So - why should the state intervene?

It's a very extreme (and coked-up) version of what you always hear from Republicans.

And like Trump in 2016, it actually helped get him elected - because he convinced many voters (mainly younger men) that "all your problems are because there are millions of parasites living off your hard-earned money!"

But now that real wages have plummeted by over 25% in six months - and everything from industrial production, to business investment and retail sales falling by almost as much - a lot of voters are having second thoughts about the guy the affectionately called El Loco (The Madman).

Elections have consequences - and this one will take years to recover from (in a country that had already gone through a lot).

when they decided not to die of hunger the French also decided that they would execute the people who didn't give a f**k about the fact that they were dying of hunger.

That's why he has a coterie of pro-dictatorship hard-liners heading all the security-related posts.

Starting with the Security Minister herself, the surveillance (and wine) enthusiast Patricia Bullrich:

Although it did take a long time!

Trump, you might recall, forced the IMF to give his pal Macri a record, $45 billion bailout on the eve of Macri's (failed) 2019 re-election bid.

An estimated 80% of that loan went out the back door in the form of frantic offshoring by Argentina's elites (as well as short-term fly-by-nighters such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and JP Morgan) - leaving Argentines the tab.

Nice work if you can get it.

to add to the millions of reasons not to vote for the MF!

Jar-Jar, and his newfound billions, is living proof of that.

Milei's a numbskull - but he did learn this from Republicans: Blame all the country's ills on negros vagos - "dark-skinned freeloaders."

And it worked - especially with male voters, among whom he won by almost 20 points (compared to around 4 points among women).

Though now - with a 20%+ sudden drop in living standards and mass layoffs, voters are having second thoughts.

Moreover - the sequestered food scandal (5,000 tons of packaged food meant for soup kitchens, which Milei was letting rot - in hopes said soup kitchens would shut down), has become a real headache for the manic-depressive pill-popper.

Not least because he's since entrusted a medievalist Catholic grifter (Abel Albino) to "distribute" the food - and sure enough, so far half of it has gone to Albino's home province (to his "foundation," naturally).

Argentina's RW media has done a good job at gaslighting voters - many of whom are still willing to "give it a chance because it's never been tried before" (not true - but Argentines have poor memories, and aren't usually the sharpest tools besides).

But with no light at the end of the tunnel (the promised "deluge of business investment," of course, never materialized), that will only prop him up for so long.

Cry for Argentina.