President Javier Milei Presented Argentina's Economic Model at the Idb

The president Javier Milei made a presentation this Friday at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in the United States, with a conference titled "The Argentine Economic Model".

The presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, previously announced that the presentation would be broadcast live through the official Instagram account of Milei, "@JavierMilei".

Before the presidential intervention, Ilan Goldfajn, president of the IDB, introduced President Milei to the audience of special guests who had been invited.

"President Milei has faced the persistent challenge of the fiscal deficit in Argentina, a chronic problem that has affected the country for several generations. He took a primary deficit of 2.9% of GDP at the end of 2023 and transformed it into a surplus of 1.8% by the end of 2024," highlighted Goldfajn.

"His program of rationalization and simplification of regulations in Argentina has been remarkable, probably with short-term but also long-term effects. The results are visible to everyone. Monthly inflation has fallen to its lowest level in four and a half years, near 2%. Meanwhile, real activity indicators have been recovering for months: employment, real wages, investment," he added.

As he began his speech at the IDB, Javier Milei's live broadcast was interrupted by several technical problems. His phone started receiving malicious calls that cut off the sound of the conference on Instagram, aiming to disrupt it.

After announcing that he would explain the economic plan he is carrying out in Argentina, the president noticed the situation and recalled other episodes where he suffered interruptions.

"There are some funny people trying to interrupt," he commented ironically, and added: "in an interview, I had coughers, so in Argentina, you can expect anything." Annoyed by the constant interruptions, the president pointed out: "There goes the octopus head".

Milei's Speech

After overcoming the awkward moment, Milei continued with his presentation titled "The Argentine Economic Model" and criticized the vision of "social justice": "The problem is that needs are infinite and resources are finite, someone has to pay for them. Is anyone here in favor of theft? No, because it's a sin and implies unequal treatment under the law, social justice is abhorrent because it's theft and marks inequality under the law".

"If you take Angus Maddison's estimates at the end of the 19th century, Argentina was one of the three countries with the highest GDP per capita on the planet," the president recalled.

"Argentina became a true catastrophe when we came to power. Argentina was clearly below the average of the table," he added.

"What we decided was to be honest about the situation because basically, that way, products would reappear on the shelves. And that honesty meant finding ourselves with 57% of the population in poverty, which is the number recorded in January '24," explained the president.

"When we arrived, inflation was running at more than 1% daily and then accelerated further during the second week of December," he continued his argument.

"So the question is, how did they get to this disaster? Well, the model of the caste has two elements: the abhorrent idea of the socialists that 'where there is a need, a right is born.' Social justice is an aberration from a moral point of view and naturally, as expected, it will generate bad results," he added.

Subsequently, the president clarified: "Our adjustment was not recessive because it fell entirely on the State," and added that "we lifted more than 10 million Argentines out of poverty".

"We still believe the State is a criminal organization that lives off taxes," the president concluded, asserting that he is still an "anarcho-capitalist".