Don’t Déjà Vu Me, Argentina. Markets Are Out of Tears
The crying game will start all over again if Javier Milei dollarizes the economy and abolishes the central bank, however satisfying that might be.
Javier Milei celebrates the results of the primary elections with his sister, Karina.
Photographer: Alejandro Pagin/AFP/Getty
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Oh what a circus, oh what a show. Javier Milei, the leading candidate to be Argentina’s next president, is a libertarian economist who named his dogs after Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard and Robert Lucas. He’s also an avowedly devout Roman Catholic who boasts of his many sexual adventures, and says his first acts in office would include abolishing Argentina’s central bank and sending a bill to Congress to ditch the peso and use the US dollar instead. His success in finishing first in a crowded field in last Sunday’s primaries has already pushed the government into an 18% devaluation.