In an interview with Patrick Young, I pontificated on a wide range of issues.
Here’s a clip of me making the case that Javier Milei might save the world from a seemingly inevitable fiscal crisis.
If you don’t want to spend three minutes to watch the clip, my message is simple: Milei is showing the world – especially the supposedly conservative parties in different nations – that it is possible to solve a fiscal crisis with genuine spending restraint.
In the United Kingdom, a former member of Parliament has already grasped this message.
Here’s some of what Steve Baker wrote for City A.M., starting with his grim assessment of the United Kingdom’s fiscal situation.
This country stands on the brink of a fiscal crisis unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. The numbers are stark: a projected £41.2bn shortfall by 2029-30; a debt-to-GDP ratio nearing 96 per cent; and interest payments on government debt that doubled in a single year, now topping £16.4bn a month. …This isn’t some distant theoretical problem – it’s a looming catastrophe that will devastate millions of hardworking families within my lifetime. …Labour MPs refuse to countenance spending cuts and continue to demand higher spending that they simply cannot fund. The Chancellor raised taxes to record levels and will do so again within months. …We’re asking working people today to fund promises we know we cannot keep. Unfunded state and public sector pension liabilities are on top of that.
He’s right. If anything, he’s understating the problem on his side of the Atlantic.
Though I would add that it’s not just the fault of big-spending politicians from the Labour Party, though they are hopelessly bad.
The past two Prime Ministers from the Conservative Party have been big disappointments as well. Both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak surrendered on fiscal policy and pushed through more spending and tax increases.
Margaret Thatcher must have been spinning in her grave.
The author says that the United Kingdom needs a dramatic change. Indeed, the U.K. needs Milei-ism.
Argentina faced a choice between decline and radical reform. Milei chose reform, cutting government departments entirely, slashing public spending and refusing to fund the state through currency debasement. The results speak for themselves: inflation falling from over 200 per cent to manageable levels, the first budget surpluses in decades, and growing economic optimism. Argentina moved from basket case to economic poster child in 18 months. …We can continue pretending the welfare state is affordable and public services can improve through higher spending, or we can embrace the radical honesty that Argentina found under Milei, acknowledging that the current system has failed and building something better in its place. …The battle for our free future begins now.
Baker is right.
I went to the IMF’s big database and showed that copying Milei’s fiscal policy would yield amazing results for the United Kingdom.
In one fell swoop, Milei-ism would undo six years of bad fiscal policy and give the United Kingdom a budget surplus in just one year.
P.S. We also need Milei-ism in the United States. As well as France. And Italy. And…well, you get the idea.
Pretty much everywhere in the world other than Switzerland.
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