In The Spectator, Matthew Lynn examines the first quarterly budget surplus that Argentina has posted since 2008. President Javier Milei – who campaigned with a chainsaw to symbolize his financial plans – appears to be weathering the expectedly fierce resistance to his cost-cutting shock therapy. Lynn looks at how Milei got this far and suggests two lessons for governments hoping to replicate his success.

Javier Milei Makes Fools of the “Experts”
As it began looking like Javier Milei might actually be elected President of Argentina, more than 100 leading international economists warned that this “far-right” political “wrecking ball” would “cause ‘devastation,’ spike inflation, expand poverty, and unemployment.” But as David Harsanyi relates in the Washington Examiner, Milei has tamed inflation, balanced the budget, shrunk the bureaucracy, deregulated the economy, driven down poverty and repaid billions in U.S. loans. And now, Harsanyi notes, Argentina is starting to boom.

