have a sense of magnitude,

00:32:21.740 | the reforms that we already have made

00:32:23.740 | with the Executive Order 7023,

00:32:26.420 | and with the Basis Law,

00:32:28.540 | we have actually jumped 90 places

00:32:30.420 | in terms of economic freedom.

00:32:32.500 | What this means is that today,

00:32:34.540 | Argentina has institutions similar to those of Germany,

00:32:38.060 | France, Italy, and we obviously want this to continue.

00:32:42.580 | And let's say, we are going to surpass, no doubt,

00:32:45.780 | the levels of economic freedom

00:32:47.300 | that Ireland reached in its best moment.

00:32:49.540 | And not only that, we're going to exceed

00:32:51.820 | the levels of economic freedom of Australia,

00:32:54.300 | New Zealand, and Switzerland.

00:32:56.140 | We are undoubtedly going to be

00:32:57.580 | the freest country in the world.

00:32:59.580 | And this means that thanks to what we've done today,

00:33:04.580 | we are on a path that allows us

00:33:07.500 | to multiply our per capita GDP by 2.5 times

00:33:12.180 | when you apply the relevant correction.

00:33:14.460 | And this, of course, is something very interesting

00:33:18.260 | because it implies a huge increase in well-being.

00:33:22.180 | And furthermore, today, the Argentinian economy

00:33:25.620 | is already strongly and amazingly recovering.

00:33:28.900 | And we can say, analysts' hypotheses were suggesting

00:33:32.740 | that next year, we would be growing between 5 and 6%.

00:33:36.700 | Today, JP Morgan has now corrected,

00:33:40.580 | or let's say, revised the projections upwards.

00:33:43.220 | And besides, when we normalized the price situation,

00:33:46.140 | the true poverty rate came up and it was 57% in January.

00:33:50.660 | Today, it is at 46%,

00:33:52.980 | meaning we lowered poverty by 11 percentage points.

00:33:56.780 | Let's say, I mean, it seems truly like a miracle.

00:34:00.900 | And not only that, but actually,

00:34:02.300 | not a single job was lost in the process.

00:34:04.980 | When it comes to all of this inflation reduction process,

00:34:08.020 | people said that our economy

00:34:09.580 | and economic activity would collapse.

00:34:12.460 | And actually, when you look at the de-seasonalized data,

00:34:17.100 | you see that in August, there was a recovery

00:34:19.820 | that took us back to December levels, to December levels.

00:34:24.340 | That means that in the year

00:34:25.740 | we made the largest fiscal adjustment

00:34:28.260 | in the history of humanity,

00:34:30.140 | we will end up with less inflation, fewer poor people,

00:34:33.580 | better real wages, and additionally,

00:34:36.100 | a GDP higher than what we started with.

00:34:39.820 | And if you look at it in dollars,

00:34:42.540 | I can assure you that the numbers are phenomenal,

00:34:46.220 | because basically, today,

00:34:47.980 | the dollar is below the levels we had when we took office.

00:34:52.060 | So the reality is that in all of this,

00:34:55.500 | when you take my popularity levels

00:34:58.100 | and the government's acceptance levels,

00:35:00.620 | today, they are above the moment we assumed office,

00:35:03.860 | if you know that the moment of maximum popularity

00:35:07.660 | is when you take office.

00:35:09.780 | Therefore, this means that far from

00:35:12.900 | resting on our laurels with this,

00:35:15.980 | we're going for more reforms,

00:35:17.820 | we're going to deepen the reforms,

00:35:19.500 | and I tell you, we won't stop until Argentina

00:35:22.540 | is the freest country in the world.

00:35:25.180 | Furthermore, a recent work by an Argentinian economist

00:35:30.020 | named Juan Pablo Nicolini

00:35:31.900 | was presented at the Central Bank's monetary meetings,

00:35:35.380 | and he works at the Federal Reserve.

00:35:38.340 | And it's interesting because he shows that

00:35:40.940 | only on the basis of what we have done in fiscal matters,

00:35:44.340 | it ensures that in the span of 10 years,

00:35:47.380 | we can double the GDP per capita,

00:35:50.500 | meaning that Argentina could grow at rates of 7% annually,

00:35:55.500 | which is very much, very much,

00:35:59.700 | and that has strong consequences

00:36:02.340 | in terms of improving quality of life,

00:36:05.260 | reducing poverty, reducing indigence.

00:36:08.420 | Therefore, if during the worst moment

00:36:12.140 | our image didn't suffer and we stayed strong in our ideas,

00:36:16.740 | now that everything is working much better,

00:36:19.620 | why should we change?

00:36:22.340 | On the contrary, we are ready to redouble the bet,

00:36:26.500 | to redouble our efforts

00:36:28.420 | because we've done things that no one else has done.

00:36:31.620 | I will give you an example.

00:36:33.340 | There's something that seems trivial,

00:36:35.820 | but there's what's called the single-paper ballot.

00:36:39.700 | Argentina used to vote with huge ballots,

00:36:43.820 | which were very, above all, very costly,

00:36:47.020 | and that reform, it never,

00:36:50.340 | let's say it wasn't done

00:36:52.580 | because it always harmed the ruling party.

00:36:55.500 | So everyone talked about going to the single-paper ballot,

00:36:59.220 | but no one did it when they were in power.

00:37:02.180 | They didn't want to implement it

00:37:03.580 | because they preferred to commit fraud

00:37:06.580 | or use some kind of trickery

00:37:09.420 | to avoid applying that rule

00:37:11.900 | that makes the election more competitive.

00:37:14.380 | Well, what's interesting, we sent that law

00:37:16.660 | and it was approved.

00:37:18.740 | What's more, now we are finishing

00:37:20.260 | with the open, simultaneous, and mandatory primaries

00:37:23.980 | because it was a mechanism

00:37:25.580 | by which politics was also stealing.

00:37:28.700 | We are eliminating the financing of political parties.

00:37:32.540 | If you look, we have reduced the fiscal pressure

00:37:35.180 | by 15 points to the Argentineans.

00:37:39.220 | We are restoring freedoms

00:37:41.220 | with a deep set of structural and regulatory reforms.

00:37:45.220 | That is, I think that

00:37:48.660 | any sensible liberal

00:37:52.500 | could perceive we are already delivering

00:37:57.060 | a wonderful government.

00:37:58.700 | In fact, it's the best government

00:38:00.060 | in the history of Argentina.

00:38:01.700 | If the best had been that of Menem,

00:38:03.420 | we've already outpaced him.

00:38:05.420 | - Maybe you can explain to me

00:38:06.580 | the metrics of poverty and unemployment.

00:38:11.020 | As you said, unemployment went down,

00:38:13.060 | real unemployment went down,

00:38:14.900 | real poverty went down.

00:38:16.220 | But even that aside,

00:38:18.820 | what have been the most painful impacts

00:38:21.900 | of these radical reforms?

00:38:24.220 | And how many of them are required in the short term

00:38:28.380 | to have a big positive impact in the long term?

00:38:30.780 | - Let's take it step by step, all right?

00:38:33.860 | That is,

00:38:34.700 | we, in fact, we started to do things right,

00:38:39.100 | therefore we did not create poverty.

00:38:41.500 | The poverty was an inherited poverty.

00:38:44.300 | The point is that what we did was to reveal it.

00:38:48.700 | I'll try to explain it with an example

00:38:52.220 | that I think clarifies what's happening in Argentina.

00:38:55.700 | Argentina was an economy that had

00:38:59.620 | a total price controls.

00:39:02.700 | It had a fiscal deficit,

00:39:06.100 | which was financed through money printing,

00:39:08.780 | just for you, to give you an idea.

00:39:11.180 | In the last year,

00:39:13.060 | Argentina financed 13 points

00:39:15.340 | of the gross domestic product with money printing.

00:39:19.140 | In other words, a real disaster.

00:39:22.020 | So, that situation provoked this artificially demand

00:39:26.420 | and puts pressure on prices.

00:39:28.740 | The issue is that price controls are applied

00:39:31.820 | additionally over the prices

00:39:33.900 | that they enter the price index,

00:39:37.820 | with which inflation was,

00:39:40.060 | I'm not saying they were lying about it,

00:39:41.740 | it was distorted.

00:39:43.580 | And since Argentina measures poverty

00:39:46.020 | and indigence by income line,

00:39:48.620 | then what happens?

00:39:52.380 | That distorted the true levels of poverty, of course,

00:39:56.500 | but that's not the only effect.

00:39:58.140 | I mean, let's say the real poverty levels were higher,

00:40:01.060 | quite a bit higher than those shown

00:40:03.220 | by the previous government,

00:40:04.660 | which showed them at 41%

00:40:06.660 | and also did so on a six monthly basis.

00:40:09.460 | So, if you, let's say, have a growing trend,

00:40:13.780 | they are actually leaving you a bomb

00:40:15.740 | and you don't see it.

00:40:17.380 | Because let's say, basically,

00:40:18.820 | the indicator was measured with a delayed form.

00:40:23.820 | But not only that, imagine that you are also given,

00:40:27.020 | you are in the middle of an island alone

00:40:32.900 | and they give you $1 million.

00:40:35.900 | What can you do with that?

00:40:37.180 | You cannot do anything because you cannot buy anything.

00:40:42.140 | It's the same as if someone tells you

00:40:44.740 | that the price of glasses is $10,

00:40:48.140 | but when you want to buy it, it's not available.

00:40:53.060 | Actually, there's a joke told by an Argentinian professor

00:40:56.460 | named Juan Carlos De Pablo,

00:40:58.540 | who says that a man goes to a bazaar and asks for a vase.

00:41:03.540 | Then he says to him, "Well, I want that vase.

00:41:05.940 | "How much would you charge me?"

00:41:07.780 | Then he says, "$5,000."

00:41:10.700 | "Oh, okay, $5,000, but why $5,000

00:41:13.900 | "if across the street it's $1,000?"

00:41:16.580 | He says, "Well, go buy it across the street for $1,000."

00:41:19.500 | "Ah, there's none for $1,000."

00:41:21.140 | "Well, then here when there's more,

00:41:22.620 | "it'll also cost $1,000."

00:41:24.500 | In other words, prices at which they are available.

00:41:27.140 | So what happens?

00:41:28.820 | When you are faced with that situation,

00:41:31.540 | the supermarket shelves were empty.

00:41:34.140 | So what was the point of having a price

00:41:37.060 | at which you couldn't buy anything?

00:41:38.900 | You left those prices, the shelves were empty,

00:41:40.980 | so the statistics showed that you were much better.

00:41:44.660 | But the reality is you couldn't buy anything.

00:41:47.100 | You couldn't make it happen.

00:41:48.580 | So if you left the situation as it was,

00:41:52.020 | people were going to starve

00:41:53.220 | because they couldn't buy anything.

00:41:55.260 | Yes, they had a certain amount of money

00:41:56.900 | that could supposedly buy certain goods,

00:41:59.180 | but those goods were not available.

