exactly one year ago the very first libertarian world leader was sworn into office in Argentina The Economist was an underdog throughout his campaign and known for his Wild TV appearances and occasional Antics with a chainsaw Javier Malay is the first Libertarian president the world has ever seen and one year into his government we now have an idea of what that looks like for a self-professed anarcho capitalist who detests power and the government to be in charge of one in this video we'll discuss his five most impactful decisions in his first year and because I want
to keep this video short and Suite I'll link some further reading on each of the points I mention in the description let's get into it starting with number five rent control reforms rent controls are restrictions on the prices landlords can charge tenants and the intention is to make housing more affordable but the reality is quite different finding a good apartment within budget in a deep decent area in buenosaires was once an experience similar to New York City apartment hunting and as someone who has stayed in the city many times I can tell you that as
beautiful as the apartments are on the outside the inside shows the reality of these restrictions but since Malay lifted rent controls the housing market in Argentina is booming once again rental properties available on the market are up 170% and are becoming more affordable while remove moving price controls May temporarily cause prices to increase it signals to business owners that they can make money in these markets leading to more investment and competition a higher quality of units available and decreasing or stabilizing prices number four mala's war on protectionism recently Malay announced that the P tax on
Imports would be eliminated reducing import taxes from 17.5% to 7.5% and Malay own words welcome to the historic moment when a government said it was creating a temporary tax and today that is coming true this tax was created 5 years ago to protect Argentine production but this was a massive mistake for two reasons one the quality of goods available to Argentine suffers because specialization is important even on a country level there are things I refuse to buy in Argentina like clothing because of bad quality and high price and two Argentine still wanted to buy products
made by companies outside of Argentina like iPhones and because of the crazy high import taxes people were paying high prices while making very low wages mala's third biggest accomplishment this year was creating the first monthly budget surplus Argentina had seen in 12 years and he did this in his first full month in office while paying interest on the national debt this was a Monumental accomplishment because the debt and overspending is what led to the triple digit inflation in 2023 it's why a huge part of Mal's campaign focused on calling out the political cast a group
of people living off the state dime by robbing the Argentine people through taxes and inflation this leads me to the second biggest achievement from Malay reducing inflation as Malay was being elected Argentina was coming very close cl to hyperinflation for example when I visited Argentina in April 2023 the exchange rate was roughly 1 us for 400 Argentine pesos in November 2023 the exchange rate was around 900 to a th000 pesos for $1 that level of currency devaluation is nearly incomprehensible to the American mind and in my opinion was the chief reason Malay got elected and
when he r for president he was honest that things had to get worse before they could get better because the value of the peso had been so unnaturally distorted by previous administrations but he did make a promise if things went really well monthly inflation would fall under 3% before the end of the year in October 2024 Argentina's monthly inflation dropped to 2.7% its lowest rate in 3 years the final accomplishment M and in my opinion the most important of the Malay Administration has been the dismantling of [Music] bureaucracy [Applause] for Minister Capo Minister infr Minister
econom minister the day Malay was inaugurated he signed an executive order cutting 12 government agencies leaving only nine he also established a Ministry of deregulation and state transformation in July which has cut one to five economic regulations every single day and he recently announced that apip Argentina's version of the IRS would be dismantled and replaced with a significantly smaller organization Argentina's bloated and useless administrative state has been feeding off the Argentine population Like A Parasite for decades and Malay just went in with the chainsaw and started swinging these measures have been so successful and significant
that they've inspired the creation of a similar project called Doge in the new Trump administration led by VC ramaswami who said they'd pursue Malay style cuts on steroids and Elon Musk who has claimed they will eliminate $2 trillion dollar of government waste accounting for about a third of the United States deficit I spend a fair bit of time in Argentina and I have to say things are finally starting to look positive for both the country and Malay honesty and forwardness have been some of the crowning virtues of the Malay administration because they've consistently told people
what to expect both good and bad and it gives people something to hold them accountable to it's also really interesting watching the internal Dynamics within the administration because this is also an experiment in libertarian leadership what does it look like for a Libertarian to wield power I think this is a scary subject for some Libertarians because a lot rides of Malay being success successful as he's really putting our ideology to the test but so far I think things are going great and I'm really hopeful for the future of Argentina I hope you enjoyed watching this
video as much as I did making it if you think I got the order wrong or didn't include something that's exciting to you please let me know in the comments and don't forget to like subscribe and hit the bell for a notification when I upload next I will see you next time with a recap of 2024 ciao okay