00:42:02.100 | What is the only thing you can do to save people?

00:42:05.780 | Make the prices transparent and allow products to reappear.

00:42:09.100 | Well, when you make the prices transparent,

00:42:10.980 | you also make transparent the cost of the basic food basket

00:42:14.420 | and the total basic basket,

00:42:16.220 | meaning the poverty line, sorry,

00:42:18.340 | the indigence line and the poverty line respectively.

00:42:21.300 | And when you do that,

00:42:22.340 | clearly you will see a jump in poverty.

00:42:24.940 | That brought poverty up to 57%.

00:42:28.500 | Now, Argentina found its activity floor

00:42:31.340 | in the month of April.

00:42:33.420 | From that moment,

00:42:34.380 | Argentina began to invent a cyclical recovery,

00:42:38.540 | real wages have been growing every month above inflation.

00:42:42.780 | Therefore, nominal wages are beating inflation.

00:42:46.220 | In fact, we are already at levels

00:42:48.180 | similar to those we had in November.

00:42:50.740 | The same goes for pensions.

00:42:53.020 | Moreover, also let's say there is a rebound in activity

00:42:57.540 | due to the recovery of the stock cycle.

00:43:00.340 | Therefore, this is also contributing

00:43:02.260 | to more and better paid jobs.

00:43:04.100 | In fact, this is so strong and evident

00:43:06.420 | that the wages growing the most are in the informal sector.

00:43:10.460 | This means that poverty and extreme poverty

00:43:13.300 | are decreasing much faster than we imagined.

00:43:16.220 | But not only that, by eliminating inflation,

00:43:19.220 | you remove the inflationary tax,

00:43:21.700 | but the real burden is the fiscal deficit,

00:43:23.980 | which was 15 points of the GDP.

00:43:27.060 | Okay, we temporarily raised the country tax,

00:43:29.540 | now we lower it, but we return that to the Argentinians.

00:43:33.700 | We gave back 15 points of the GDP.

00:43:37.340 | Not only that, but also when you eliminate inflation,

00:43:41.100 | you remove the distortion of relative prices.

00:43:44.060 | Therefore, the allocation of resources is much better.

00:43:47.300 | Not only that, but also with the strong

00:43:50.100 | fiscal adjustment we made,

00:43:51.620 | we have reduced the country risk

00:43:53.420 | from 3,000 basis points to 770.

00:43:57.300 | Today, Fitch raised Argentina's rating to triple C.

00:44:01.300 | So, what do I mean?

00:44:04.220 | That translates into a lower country risk

00:44:06.780 | and interest rates,

00:44:08.220 | and that generates an increase in investment,

00:44:10.660 | also generates an increase in consumption.

00:44:13.460 | In other words, the Argentinian economy

00:44:16.060 | is currently in an absolutely flourishing moment.

00:44:19.340 | And how is that sustained in the long term?

00:44:21.380 | With structural reforms,

00:44:23.020 | which we implement daily deregulating the economy

00:44:26.100 | and introducing new laws that free Argentinians

00:44:29.380 | from the many oppressive measures

00:44:31.980 | that have burdened it over the past 100 years.

00:44:36.060 | - You've spoken about the caste,

00:44:39.300 | the corrupt political establishment.

00:44:41.540 | So, there's a lot of powerful people

00:44:44.060 | and groups that are against your ideas.

00:44:47.700 | What does it take to fight

00:44:50.500 | when so much power is against you?

00:44:52.340 | - Look, we have fought against corruption

00:44:56.540 | like never before in Argentina.

00:44:59.820 | In fact, when we took office, for example,

00:45:02.580 | there were about 900 roadblocks per year.

00:45:06.420 | That is people who made a habit of blocking the streets.

00:45:10.500 | They prevented free movement.

00:45:12.620 | And besides, they were given social plans

00:45:16.500 | and they were given a lot of money.

00:45:18.660 | If you remember, when I started by explaining the cuts,

00:45:22.580 | one of the things I said was

00:45:24.060 | that we removed the middlemen of poverty.

00:45:26.900 | In other words, the managers of poverty,

00:45:29.420 | those who live by stealing from the poor.

00:45:32.740 | Well, that is a huge source of corruption.

00:45:35.460 | In fact, when we did that,

00:45:37.100 | two days later,

00:45:41.340 | one of the most renowned and influential piqueteros

00:45:45.580 | called for a demonstration.

00:45:47.900 | He claimed that 50,000 people would attend

00:45:51.260 | because he was actually expecting 100,000.

00:45:55.180 | So he wanted to showcase it as a success.

00:45:59.620 | And so then, let's say with the decision

00:46:02.700 | made in Human Capital to cut their funding,

00:46:05.620 | the anti-blockade protocol was also enacted

00:46:08.900 | where those who block the streets

00:46:10.700 | wouldn't receive welfare benefits

00:46:12.820 | and those who broke the law would go to jail.

00:46:15.700 | All of that.

00:46:17.580 | And also, we were informing this

00:46:22.260 | through transportation channels.

00:46:25.420 | Well, in that march,

00:46:26.540 | they expected to have 100,000 people there.

00:46:30.460 | And actually, it turned out to be 3,000 people.

00:46:33.620 | And from that point on,

00:46:36.380 | they didn't block the streets anymore.

00:46:38.540 | We also evidently put an end to that corruption.

00:46:42.300 | One of the things that also generated a lot of corruption

00:46:45.620 | was public works.

00:46:47.300 | Another thing that led to significant acts of corruption

00:46:52.180 | were the discretionary transfers to provinces.

00:46:55.980 | In general, these transfers were made to the provinces

00:46:59.420 | with accounting as obscure as possible.

00:47:02.620 | So the national government,

00:47:05.860 | in collusion with the governors, let's say,

00:47:09.060 | the money ended up being used for other things.

00:47:12.900 | Not only that with which we have already done many things.

00:47:16.700 | Furthermore, the Ministry of Human Capital

00:47:19.500 | is always filing complaints in court,

00:47:22.620 | not in the media, in court.

00:47:24.580 | Acts of corruption like never before in Argentine history.

00:47:30.500 | Not only that, but also in terms of condemning corruption.

00:47:33.980 | That is, we have done, for example,

00:47:37.180 | two days ago, it was condemned.

00:47:40.340 | Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

00:47:42.940 | got a sentence for corruption.

00:47:45.220 | I mean, due to corruption.

00:47:47.540 | And the next day, that is yesterday,

00:47:49.540 | we took away their privileged pensions.

00:47:52.620 | At the same time, we are, for example,

00:47:54.860 | we have discovered that Kirchnerism used

00:47:57.780 | disability pensions for acts of corruption.

00:48:01.340 | For example, there is a city

00:48:02.980 | that has more disability pensions than people.

00:48:05.980 | In other words, to give you an idea

00:48:09.500 | of the things being done in Argentina.

00:48:12.340 | And also in Argentina,

00:48:13.740 | we have restored freedom to the judiciary.

00:48:16.500 | We do not pressure the judiciary.

00:48:19.340 | And this is so true that during my government,

00:48:21.780 | not only was Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner convicted,

00:48:25.340 | but also the two terrorist attacks

00:48:27.580 | carried out by Iran were condemned.

00:48:29.820 | So, if there is a government

00:48:34.540 | that is truly fighting against corruption, it is us.

00:48:38.380 | Not only that, but also with each deregulation,

00:48:42.260 | it is a privilege that we take away

00:48:44.380 | either from a politician, a preliminary company,

00:48:48.580 | or a power group.

00:48:49.660 | That is also very powerful.

00:48:54.460 | No one in Argentina has ever fought

00:48:57.220 | against corruption the way we have.

00:48:59.500 | In fact, I will move on to something

00:49:02.580 | that is deeply corrupt and one of my great battles.

00:49:09.260 | The corruption of the media and social media.

00:49:11.780 | That is to say, I removed the official advertising.

00:49:16.420 | That's why you will see

00:49:17.980 | that even though we generate wonderful news,

00:49:21.740 | every week in large quantity, the media speak terribly.

00:49:26.740 | In other words, they demand

00:49:28.780 | to have a monopoly on the microphone.

00:49:31.020 | That is, they are entitled to insult, hurt, offend,

00:49:33.860 | and they don't want anyone to bother them.

00:49:36.060 | And they expect me not to even respond.

00:49:38.820 | That's why a large part of journalism

00:49:40.460 | in Argentina hates the X-Network.

00:49:42.660 | And that's why we, the liberal libertarians,

00:49:44.820 | love the X-Network, because we can all say what we want.

00:49:49.100 | However, let's say these supposed journalists

00:49:53.100 | who defend freedom of expression,

00:49:55.340 | actually what they want is to censor

00:49:57.420 | the ideas they don't like.

00:49:59.860 | And of course, because they are leftists,

00:50:01.780 | because they are wokes,

00:50:02.900 | because they can't stand the competition,

00:50:05.540 | because if they had to fight face-to-face,

00:50:08.300 | hand-to-hand, on a level playing field,

00:50:11.540 | when it comes to ideas, they would lose

00:50:13.580 | because they were a failure

00:50:15.100 | in the economic, social, and cultural aspects.

00:50:17.980 | And also, we must not forget

00:50:19.460 | that those murderers called socialists

00:50:21.620 | killed 150 million people.

00:50:24.700 | So they clearly cannot fight on equal terms.

00:50:27.940 | Therefore, they demand that social networks have censorship

00:50:32.020 | and that the truth cannot be told to them.

00:50:35.020 | Because when you tell a socialist the truth,

00:50:37.820 | they cry, claiming it's hate speech.

00:50:40.380 | No, it's not hate speech.

00:50:41.660 | It's that you are useless people

00:50:44.100 | who have ruined the planet.

00:50:47.540 | They have made the planet much worse.

00:50:50.460 | And fortunately today, thanks to social media,

00:50:54.020 | especially due to the enormous and brave work

00:50:56.900 | of Elon Musk and the role of Twitter,

00:51:00.420 | today X, right, allows information to flow,

00:51:05.420 | which makes it possible.

00:51:07.420 | Let's say, to expose politicians

00:51:10.860 | and also expose the media.

00:51:14.780 | And that's why journalists in Argentina are so violent.

00:51:18.140 | Why?

00:51:18.980 | Because before they could, for instance,

00:51:22.100 | a journalist went and, for example,

00:51:24.220 | he would go to a person and he would throw a folder at them

00:51:27.460 | and say, "If you don't give me X amount of money,

00:51:30.780 | "I am going to publish all of this

00:51:33.140 | "and tarnish your reputation."

00:51:35.620 | And I know for a fact, a case of a journalist

00:51:38.820 | who carried out this extortion twice to a businessman,

00:51:43.020 | that businessman told him that he wasn't gonna pay,

00:51:46.140 | and evidently the journalist did it.

00:51:48.020 | Obviously, they went to court, there was a trial,

00:51:50.620 | and that journalist lost both times.

00:51:52.980 | But that process is very slow,

00:51:55.620 | and in the meantime, they smeared.

00:51:57.540 | So since the justice system takes a long time,

00:52:00.340 | so what is the problem?

00:52:01.540 | The problem is that in the meantime, your life got dirtied.

00:52:06.220 | So why can journalists do all this?

00:52:09.060 | Well, that's why they dislike X.

00:52:11.220 | They dislike social media,

00:52:12.660 | they dislike the new form of communication

00:52:15.260 | because it took away their monopoly over the microphone,

00:52:18.500 | and by taking away the monopoly over the microphone,

00:52:21.340 | it removed the economic benefits of extortion.

00:52:24.740 | So clearly, that's another battle I'm fighting.

00:52:28.700 | You read a newspaper in Argentina

00:52:30.940 | and 85% of what you read is a lie.

00:52:34.420 | That is to say, the fundamental characteristic

00:52:38.740 | of most journalists, not all,

00:52:40.460 | but the vast majority of journalists in Argentina,

00:52:43.420 | with some honorable exceptions,

00:52:45.660 | is that they are liars, slanderers, and defamers.

00:52:50.180 | And if the monopoly they demand were still in place,

00:52:53.460 | that they want to reign again,

00:52:55.540 | I have no doubt that they would demand money

00:52:58.060 | in exchange for silence because that's what they are.

00:53:01.660 | They are extortionists, they are thieves, they are corrupt.

00:53:05.660 | And then, of course, obviously,

00:53:07.900 | when you take away a privilege from a sector,

00:53:10.860 | they get upset.

00:53:12.580 | Well, welcome to freedom.

00:53:14.940 | - So you're not only fighting for economic freedom,

00:53:17.220 | you're fighting for freedom of speech.

00:53:19.300 | - Exactly, I fight for freedom in all aspects of life.

00:53:23.180 | That is to say, one of the things

00:53:26.180 | that seems most interesting to me

00:53:28.100 | is that when the Berlin Wall fell,

00:53:32.420 | it's true that it officially fell in the year 1989,

00:53:36.580 | but the reality is that the wall, or socialism,

00:53:41.260 | fell in the year 1961 when they had to build the wall.

00:53:45.980 | I mean, they built it because people

00:53:47.820 | were leaving communist Germany for capitalist Germany.

00:53:51.740 | They realized that those on the Western side

00:53:56.140 | were much better off.

00:53:57.860 | And, of course, to prevent people from leaving.

00:54:01.580 | They put, what a wonderful system, right?

00:54:05.100 | So, I mean, they had to trap people,

00:54:07.740 | they couldn't let them go.

00:54:08.900 | I mean, these are such wonderful ideas

00:54:11.380 | that they had to apply them at gunpoint.

00:54:13.660 | It's quite, well, it's no coincidence

00:54:15.740 | that they killed 150 million human beings.

00:54:19.620 | So, what happened then?

00:54:22.900 | The official fall of the wall in the year 1989

00:54:26.980 | made it clear that socialism had failed.

00:54:29.660 | In that context, the socialists,

00:54:33.420 | they moved the discussion of class struggle in economics

00:54:39.580 | and took it to other areas.

00:54:42.340 | So, for example, socialism,

00:54:45.620 | or what is of the 21st century,

00:54:48.700 | or cultural Marxism, or post-Marxism,

00:54:51.460 | whatever definition you want,

00:54:53.740 | is to take class struggle to different aspects of life.

00:54:58.740 | For example, one of the aspects of life

00:55:01.900 | where you, let's say, have this is in gender ideology.

00:55:06.460 | I mean, it's incredible because the first ones

00:55:09.940 | to defend equality before the law were the liberals.

00:55:13.980 | The first to defend women's rights were the liberals.

00:55:17.180 | Jeremy Bentham, in the year 1750,

00:55:20.180 | was the first to demand equality before the law for women.

00:55:23.980 | I mean, the cause of equality,

00:55:26.540 | equality before the law for women and equality of rights,

00:55:30.460 | the first ones who advocated for this were the liberals.

00:55:32.940 | Did you know?

00:55:33.940 | However, what does the left do?

00:55:37.540 | They just go on to radicalize it.

00:55:39.820 | And then it moves to what is called female chauvinism.

00:55:43.740 | Female chauvinism is, let's say, the fight against males.

00:55:47.380 | And then, I mean, how do they do it?

00:55:49.180 | They do it by assigning rights.

00:55:51.460 | But when you assign a right, someone has to pay for it.

00:55:55.380 | And that has consequences.

00:55:57.580 | And in general, let's say, this always happens.

00:56:01.180 | The consequences are that the results are worse

00:56:05.780 | than what you had before.

00:56:06.900 | I mean, in any state intervention,

00:56:10.060 | the subsequent result is often worse

00:56:13.740 | than what you originally had.

00:56:15.500 | So that's one thing.

00:56:17.580 | And not only that, but the other side of this

00:56:19.780 | is the environmental agenda,

00:56:21.860 | which sets man against nature,

00:56:23.940 | involving all aspects of environmentalism

00:56:26.940 | and everything related to climate change.

00:56:29.940 | In other words, they can't stand any serious discussion.

00:56:32.580 | Therefore, all environmental policies

00:56:34.900 | are nothing more than an excuse to collect taxes.

00:56:38.060 | So that a group of parasitic bureaucrats

00:56:40.500 | can live at the expense of others

00:56:42.620 | and finance sinister ideas.

00:56:45.340 | Where the most sinister idea of all

00:56:47.260 | is that there is no room for everyone on planet Earth.

00:56:50.860 | That is an idea that failed with Malthus

00:56:54.340 | at the beginning of the 19th century,

00:56:56.460 | a murderous idea that was also applied

00:56:59.420 | by the Egyptians against the Jews.

00:57:01.420 | And this is famously recorded

00:57:03.340 | in the book of Shemot or Exodus.

00:57:07.020 | Or for example, another thing is Black Lives Matter.

00:57:11.660 | That is black people against white people

00:57:14.740 | or indigenous people against the established communities.

00:57:18.980 | Or, I mean, everything related to LGBT agendas.

00:57:23.700 | Definitely, these are some of the ways in which,

00:57:28.260 | you know, socialism extended the class struggle

00:57:31.220 | into other aspects of society,

00:57:33.820 | creating divisions and fostering deceit

00:57:37.140 | with the sole purpose of absorbing taxes.

00:57:41.460 | I mean, what was the Ministry of Women in Argentina doing?

00:57:44.380 | Did it manage to reduce a single femicide?

00:57:47.180 | No, none at all.

00:57:49.020 | The number of femicides exploded just the same.

00:57:51.860 | In fact, the most feminist president in Argentine history,

00:57:54.980 | Mr. Alberto Fernandez, used to beat his wife.

00:57:58.220 | That is such a strange feminist.

00:58:02.100 | I mean, well, so within the ranks of feminists,

00:58:05.500 | let's say, you will essentially find

00:58:08.100 | the largest number of rapists and women beaters.

00:58:11.780 | And it's quite interesting what they do.

00:58:16.780 | Their hypocrisy is truly striking.

00:58:19.980 | It's not just about that, though.

00:58:21.500 | I mean, the battle is on three fronts.

00:58:26.220 | You have the economic front,

00:58:30.820 | which is free enterprise capitalism.

00:58:33.020 | Then we have the political level.

00:58:37.340 | Currently, the system that the world has designed

00:58:41.020 | is a Republican liberal democracy with checks and balances.

00:58:46.020 | And I mean, at the cultural battle level,

00:58:51.660 | notice that socialism has been very successful

00:58:54.420 | in the cultural battle.

00:58:55.740 | It has been very successful politically

00:58:58.660 | because it was able to translate that political battle

00:59:02.180 | in winning many elections.

00:59:04.540 | But why is it falling apart?

00:59:06.700 | Why?

00:59:07.900 | Because it produces misery

00:59:10.340 | and because the economic system is a disaster,

00:59:12.700 | so people eventually realize

00:59:14.300 | that it is making things worse for them.

00:59:16.300 | Liberal libertarians are very good

00:59:19.580 | when it comes to economics.

00:59:21.140 | Yes, and those good economic results can actually lead,

00:59:26.660 | well, to the generation of solid political processes.

00:59:30.780 | But what happened?

00:59:32.100 | The liberals neglected the cultural battle.

00:59:34.340 | Much of the blame was placed on Fukuyama

00:59:37.820 | when he said, "This is the end of history."

00:59:40.260 | No, it was not the end of history

00:59:41.860 | because the following year, in 1990,

00:59:44.340 | the socialists gathered at the Sao Paulo Forum

00:59:47.220 | and based on the ideas of Gramsci,

00:59:49.340 | designed a strategy to infiltrate the media,

00:59:52.300 | culture, and education,

00:59:53.900 | which ended up changing the entire discourse.

00:59:56.580 | And they established that what they said

01:00:00.620 | was politically correct

01:00:03.100 | and that any idea outside of it

01:00:05.220 | was to be considered reactionary

01:00:07.100 | and had to be censored or even persecuted.

01:00:10.220 | And they claimed to be the ones defending freedom,

01:00:13.180 | even though they were the ones persecuting people.

01:00:16.220 | It's the same with journalists who get upset with Twitter.

01:00:19.460 | They say they defend freedom,

01:00:20.940 | but can't stand it when those who think differently speak.

01:00:24.220 | Is that freedom?

01:00:25.300 | Yes for them, but not for those who think differently.

01:00:28.420 | That's not freedom, that's fascism.

01:00:30.620 | Then, what do we say?

01:00:33.860 | Then we must fight on the economic front

01:00:35.660 | and I believe we are implementing

01:00:37.100 | an extremely successful economic program

01:00:39.620 | that is being recognized worldwide.

01:00:41.860 | In fact, the other night,

01:00:45.060 | the president-elect, Donald Trump,

01:00:47.500 | indeed gave recognition for the achievements

01:00:50.300 | we are having in Argentina

01:00:52.100 | and the speed at which we have done it.

01:00:54.660 | At the same time, you have to fight the political battle

01:00:57.260 | because, well, soccer matches are not won

01:01:00.260 | by shouting from the stands,

01:01:02.260 | they are won by playing on the field.

01:01:04.860 | But that alone is not enough because you have to,

01:01:07.740 | let's say, you need to convey to society

01:01:11.420 | the values of capitalism, the free market,

01:01:15.620 | what liberalism is, the value of freedom, right?

01:01:19.900 | And when you succeed in that,

01:01:21.940 | then we will indeed be able to advance steadily.

01:01:26.100 | If you don't fight the cultural battle,

01:01:28.180 | what happened in Chile will happen to you.

01:01:30.780 | They had economic success.

01:01:32.580 | It was, let's say, sustained over time,

01:01:37.180 | but at some point it collapsed.

01:01:38.420 | Why did it collapse?

01:01:39.860 | Because they hadn't fought the cultural battle.

01:01:42.700 | Then socialism, little by little,

01:01:44.980 | took control of institutions in education and the media.

01:01:49.660 | So they took over the media and culture,

01:01:52.980 | and on that basis, they attacked and broke up the system.

01:01:56.620 | And then they found themselves

01:01:57.900 | with increasing doses of socialism,

01:02:00.180 | and the only thing socialism generates is poverty.

01:02:02.980 | Therefore, what you must keep in mind

01:02:06.540 | is that you have to fight the battles on all fronts.

01:02:11.140 | And if you don't keep that in mind,

01:02:13.140 | I can tell you are headed towards collapse.

01:02:17.620 | - Like you said, in this fight against corruption,

01:02:21.060 | you're challenging some very powerful people,

01:02:23.780 | a powerful establishment.

01:02:25.260 | Are you ever afraid for your life?

01:02:29.340 | Potential assassinations?

01:02:33.100 | - No.

01:02:34.700 | Tell me, what good is it to live life, I mean, in slavery?

01:02:39.700 | Look, there is a song by a Spanish singer

01:02:46.620 | called Nino Bravo.

01:02:47.780 | Just to be clear, he has already left this earth

01:02:52.340 | so we can say he has passed on to the beyond.

01:02:55.180 | The song is called "Libre."

01:02:59.340 | And the song, it tells the story of Peter Fetcher,

01:03:05.340 | an 18-year-old boy who, when the separation was made,

01:03:12.420 | and I mean, the construction of the Berlin Wall begins,

01:03:17.420 | his family ends up on the Western side

01:03:19.580 | and he accidentally ends up on the Eastern side.

01:03:21.980 | And for a whole year, he plans his escape

01:03:28.100 | to the Western side, right?

01:03:30.460 | And in that context, when he tries to escape,

01:03:33.860 | he gets murdered.

01:03:34.980 | So really, what is the point of life

01:03:39.900 | if it's not in freedom, right?

01:03:42.740 | I mean, what is the point of living

01:03:44.700 | without fighting for your values?

01:03:46.340 | If I am willing to give my life for my values,

01:03:49.620 | then what is the point of living without freedom?

01:03:52.260 | Look, can I tell you something interesting

01:03:54.140 | that happened to me here in the United States?

01:03:56.500 | I, let's say, back in the year 1998,

01:04:04.180 | I came to the United States to take a series of courses

01:04:10.180 | to improve my English,

01:04:12.380 | which I never use in formal terms

01:04:15.980 | because as president, as you can imagine,

01:04:18.100 | if I make a mistake, I can create a serious situation.

01:04:21.060 | Fortunately, I have an interpreter who is a superstar,

01:04:27.220 | and if I make a mistake, even in Spanish,

01:04:30.020 | he corrects me in the version of the other language.

01:04:32.980 | And so back then, in that year, I went to San Francisco

01:04:39.740 | and I visited Alcatraz.

01:04:41.460 | You're young, but I mean, the visit was an audio tour.

01:04:48.540 | You got a Walkman and you would choose the different tracks

01:04:55.580 | and listen to the story.

01:04:57.060 | The most interesting thing is that the Alcatraz tour

01:05:00.900 | ended in the recreation yard

01:05:04.100 | where the basketball court, exercise areas,

01:05:07.260 | and all recreational facilities were located.

01:05:10.900 | So anyone would have thought

01:05:12.620 | that this was the best part of Alcatraz.

01:05:15.300 | And yet, what they said in the guide

01:05:19.340 | was that that was the hardest part for the inmates.

01:05:22.700 | Why?

01:05:23.540 | Because I mean, that recreation area in particular

01:05:26.220 | is built in front of the San Francisco Bay.

01:05:31.180 | So the inmates could all see how San Francisco

01:05:35.820 | continued to build up and evolve and develop every day.

01:05:39.900 | While they were locked up in there,

01:05:42.380 | they couldn't take part in that.

01:05:44.340 | They were confined in that prison

01:05:46.460 | and that made them fully aware of the value of freedom.

01:05:50.540 | So in my experience, for me,

01:05:55.220 | the fight for freedom is relentless, okay?

01:05:59.900 | I mean, my greatest hero in all of human history is Moses.

01:06:04.300 | The feat of Moses is like one person alone

01:06:07.500 | with his brother Aaron,

01:06:09.540 | both confronting the combined forces of the United States,

01:06:15.500 | China, and Russia together.

01:06:19.460 | And it was Moses who said to Ramses, "Let my people go."

01:06:23.740 | Well, Ramses resisted and the forces of heaven ran him over.

01:06:31.660 | But what I mean is,

01:06:33.420 | I don't see any other possible way to live

01:06:37.820 | other than with freedom.

01:06:39.500 | And I would always fight for full freedom

01:06:42.140 | and I would be at the forefront of this cause.

01:06:45.740 | I mean, it's a cause that I'm going to die with my boots on.

01:06:50.740 | I mean, I'm not going to make do with living

01:06:54.380 | any other way other than with freedom.

01:06:56.740 | I will fight everything I'm gonna fight as much as it takes.

01:07:01.140 | At least that's the way I feel.

01:07:02.980 | So what good is it to be alive if you're confined?

01:07:07.220 | What good is it to be alive if you're not free?

01:07:10.460 | It's no good.

01:07:11.300 | What good was it for Peter Fetcher

01:07:14.500 | to be alive in communist Germany?

01:07:18.580 | Well, at least he had a moment of happiness

01:07:24.540 | while he tried to escape.

01:07:25.940 | - Another guy who fights for freedom,

01:07:28.860 | freedom of speech in this case is your new friend, Elon Musk.

01:07:33.740 | What do you admire and what have you learned

01:07:36.900 | from your interactions with Elon?

01:07:39.860 | - I have a huge admiration for Elon Musk.

01:07:44.180 | He is an absolutely unconventional person.

01:07:53.340 | He's a great fighter for the ideas of freedom.

01:07:57.780 | What he has done on Twitter, now known as X,

01:08:01.220 | and how he is helping the world nowadays

01:08:06.220 | to wake up once and for all and become aware

01:08:12.900 | of the socialist virus, the woke virus,

01:08:15.540 | that in itself makes him a hero in the history of humanity.

01:08:19.980 | But it's not just that.

01:08:25.500 | One of the things that happened to me

01:08:26.980 | is that when I went to first talk to him,

01:08:30.380 | I thought I was going to meet a successful businessman

01:08:35.380 | and that I would have

01:08:36.580 | a typical successful businessman conversation

01:08:40.060 | who understands business and that some of his businesses,

01:08:43.020 | some of his business slightly more exotic,

01:08:45.140 | but that's the kind of talk you would expect to have.

01:08:50.900 | And business people are truly admirable, right?

01:08:55.340 | Because they are true benefactors of society,

01:08:57.780 | but they're usually very much focused on their own business.

01:09:04.300 | And one of the things that really, really shocked me

01:09:10.100 | when I met Elon Musk,

01:09:13.100 | we had scheduled a meeting for no more than 15 minutes.

01:09:19.220 | The first time we were in the meeting

01:09:22.820 | for a little over 45 minutes

01:09:25.140 | because he was about to miss his flight.

01:09:28.060 | So obviously, if someone as important as him

01:09:30.740 | doesn't fly as planned, it has to be rescheduled

01:09:34.220 | and he loses a lot of hours.

01:09:36.660 | Imagine, every minute is very valuable.

01:09:39.340 | And one of the things that happened was that,

01:09:45.260 | basically, he brought up the topic of demography

01:09:50.660 | and we started discussing demographics and growth.

01:09:54.660 | I never imagined that I would end up discussing demographics

01:09:59.100 | and growth with him, you know?

01:10:01.060 | And another very fun thing was that,

01:10:05.020 | something funny he said to me was that,

01:10:09.100 | since we shared our vision regarding demographic issues

01:10:12.700 | and the need to populate the planet, he asked me,

01:10:16.580 | "Now, what about you?

01:10:18.140 | When are you going to move in that direction?"

01:10:19.740 | I mean, I said, "Oh, look, I have five children."

01:10:22.140 | And he said, "Well, the four-legged ones don't count."

01:10:25.060 | That was the first meeting I had with Elon Musk.

01:10:31.140 | The second, the second meeting was

01:10:35.380 | when here at the universities,

01:10:39.940 | we started seeing anti-Semitic demonstrations

01:10:43.980 | where basically Palestinian flags were displayed

01:10:46.900 | and Jews were harassed and persecuted.

01:10:51.100 | And at that moment, when we had that second meeting,

01:10:55.620 | he showed himself to be very deeply involved with that

01:11:00.220 | and brought up the issue of the cultural battle.

01:11:04.060 | So, I mean, it's not quite conventional

01:11:07.820 | even in the political field.

01:11:09.620 | During our last talk,

01:11:15.580 | which lasted for about two and a half hours, right?

01:11:19.780 | One of the things we talked about was freedom

01:11:22.700 | and what was at stake for the United States in this election.

01:11:27.700 | Therefore, he is a person, you know, honestly,

01:11:34.740 | I can say he is well above average.

01:11:40.020 | I mean, a person of unconventional intelligence, right?

01:11:45.020 | And also, he is very charming.

01:11:48.020 | So, I mean, again, I have a great admiration for him

01:11:52.820 | and I really interact very closely with him.

01:11:56.700 | He is very interested

01:11:58.380 | in what our Ministry of Deregulation is doing,

01:12:01.780 | which seeks to remove regulations.

01:12:04.620 | But at the same time, he works with another person

01:12:07.140 | who is also interested in the chainsaw approach.

01:12:10.260 | And so, I'm very pleased

01:12:16.260 | because they are going to try and replicate

01:12:18.500 | the model we are implementing in Argentina.

01:12:21.460 | And also, Donald Trump himself

01:12:24.340 | is very enthusiastic about this.

01:12:26.180 | So, and anything in the way of reducing regulations

01:12:29.860 | and cutting public spending

01:12:31.580 | and taking government out of the equation

01:12:33.620 | means more freedom for the people.

01:12:36.060 | So, I'm very pleased with what's going on.

01:12:39.740 | And with Trump's victory,

01:12:41.860 | because the United States will be better off,

01:12:45.300 | Argentina is going to be better too.

01:12:47.700 | And the whole world is going to be better off.

01:12:49.820 | Today, the world is a much better place

01:12:51.580 | than it was just a few days ago.

01:12:54.140 | - Like you said, Elon and Vivek Ramaswamy

01:12:57.180 | are heading the DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency.

01:13:01.020 | So, from your experience this year

01:13:03.060 | as President of Argentina

01:13:04.740 | and every chainsaw economic policies

01:13:07.940 | that you've implemented,

01:13:09.260 | what advice would you give to Elon and Vivek

01:13:11.820 | about how to do it in the United States?

01:13:14.820 | - Just cut to the chase.

01:13:16.700 | Cut to the chase.

01:13:17.980 | Simple as that.

01:13:19.140 | I'll tell you a story and you're going to love it.

01:13:21.500 | Currently in Argentina,

01:13:26.140 | due to the political balance we've achieved,

01:13:29.540 | we have had certain powers delegated from Congress

01:13:33.820 | to the executive branch.

01:13:35.500 | And therefore, we can resolve it by decree.

01:13:38.660 | The deregulation minister, Federico Storzenega,

01:13:44.340 | in his ministry,

01:13:45.820 | shows a counter that displays in front of everyone there.

01:13:49.540 | He displays the number of days, all right,

01:13:53.540 | during which the delegated powers will continue to be valid.

01:13:59.220 | Therefore, he has a whole deregulation division,

01:14:04.220 | also a public spending cut division,

01:14:07.220 | and government structure reduction division.

01:14:10.620 | And he also has an elite core that's cleaning up

01:14:14.380 | all of the laws that hinder the economic system

01:14:17.540 | and progress.

01:14:19.300 | And every day,

01:14:21.340 | he removes between one and five economic restrictions.

01:14:24.900 | So, my advice would be for them to go all the way,

01:14:28.780 | to push it to the very limit.

01:14:30.300 | And do not give up.

01:14:33.500 | Do not let down their guard.

01:14:35.900 | Furthermore, that agenda does not have political purpose,

01:14:39.860 | because at the end of the day,

01:14:41.340 | you are removing privileges.

01:14:43.900 | Of course, there will be people complaining,

01:14:46.260 | but those are people,

01:14:48.020 | these are people who are losing privileges.

01:14:49.900 | So, they will have to explain to society

01:14:52.380 | why they are keeping those privileges.

01:14:54.780 | And that is quite uncomfortable.

01:14:57.060 | - You've spoken with Donald Trump.

01:14:59.180 | Allegedly, he called you his favorite president.

01:15:01.540 | What did you discuss?

01:15:03.660 | And maybe again,

01:15:04.820 | what do you admire about President Trump?

01:15:07.780 | And what do you learn from him?

01:15:10.140 | - There are several things that I,

01:15:13.660 | I admire about President Trump.

01:15:16.140 | The first is that he probably,

01:15:20.340 | I think he's provided ample proof of this

01:15:23.660 | in his first presidency.

01:15:25.700 | He understands the nature of the cultural battle.

01:15:28.420 | He has openly confronted socialism.

01:15:32.380 | His speeches openly target socialism.

01:15:35.820 | He perfectly understands the woke virus.

01:15:39.260 | And that is, you know,

01:15:44.940 | of great value,

01:15:47.260 | because it means understanding what it's all about.

01:15:50.380 | Another thing I truly admire about him is his courage.

01:15:54.740 | In fact,

01:15:55.660 | thankfully, thank goodness,

01:16:00.140 | he didn't get assassinated or killed.

01:16:03.300 | But it was by a small chance occurrence

01:16:05.620 | that could have killed him,

01:16:06.980 | just because he moved at the right moment.

01:16:09.180 | And yet, that didn't intimidate him.

01:16:15.220 | And he went on.

01:16:16.700 | And in fact,

01:16:17.820 | during his first campaign,

01:16:21.780 | and in this one as well,

01:16:23.260 | in the second one and third one,

01:16:26.380 | they criticized him, insulted him, offended him,

01:16:31.260 | said awful things about him,

01:16:33.260 | made up all sorts of horrible stories about him.

01:16:37.140 | In that respect, I can say I deeply relate,

01:16:41.500 | because probably no one in our history

01:16:45.620 | has had such a negative campaign

01:16:47.820 | from all the media like they did to me.

01:16:50.780 | But let's say they were quite similar.

01:16:54.620 | This is why it's so interesting.

01:16:56.100 | And I was so deeply moved when last night

01:16:58.300 | I also got to meet Sylvester Stallone.

01:17:01.940 | You know?

01:17:03.620 | Because Sylvester Stallone talks about,

01:17:08.260 | well, how important is that no matter how hard they hit you

01:17:12.660 | and keep on hitting you all the time,

01:17:15.140 | despite all that, you keep going on and on and on.

01:17:18.260 | What I'm trying to say is that many of the,

01:17:23.740 | many, so many of Sylvester Stallone's approaches

01:17:29.580 | are truly inspirational, don't you think?

01:17:32.420 | So imagine, I'm about to give the speech

01:17:35.420 | and I see Sylvester Stallone and Sylvester Stallone knows me.

01:17:39.620 | It was truly insane.

01:17:41.580 | I had to pinch myself.

01:17:43.220 | I mean, this can't be true.

01:17:45.220 | And besides, well,

01:17:46.580 | the people were wonderful with me last night.

01:17:50.060 | They've been wonderful today.

01:17:51.900 | I've taken hundreds of selfies.

01:17:54.700 | I mean, it's truly been,

01:17:58.020 | I would say it's been my break, let me say,

01:18:01.340 | after almost a year in office

01:18:03.580 | and having to face all sorts of media torture

01:18:07.300 | because the journalists who have vested interests

01:18:10.820 | and are corrupt are professional torturers.

01:18:14.700 | Yes, because they invade your personal life,

01:18:18.500 | your family, and your privacy.

01:18:20.260 | Let me tell you something to show you

01:18:21.620 | the kind of garbage the media in Argentina can do.

01:18:24.620 | They sent three drones to spy on me

01:18:26.300 | at my presidential residence, to spy on me.

01:18:29.980 | Do you think that's right?

01:18:31.780 | - No. - Exactly.

01:18:33.620 | But that kind of thing happens in Argentina,

01:18:35.580 | not to mention the many lies and horrible things they say.

01:18:39.300 | I, for instance, remember that time

01:18:42.020 | when my father was hospitalized.

01:18:45.020 | My father is a man of a really strong character

01:18:48.420 | who has had two heart surgeries, all right?

01:18:53.740 | And one day a journalist was saying

01:18:55.540 | all sorts of lies about my father.

01:18:57.660 | My father was hospitalized and, well,

01:19:02.780 | and he almost died of a heart attack.

01:19:04.900 | So that kind of thing is what journalism

01:19:07.900 | and the press do in Argentina.

01:19:10.020 | So they start to attack your private life,

01:19:13.020 | your mother, your father, your sister,

01:19:14.980 | even my dogs that I absolutely adore.

01:19:17.540 | They are the most wonderful beings in the universe.

01:19:20.580 | They even target my four-legged children.

01:19:23.220 | So imagine that I've been in office for nearly a year,

01:19:27.660 | a year as president,

01:19:30.220 | and since they can't criticize my management

01:19:33.420 | except by lying and distorting the numbers,

01:19:37.780 | they meddle with all these things,

01:19:40.180 | things they have been doing all the time

01:19:42.260 | since the year 2021, when I officially entered politics.

01:19:47.940 | So, and I've seen what they've done to Trump.

01:19:52.860 | So that also makes me relate a lot to him

01:19:57.300 | because he's a true warrior.

01:19:58.740 | He's truly, he's a Viking, he's a Viking,

01:20:02.660 | he's literally a Viking.

01:20:04.140 | I mean, he is someone I admire

01:20:08.660 | for how he has kept fighting in the face of adversity,

01:20:13.220 | even against all odds, and still he managed to win.

01:20:18.460 | Amazing.

01:20:19.300 | And well, and that's why I can relate that much.

01:20:26.220 | And I've also seen how he's been unfairly criticized,

01:20:29.980 | like when he was accused of protectionism

01:20:33.140 | or when he wanted to discuss some matters

01:20:36.500 | within the context of public debate

01:20:39.100 | regarding the design of monetary policy as regards the Fed.

01:20:43.180 | And basically they have accused him of things.

01:20:48.180 | I mean, isn't he entitled to give an opinion as a president?

01:20:52.260 | I mean, any citizen could give their opinion,

01:20:54.780 | even more so a president.

01:20:56.860 | Why is it important to you

01:20:58.220 | that Argentina has a close relationship

01:21:00.540 | with the United States?

01:21:01.700 | Well, to us, that is truly important, okay?

01:21:06.580 | You know, because we've decided to be geopolitical allies

01:21:12.540 | of the United States ever since our campaign,

01:21:17.420 | that our allies, we have decided that our allies

01:21:21.700 | will be the United States and Israel,

01:21:23.900 | because they basically represent

01:21:27.220 | the ideas of the Western world,

01:21:29.300 | they represent the free world.

01:21:31.580 | That is to say what we would call today,

01:21:33.860 | let's say a liberal democracy, okay,

01:21:37.020 | by confronting the autocrats.

01:21:40.580 | And in that sense, that is the geopolitical alignment.

01:21:44.780 | Moreover, in our campaign,

01:21:46.780 | we were very, very clear on three main points.

01:21:49.580 | One, the economic pillar.

01:21:51.940 | We talked about cutting public spending

01:21:55.060 | and I would make my appearances with a chainsaw.

01:21:58.060 | We talked about economic freedom, deregulation, that is,

01:22:01.340 | and I talked about a competition of currencies

01:22:04.300 | and people, you know, obviously were interested in the dollar

01:22:07.500 | so it was obvious that the economic policy was clear.

01:22:10.900 | All right?

01:22:11.740 | And not only was it clear, but we are also fulfilling it.

01:22:14.980 | That is the first point.

01:22:16.980 | Second was our policy on security.

01:22:19.460 | The idea being to fight crime,

01:22:21.580 | I mean, relentlessly, as well as security.

01:22:26.460 | No mercy, right?

01:22:28.300 | And in fact, in Argentina, there are no more roadblocks

01:22:33.300 | which they said were impossible to end.

01:22:36.980 | Not only that, we have strengthened the security forces

01:22:39.820 | and also our armed forces,

01:22:41.580 | and we are waging a tough battle against drug trafficking

01:22:44.580 | and narco-terrorism.

01:22:46.140 | Therefore, we are also strongly fulfilling that.

01:22:48.980 | Notice that these two points which were the main concerns,

01:22:53.020 | they were the biggest concerns of Argentinians

01:22:56.380 | when we took office are now in fifth and sixth place.

01:22:59.620 | Today, the problem for Argentinians is corruption.

01:23:02.980 | Whether there is unemployment, if there is poverty,

01:23:06.460 | but they don't mention inflation and insecurity anymore.

01:23:10.580 | And besides, a third point that I made clear

01:23:13.340 | was that I would align with the United States

01:23:15.820 | and Israel internationally.

01:23:17.900 | And, you know, at my campaign rallies,

01:23:21.820 | there would be groups that would come along

01:23:23.980 | with flags of Israel.

01:23:25.740 | So it's clear that our international policy approach

01:23:30.540 | was always very clear.

01:23:32.660 | And this is something I state during my speeches

01:23:37.220 | when I talk about the values of the West

01:23:39.660 | and the civilization of the West.

01:23:42.100 | In fact, yesterday, and even more so today,

01:23:47.100 | during my speeches, I talked about

01:23:50.980 | how the different Greek groups or tribes

01:23:54.100 | go together to confront the Persians.

01:23:56.940 | That is to say, it seemed that from that time,

01:24:02.260 | 500 years before Christ until today,

01:24:05.500 | that struggle continues, right?

01:24:07.740 | But well, so, of course, we're all in.

01:24:14.740 | We are betting on the United States

01:24:18.580 | becoming once again a leader in the West.

01:24:23.140 | We needed someone to come back to make America great again.

01:24:29.540 | And as part of that process,

01:24:34.540 | being a commercial ally is also a great idea.

01:24:39.140 | So we would really like to move forward

01:24:41.820 | and deepen our trade ties and our investment ties, you know?

01:24:46.820 | And well, we would also like to be part of the NATO as well.

01:24:52.500 | - Do you think it's still possible,

01:24:54.100 | one of the radical ideas you had

01:24:56.060 | as you were running for president

01:24:57.500 | was to dollarize the Argentine economy?

01:25:02.060 | Do you think that's still a good idea?

01:25:04.060 | Are you still thinking about that?

01:25:05.860 | - Let's see, let's break it down.

01:25:07.300 | Let's say I, if you review all my statements,

01:25:12.300 | I talk about currency competition.

01:25:15.300 | I'm not strictly talking about dollarization.

01:25:19.700 | I'm talking about currency competition

01:25:21.660 | and eliminating the central bank.

01:25:24.060 | If people later decide to embrace the dollar,

01:25:27.180 | that is their choice.

01:25:29.020 | Ultimately, in the model I propose,

01:25:31.380 | what happens is the formation of a currency basket

01:25:34.380 | tailored to the needs of individuals.

01:25:37.460 | But I won't avoid the discussion.

01:25:41.380 | Today, there is currency competition.

01:25:43.540 | If, for instance, today in Argentina,

01:25:45.460 | you want to make transactions in any currency,

01:25:47.860 | you can do it and it's allowed.

01:25:49.980 | Today, there is currency competition.

01:25:52.300 | The other thing we talk about is the concept of,

01:25:54.980 | let's suppose we were discussing dollarization,

01:25:57.740 | we talk about endogenous dollarization.

01:26:00.140 | The first point is that

01:26:03.340 | you need to clean up the central bank.

01:26:06.140 | We had to deal with the issue of the CIRA,

01:26:09.060 | that is the central bank's commercial debt,

01:26:10.980 | which was $50 billion.

01:26:12.780 | We still have to resolve the dividend problem

01:26:14.820 | of $10 billion.

01:26:16.580 | And in the meantime, we did a write-off

01:26:19.140 | and cleaned up the central bank's balance sheet

01:26:21.140 | by $45 billion.

01:26:23.140 | So you can't just close the central bank

01:26:25.860 | if it is bankrupt because you need to redeem

01:26:28.020 | the whole central bank debt,

01:26:29.540 | which is about the issuing of money

01:26:31.260 | and the interest-bearing liabilities.

01:26:33.260 | So once we finished with the interest-bearing liabilities,

01:26:37.020 | it'll leave us with the monetary base.

01:26:39.340 | Therefore, today we have a regime

01:26:42.540 | where the amount of money is fixed,

01:26:44.700 | the monetary base is not growing,

01:26:46.940 | and as demand for money increases

01:26:49.060 | since people can use dollars,

01:26:51.460 | they don't need to go and sell the dollars

01:26:53.780 | and make the peso appreciate,

01:26:56.020 | but they can do transactions in dollars.

01:26:59.180 | So as the economy grows,

01:27:00.980 | you will have a greater share of dollars

01:27:03.380 | relative to pesos.

01:27:05.180 | And at some point,

01:27:06.540 | the amount of pesos compared to the dollars

01:27:08.780 | will be so huge, relatively,

01:27:12.980 | that closing down the central bank

01:27:14.980 | will be done easily,

01:27:16.580 | which means this is working.

01:27:19.340 | Of course, if you were to give me the money right now,

01:27:23.020 | I would go ahead and dollarize.

01:27:25.620 | I'd have no problem with that.

01:27:28.420 | For example, I did have a proposal for this

01:27:30.780 | and this could have worked

01:27:32.540 | because the bonds,

01:27:34.420 | because the largest creditor

01:27:35.940 | of the Argentine treasury is the central bank,

01:27:38.580 | but central bank bonds were trading at 20 cents.

01:27:43.340 | If I had sold those bonds at 20 cents,

01:27:45.700 | and nowadays they are trading between 60 and 70

01:27:50.300 | with the whole bunch of Neanderthals

01:27:53.700 | that are the opposition,

01:27:55.940 | who besides being ignorant in economics,

01:28:00.340 | also have bad intentions,

01:28:03.380 | I would be in jail today.

01:28:05.500 | - Let me ask you a very important, difficult question.

01:28:09.340 | I'm a huge fan,

01:28:11.060 | have been my whole life,

01:28:12.060 | of Diego Mardona and Messi.

01:28:15.180 | So, who to you is the greatest football player of all time?

01:28:18.740 | - The way I see it,

01:28:19.700 | I have seen Maradona play, all right.

01:28:21.900 | I saw Maradona play in the past,

01:28:26.260 | I used to watch him,

01:28:27.420 | and I saw him during his last year at Argentino Juniors,

01:28:32.140 | before Boca Juniors in the year 1980,

01:28:36.020 | and I saw him in '81.

01:28:37.980 | Playing for Boca,

01:28:39.100 | I saw him play in the youth selection in Japan in 1979.

01:28:44.820 | I truly have immensely enjoyed the talent of Maradona,

01:28:49.820 | but without a doubt,

01:28:54.820 | the best soccer player of all time,

01:28:57.020 | not just from Argentina,

01:28:58.180 | of all time,

01:28:59.540 | even better than Pelé,

01:29:01.900 | is Messi, of course.

01:29:04.100 | There is an article which is quite old already now,

01:29:08.100 | titled "Messi is Impossible",

01:29:11.540 | and it looks at all of the positions

01:29:15.740 | a soccer player plays in.

01:29:17.260 | That is, all positions a soccer player can play in

01:29:23.180 | from midfield forward, okay?

01:29:25.180 | And the most incredible thing is that Messi

01:29:30.020 | is the best in each of those positions.

01:29:34.940 | You can be the best in one or two positions.

01:29:39.260 | You see, Cristiano Ronaldo, for example,

01:29:42.700 | was very good in two areas of the game,

01:29:46.100 | so much so that he was almost like Messi,

01:29:49.900 | but he didn't take part in the rest.

01:29:52.860 | However, Messi is the best one in all respects,

01:29:56.380 | but at that time, of course.

01:29:58.300 | Nowadays, you know, he is an older player, right?

01:30:02.860 | And I'm not sure

01:30:07.900 | whether he can still keep that performance on all fronts,

01:30:11.660 | but honestly, I have never in my life

01:30:14.900 | seen a player like Messi.

01:30:16.740 | I have never seen no one like him, for real.

01:30:20.580 | If you look at the number of goals he scored,

01:30:23.780 | I correct that,

01:30:24.620 | considering the goal average in the days of Pelé,

01:30:27.540 | compared to Messi's golden era and his career now,

01:30:31.300 | the number of equivalent goals

01:30:33.180 | is much greater than that of Pelé.

01:30:35.340 | Therefore, without a doubt,

01:30:37.460 | Messi is the greatest soccer player of all time,

01:30:41.260 | of all time, no one compares to him.

01:30:44.540 | - But it's not just the numbers or the World Cup win.

01:30:48.100 | It's the moments of genius on the field.

01:30:52.980 | Messi is unlike any other in that way.

01:30:56.140 | - Messi does things that seem technically impossible.

01:30:59.660 | They seem physically impossible.

01:31:02.580 | The moves he makes don't respect human logic.

01:31:05.140 | It's like watching Usain Bolt run.

01:31:08.180 | It doesn't feel possible.

01:31:09.620 | He moves in a way that doesn't respect human logic.

01:31:14.740 | Am I right?

01:31:16.420 | - Did you watch the 1986 World Cup with Maradona,

01:31:19.580 | with the hand of God, with the game against England?

01:31:22.700 | What was that like?

01:31:24.060 | - Oh, yes.

01:31:25.340 | I do remember that very well.

01:31:27.340 | We watched it in the home of my godfather,

01:31:35.020 | and saw how he did his gambit,

01:31:37.220 | and dodged the team, the England team.

01:31:40.180 | That was truly, it was absolutely,

01:31:44.540 | absolutely indescribable.

01:31:48.500 | There's no way to put it into words.

01:31:51.620 | It's as if I asked you to describe for me

01:31:54.740 | the love you have for your partner.

01:31:59.020 | You can't do that, right?

01:32:01.060 | I mean, it's something wonderful.

01:32:04.300 | You can't describe it, you cannot put it into words.

01:32:08.460 | There are things where words,

01:32:10.740 | I mean, you know, just seem to fail.

01:32:15.740 | Am I right?

01:32:17.100 | I really think that there are times when humans,

01:32:21.300 | or some humans, not all of them, actually,

01:32:27.860 | some humans have the privilege

01:32:31.340 | of being able to vibrate closer to God.

01:32:34.140 | Some Puccini arias, for example,

01:32:37.460 | when you listen to them,

01:32:38.660 | when you listen to the famous aria from La Rondine,

01:32:43.660 | or the famous aria from Gianni Schicci,

01:32:47.300 | I mean, you get the feeling

01:32:49.180 | that he was getting satictated by God.

01:32:51.660 | How can you put that into words?

01:32:54.060 | You can't.

01:32:55.260 | There's no way you do that.

01:32:56.620 | I mean, those moments where we humans are

01:33:00.700 | that we have the privilege.

01:33:03.660 | I say it as human beings, right?

01:33:05.460 | Because, I mean, I'm speaking from that perspective.

01:33:08.740 | Okay?

01:33:10.340 | I say this only as an admirer.

01:33:14.140 | Some human beings have the ability

01:33:16.620 | to vibrate so close to God that you can't describe it.

01:33:20.500 | You can only enjoy it.

01:33:22.180 | This is why in Judaism,

01:33:25.620 | they don't use the name of God, of the Creator,

01:33:29.740 | because how could you put in words something like that?

01:33:35.100 | And I believe those are times

01:33:37.020 | when us humans connect closer to the Creator

01:33:42.020 | and create things, unique things.

01:33:45.820 | You cannot describe them.

01:33:47.020 | There are no words to describe that.

01:33:49.060 | The only thing you can do is enjoy it

01:33:51.220 | and be thankful that you can witness it.

01:33:55.460 | - You were a great footballer yourself in your youth.

01:34:00.180 | You were a goalkeeper.

01:34:01.660 | Many people would say that's the toughest

01:34:03.780 | and the most important position in football.

01:34:06.260 | Maybe you could speak about that experience

01:34:08.300 | and in general, what's harder,

01:34:09.620 | being a goalkeeper or president?

01:34:11.260 | - Lovely question.

01:34:14.540 | Well, indeed.

01:34:18.260 | I used to be a goalkeeper,

01:34:20.300 | but I'm not so sure about whether I was any good.

01:34:24.220 | But the experience of having been a goalkeeper

01:34:29.220 | is very valuable.

01:34:31.860 | First, the goalkeeper is the only player

01:34:36.820 | that can use their hands

01:34:39.380 | in a certain sector of the pitch, in the area.

01:34:43.020 | The other thing is that he's also the only player

01:34:49.980 | who dresses differently, right?

01:34:53.620 | Moreover, their training is a solitary one.

01:34:57.380 | And the most important,

01:35:02.260 | I mean, it is the very climax, the goal, right?

01:35:09.500 | When the goal is called by their team,

01:35:12.620 | everyone is celebrating on the other side

01:35:14.700 | and the goalkeeper is on his own.

01:35:16.380 | And at the same time,

01:35:22.220 | he is the one who suffers the most

01:35:24.780 | when a goal is scored because he gets the direct impact.

01:35:28.340 | In fact, when the goalkeeper makes a mistake,

01:35:31.460 | it's an own goal.

01:35:32.620 | Imagine a teammate scores a wonderful goal

01:35:36.500 | like the one Maradona did.

01:35:38.300 | It's marvelous.

01:35:39.540 | And that's just one goal.

01:35:41.620 | And imagine the goalkeeper picks up the ball

01:35:44.020 | and then if they bring it into the area wrongly,

01:35:46.900 | it's like two goals.

01:35:48.740 | It's a complete lack of proportion.

01:35:51.100 | So therefore,

01:35:53.540 | and this, in my opinion,

01:35:58.020 | makes goalkeepers have a very strong temperament, right?

01:36:02.460 | They are used to being alone.

01:36:05.860 | And power is precisely that.

01:36:08.300 | Because when you make decisions, you are on your own.

01:36:12.340 | And not just that, but also,

01:36:19.300 | when you have a responsibility,

01:36:22.180 | like that of a president,

01:36:24.260 | when you make a decision,

01:36:25.540 | it has an impact on millions of people.

01:36:27.980 | So just like goalkeepers,

01:36:31.900 | if you make a mistake and score an own goal,

01:36:34.620 | and in this context,

01:36:36.060 | it's negative consequences for millions of people.

01:36:40.780 | Therefore, that has been part of the university of life

01:36:45.500 | that has given me the tools to be president today.

01:36:49.540 | That is my training in economics,

01:36:51.620 | my training in liberalism,

01:36:53.660 | having been a goalkeeper,

01:36:55.300 | and also having had a very tough childhood.

01:36:59.180 | - How hard is it?

01:37:00.620 | What's been the personal toll of carrying

01:37:03.580 | the hope of a nation on your shoulders?

01:37:06.060 | - Well, being defamed, insulted,

01:37:10.060 | and attacked every single day.

01:37:13.140 | But,

01:37:13.980 | but again, there's no point in life

01:37:20.060 | if it's not with freedom.

01:37:21.460 | So like Sylvester Stallone once said,

01:37:25.180 | "The secret to life is to carry on

01:37:27.700 | "in spite of the blows you get,

01:37:29.700 | "the punches you take."

01:37:31.380 | And fortunately, we have been able to carry on

01:37:36.060 | in spite of the blows,

01:37:39.060 | both coming at us from in front and from behind our backs,

01:37:42.860 | because it would have been more honest

01:37:44.220 | if we had been attacked directly.

01:37:46.620 | But well, you know, in Argentina,

01:37:48.820 | politics and the mass media,

01:37:53.580 | they do love to attack behind your back.

01:37:57.180 | - What role has God played in your life?

01:37:59.820 | And who is God?

01:38:01.980 | - Well, faith, I'd say, has been

01:38:07.060 | a very fundamental element, you know?

01:38:13.420 | And

01:38:14.260 | especially in recent times,

01:38:20.420 | during which I've become actively involved,

01:38:23.500 | particularly in the teachings of Judaism

01:38:27.260 | and in the study of the Torah.

01:38:30.780 | This has given me a huge,

01:38:36.180 | let's say, a huge background

01:38:40.620 | to face the many adversities which I've encountered

01:38:43.860 | and had to overcome in the last few years.

01:38:46.940 | And as to who God is,

01:38:48.420 | he's the creator, the maker.

01:38:50.740 | I call him the one.

01:38:53.100 | - What is a better guide for humanity,

01:38:55.940 | the invisible hand of the market or the hand of God?

01:39:00.260 | - They're perfectly in sync.

01:39:02.300 | - Well enough.

01:39:05.380 | Again, going back to your youth,

01:39:07.500 | you were a lead singer in a rock band.

01:39:10.140 | Who is the greatest rock star of all time?

01:39:12.780 | - Okay.

01:39:14.340 | Well, the way I see it,

01:39:16.220 | the most amazing rock singer in history of mankind

01:39:21.180 | was definitely Elvis Presley.

01:39:23.060 | And my favorite band is the Rolling Stones.

01:39:28.140 | So I also greatly admire Mick Jagger, you know?

01:39:33.500 | And I still have this dream

01:39:35.860 | of getting to meet him in person.

01:39:38.500 | - How fun would it be to play together with the Stones?

01:39:42.180 | - That would be a big, big dream.

01:39:46.900 | Don't get my hopes up

01:39:51.300 | because I set goals and then I go and achieve them.

01:39:54.220 | - Well, I'm close friends with a band

01:39:56.780 | that opens for the Stones.

01:39:57.900 | So I would love to see this happen.

01:40:00.460 | - Oh, well, that would be great.

01:40:02.220 | Or we could also watch the whole concert from the stage.

01:40:08.260 | I mean, I can't keep ruining the Rolling Stones' music.

01:40:11.700 | I already had a tribute band

01:40:13.420 | and did quite a lot of damage to their music.

01:40:16.340 | - How much of your rock star roots

01:40:18.620 | define your approach to politics, to life?

01:40:20.900 | Do you see yourself as a kind of showman in part?

01:40:25.380 | - Of course.

01:40:26.300 | Absolutely.

01:40:29.100 | My idea is that when you attend one of our events,

01:40:35.700 | it feels like going to a Rolling Stones concert.

01:40:38.300 | In fact, in one of my most recent performances

01:40:42.620 | at Luna Park, I even had the pleasure of singing

01:40:46.140 | in front of 10,000 people.

01:40:48.100 | It's on YouTube.

01:40:51.220 | No, sorry.

01:40:52.580 | Not on YouTube.

01:40:54.380 | It's on my Instagram feed.

01:40:55.900 | At that event, I sang a song called "Panic Show"

01:41:01.420 | and the song starts by saying, "Hi, everybody.

01:41:04.820 | I am the lion."

01:41:06.820 | - Your intensity and passion

01:41:08.740 | have earned you the nickname El Loco, the madman.

01:41:11.740 | Do you think some madness is necessary

01:41:15.420 | to challenge the powerful establishment?

01:41:19.140 | - Well, maybe it's a matter of perspective, right?

01:41:22.300 | It could be the other way around,

01:41:24.580 | that everyone else is crazy by living in a way

01:41:27.580 | contrary to the ideas of freedom.

01:41:30.580 | And so maybe the same person who wants to fix that

01:41:33.820 | is then considered a madman.

01:41:36.460 | Anyway, the nickname doesn't bother me at all.

01:41:41.020 | In fact, I even enjoy it because I've been called like that

01:41:43.700 | since I was 10 years old.

01:41:44.860 | So it's not something that particularly bothers me,

01:41:49.540 | you know, because it's a nickname that,

01:41:53.260 | well, it has been used for many years.

01:41:57.460 | But actually, if I present to you the case of San Martin,

01:42:02.340 | when he said he was going to cross the Andes to liberate

01:42:06.740 | not only Argentina, not only our country,

01:42:09.780 | but also Chile and Peru, and people called him crazy.

01:42:13.820 | Imagine if you had tried and spoken with, I don't know,

01:42:18.260 | with Michelangelo, you would have called him crazy too.

01:42:22.660 | Or if you had talked to, I don't know,

01:42:26.860 | hundreds of people who have changed the world,

01:42:29.140 | surely they would have thought that Einstein was crazy

01:42:32.580 | and so on, the list would be infinite.

01:42:34.820 | So what is the difference between a madman

01:42:39.260 | and a genius?

01:42:40.460 | Success.

01:42:43.180 | - Let me ask you about the market.

01:42:48.260 | It's so interesting from your view of the world,

01:42:52.580 | how powerful the market is at figuring out

01:42:55.020 | what's best for society.

01:42:57.060 | Why do you think the market works so well

01:42:59.820 | as a guide for humanity?

01:43:01.620 | - One must first understand what the market is.

01:43:06.700 | Simply put, the market is a process of voluntary exchange

01:43:12.940 | where individuals cooperate through the transfer

01:43:15.700 | of property rights in which private property is upheld.

01:43:22.940 | This is the system that drives the allocation of resources.

01:43:27.940 | In essence, socialism, and this is what Mises condemns

01:43:32.340 | in his book "Socialism", shows is that

01:43:35.700 | without private property, prices cease to exist,

01:43:41.180 | and therefore resources are diverted.

01:43:43.420 | Why don't you think it's the same

01:43:44.580 | to make a road of asphalt or gold?

01:43:46.540 | Why not make it of gold?

01:43:48.260 | Because you have an understanding of economic calculation,

01:43:51.420 | you have an idea of prices in your mind.

01:43:54.060 | So in this context, if there is no private property,

01:43:59.060 | there are no prices.

01:44:00.780 | And as a result, the free market capitalism, you know,

01:44:05.780 | is the best mechanism ever developed by humankind

01:44:10.340 | for resource allocation.

01:44:13.060 | This also implies that markets must be free,

01:44:16.540 | free from state intervention,

01:44:18.940 | because when the state intervenes,

01:44:21.460 | it creates interference.

01:44:23.900 | And markets need to allow free entry and exit,

01:44:28.740 | what we call competition.

01:44:31.020 | However, it's better to understand competition

01:44:34.540 | in the sense described by Israel Gerstner,

01:44:36.900 | one of the foremost figures of the Austrian school,

01:44:39.620 | or in the neoclassical framework

01:44:42.060 | as William Baumol understood it,

01:44:44.340 | which was the concept of free entry and exit

01:44:46.980 | in so-called contestable markets.

01:44:49.740 | And also, let's talk about what pertains

01:44:52.780 | to the division of labor and social cooperation.

01:44:56.220 | You know, the most wonderful thing about capitalism

01:45:00.460 | is that you can only be successful by serving others

01:45:03.380 | with better quality goods at a better price.

01:45:06.900 | If you are successful in the free market capitalism,

01:45:10.820 | you are a hero, you are a social benefactor,

01:45:13.420 | you are a prosperity machine.

01:45:15.340 | So the better you do, you know,

01:45:19.620 | the better you do, the better it is for society.

01:45:24.380 | This is very important.

01:45:25.340 | I remember when I had my first meeting with Elon Musk,

01:45:28.060 | and this made me admire him greatly.

01:45:32.220 | And this is something my sister commented on too.

01:45:36.580 | You know, Elon Musk told me something he does every day.

01:45:40.660 | He wakes up every morning thinking about

01:45:44.500 | what problem he could fix for humanity.

01:45:48.660 | That's amazing.

01:45:49.940 | Of course, what is the counterpart?

01:45:52.900 | Being successful.

01:45:54.180 | Therefore, in that sense,

01:45:59.180 | and moreover, in my view on how the system works,

01:46:04.180 | on how the market works, market failures do not exist.

01:46:08.900 | That is to say, that is a problem.

01:46:12.780 | All right, a problem for neoclassical economies

01:46:16.780 | because of the mathematical tools they've used

01:46:20.820 | to develop economic analysis,

01:46:24.700 | but actually it's not a real issue in everyday life.

01:46:29.500 | It's a problem in the minds of economists.

01:46:32.140 | In fact, my latest book called "Capitalism, Socialism,

01:46:35.900 | and the Neoclassical Trap" deals precisely with this issue.

01:46:40.220 | - Yeah, you've outlined these ideas in "Capitalism, Socialism,

01:46:42.860 | and the Neoclassical Trap."

01:46:44.700 | So the trap is that there's no such thing

01:46:47.860 | as a middle ground.

01:46:49.020 | It's either capitalism or socialism,

01:46:50.940 | and every middle ground ends up in a state of socialism.

01:46:55.340 | - Well, actually that is what Mises said that there were,

01:47:00.340 | he said that there are only two systems,

01:47:04.220 | free enterprise capitalism and socialism.

01:47:07.900 | And he also pointed out,

01:47:10.540 | and this is proven in Hayek's book, "The Road to Serfdom,"

01:47:14.100 | that any middle ground solution is unstable

01:47:16.540 | in terms of capitalism, meaning it tends towards socialism.

01:47:20.500 | So when you implement an intervention,

01:47:23.060 | it causes government failure,

01:47:24.620 | which then triggers further intervention,

01:47:27.060 | setting up a trap that results in more and more intervention.

01:47:30.500 | And in this context, the neoclassicals

01:47:33.260 | with their market failure theory

01:47:35.220 | are in fact dealing with problems

01:47:37.060 | that are fundamentally mathematical.

01:47:39.180 | Rather than making the world a better place,

01:47:43.500 | they have, if you will, been instrumental

01:47:45.460 | in increasing the levels of intervention.

01:47:47.980 | Let me tell you something.

01:47:49.300 | Well, you know, I have an economist

01:47:56.740 | as chairman of the President's Advisory Council,

01:48:00.380 | Dr. Damien Radel, who studied here at Harvard University

01:48:06.420 | and completed his PhD,

01:48:09.180 | was mentored by Kenneth Rogoff, the American economist.

01:48:13.660 | And Rogoff has said that Dr. Radel was his best student.

01:48:18.660 | Nowadays, we're actually working with Dr. Radel

01:48:24.300 | specifically on all these issues that arise from,

01:48:29.300 | you know, the interventions proposed,

01:48:36.140 | proposed by the mainstream,

01:48:40.940 | such as the so-called correction of market failures.

01:48:43.860 | And a few days ago, he conducted a survey

01:48:49.980 | of search algorithms and policy recommendations,

01:48:54.980 | and that resulted in a map painted from red to blue.

01:49:03.260 | And, well, the redder it was,

01:49:07.540 | the more it was linked to socialism.

01:49:10.340 | There was an intermediate thing that was yellow,

01:49:13.260 | and blue was free market ideas.

01:49:16.700 | And one of the things he discovered

01:49:19.460 | as part of that graph or chart

01:49:22.700 | was that the largest,

01:49:26.900 | the largest number of policy recommendations

01:49:31.700 | scandalously are actually left-leaning.

01:49:36.140 | So that is the empirical evidence

01:49:39.780 | of what I pointed out in the book,

01:49:41.820 | capitalism, socialism, and the neoclassical trap.

01:49:45.580 | - You mentioned your four-legged children.

01:49:49.220 | What have you learned about life from your dogs?

01:49:52.860 | - Well, from my four-legged children,

01:49:56.180 | I have learned unconditional love.

01:50:00.140 | In fact, well,

01:50:03.700 | my name in Hebrew means loyal friend, faithful friend,

01:50:11.100 | and on the Chinese horoscope, I am dog.

01:50:14.540 | And if there's one thing that defines me

01:50:18.980 | is loyalty being decent.

01:50:23.180 | And those virtues, you know,

01:50:24.700 | you can find them in those wonderful beings

01:50:27.940 | that dogs are who love unconditionally.

01:50:32.220 | In fact, they are superior beings, right?

01:50:36.580 | Spiritually speaking, in my case,

01:50:40.860 | because, you know,

01:50:45.220 | I don't forget or forgive those who have harmed me.

01:50:49.100 | That is to say, all those who have insulted,

01:50:53.260 | defamed me, and criticized me,

01:50:55.620 | I remember each one of them,

01:50:58.020 | but I don't have the greatness needed to forgive them.

01:51:02.460 | - On the topic of loyalty in politics,

01:51:06.740 | I'm sure there's been a lot of people,

01:51:08.940 | some people who have betrayed you.

01:51:11.260 | Does that hurt your heart?

01:51:15.860 | - It depends.

01:51:18.700 | Because

01:51:25.020 | you sometimes think that you can expect

01:51:27.740 | some people to be loyal, and if they betray you,

01:51:31.220 | of course, that hurts.

01:51:35.980 | But some people, you actually don't expect

01:51:38.260 | anything from them, so if there's betrayal,

01:51:42.500 | I mean, you won't be annoyed or feel bad

01:51:44.940 | because you owe it to someone who didn't share your values,

01:51:49.580 | but politics does have that, you know?

01:51:54.220 | Sometimes, many of the people you may come across

01:51:59.020 | don't have the values you advocate for,

01:52:01.620 | but it's cost-benefit.

01:52:04.900 | You need to let the ship sail on, right?

01:52:07.660 | Or would you rather let it sink?

01:52:09.300 | That's not my case, I fight until the end.

01:52:13.260 | There are traitors, but that's part of politics.

01:52:16.900 | And that's not my line, but of course, they do exist.

01:52:23.940 | - There are a lot of people who admire

01:52:25.780 | your revolutionary spirit.

01:52:28.100 | What advice would you give them, maybe young people,

01:52:31.580 | on how to live a life like yours

01:52:35.620 | and have an impact on the world like you have begun to do?

01:52:39.140 | - I didn't do this thinking about

01:52:41.780 | having an impact on the world.

01:52:43.380 | I have defined what makes me happy

01:52:49.780 | and I live according to that.

01:52:52.340 | I live consistently by that.

01:52:54.180 | And most importantly, I would say never give up.

01:53:02.780 | Moreover, and above all, never be half-hearted.

01:53:08.940 | I would rather cry because I failed

01:53:19.820 | rather than not crying because I never tried.

01:53:22.860 | I mean, I'm a perfectionist, so when I do err,

01:53:27.820 | of course, I have a bad time.

01:53:31.260 | But still, I prefer to go and get things done.

01:53:36.260 | If it goes wrong, it's part of life, but I will never.

01:53:41.180 | Never have to regret not having done

01:53:45.380 | what I thought needed to be done at that moment, all right?

01:53:50.300 | - What gives you hope about the future of Argentina

01:53:52.940 | and the future of humanity?

01:53:54.980 | - Well, the fact that thanks to social media

01:54:01.380 | and to the whole tech revolution going on,

01:54:04.420 | every day, more and more people are becoming aware

01:54:09.140 | of how important freedom is to live in peace and prosperity.

01:54:17.020 | To live in peace and prosperity.

01:54:19.940 | And I believe even though bureaucrats and the elites

01:54:24.060 | fight untiringly to enslave us,

01:54:28.300 | a wave of freedom has been unleashed,

01:54:33.620 | which if we do wage the fight,

01:54:39.020 | we'll have a much better world.

01:54:42.340 | - What does your famous words of Viva la Libertad,

01:54:46.660 | how did that come about and what does it mean to you?

01:54:49.580 | - Long live freedom, damn it.

01:54:51.100 | You know, that first started

01:54:54.580 | while I was giving my book presentations,

01:54:59.900 | at the end of my presentation,

01:55:01.420 | I would say, "Viva la Libertad, carajo."

01:55:04.980 | And that really stuck with me since then.

01:55:08.340 | Without thinking about it, throughout my life,

01:55:12.300 | it was going to continue being present.

01:55:14.860 | In fact, today, my presentations,

01:55:17.500 | all of my speeches end with,

01:55:20.780 | "May God bless the Argentinians.

01:55:24.980 | "May the forces of heaven be with us

01:55:27.140 | "and viva la Libertad, carajo."

01:55:29.500 | The first phrase reflects

01:55:33.100 | my faith in God, fervently.

01:55:40.020 | And that I'm deeply thankful to the creator

01:55:42.940 | for the wonderful things he has bestowed upon me daily.

01:55:46.940 | The second one has to do with a quote

01:55:50.180 | from the book of Maccabees 3.19,

01:55:54.220 | which says that victory in battle

01:55:55.700 | doesn't depend on the size of the army,

01:55:57.860 | but on the forces of heaven.

01:55:59.340 | This has to do with the victory of the Jewish people,

01:56:04.860 | the Maccabeans against the Greeks,

01:56:07.420 | and how they recovered the temple.

01:56:09.420 | And the last one, well, is my war cry.

01:56:14.180 | - Well, there's no better way to end it.

01:56:17.580 | Thank you for being a warrior for freedom.

01:56:20.660 | And thank you for talking today.

01:56:21.980 | - Thank you very much, indeed, for your interview.

01:56:25.300 | And thank you for being so well-educated

01:56:28.100 | because very often, interviewers are not like that.

01:56:31.540 | And you did have windows to play foul, and you didn't,

01:56:34.340 | and I recognize that, and I thank you for that.

01:56:37.380 | - Thank you.

01:56:38.220 | Thanks for listening to this conversation

01:56:41.060 | with Javier Millet.

01:56:42.660 | To support this podcast,

01:56:43.780 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

01:56:46.460 | And now, let me leave you with some words

01:56:48.460 | from George Orwell.

01:56:49.500 | "In a time of deceit,

01:56:52.380 | "telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

01:56:55.700 | Thank you for listening.

01:56:58.380 | I hope to see you next time.

01:57:00.380 | (upbeat music)

01:57:02.980 | (upbeat music)

01:57:05.580 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Javier Milei: President of Argentina - Freedom, Economics, and Corruption | Lex Fridman Podcast #453

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