Javier Milei_ President of Argentina - Freedom_ Economics_ and Corruption _ Lex Fridman Podcast _453(M4A_128K)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So what is the difference between a madman and a
genius success.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
The following is a conversation with Javier Malay, the President
of Argentina. He is a libertarian, a narco capitalist, and
economist who campaigned with the chainsaw that symbolized his promise
to slash the corrupt bureaucracy of the state. He stepped
into the presidency one year ago with the country on

(00:33):
the brink of hyperinflation, deep in debt, and suffering from
mass unemployment and poverty. He took this crisis head on,
transforming one of Latin America's largest economies through pure free
market principles. In just a few months in office, he
already achieved Argentina's first fiscal surplus in sixteen years, and

(00:55):
not just avoided hyperinflation, but brought inflation down to its
lowest in three years. We discuss all of this in detail,
both the successes and the challenges. His depth of knowledge
of economic principles, metrics, and data was truly impressive and
refreshing to hear from a world leader. But even bigger

(01:16):
than the economic transformation of Argentina, Javier represents the universal
fight against government corruption and the fight for freedom economic freedom,
political freedom, and freedom of speech. He has many critics,
many of whom a part of the corrupt establishment he's
seeking to dismantle, but many are simply Argentinian citizens scared

(01:39):
of the pain his radical policies may bring, at least
in a short term. But whether one disagrees with his
methods or not, no one can deny that his presidency
marks one of the most ambitious attempts at economic transformation
in modern history, and that Javier Malay is truly a
force of nature, combining the rigor of an economist with

(02:01):
the passion of a revolutionary in the fight for freedom
of a nation he loves. Argentina is one of my
favorite countries, so I sincerely hope he succeeds. This interview
was conducted with the President speaking Spanish and me speaking English,
with an interpreter simultaneously translating. We make the episode available

(02:24):
overdubbed and subtitled in both English and Spanish thanks to
our great friends at eleven Labs. If you're watching on YouTube,
you can switch between English and Spanish by clicking the
gear icon, selecting audio track, and then choosing the language.
Same with the captions. If you're watching on x I'll
post both Spanish and English versions separately. If you're watching

(02:46):
on Spotify or listening elsewhere, I'll probably only post the
English version. This is the first time for me doing
something like this in a foreign language. It was challenging
but illuminating. I hope to continue talking to many world
leaders for two to three hours in this way, including
Vladimer Zelenski, Vladimir Putin, Nerander Modi, and Siezingping. I want

(03:10):
to explore who they are, how they think, and how
they hope to help their country and humanity flourish. This
is a lex Freaedment podcast. To support it, Pushakara sponsors.
In the description and now, dear friends, here's Javier Malay.
When did you first understand the value of freedom, especially

(03:31):
economic freedom?

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, actually, I came to understand the ideas of freedom
as an economic growth specialist back in the years of
twenty thirteen to twenty fourteen. I could see that per
capita GDP statistics over the last two thousand years of
the Christian era essentially look like a hockey stick, indicating

(03:58):
that per capita GDP remained almost constant until around eighteen hundred,
after which it accelerated sharply. In the same context of
that phenomenal increase in productivity and per capita GDP, the
population had multiplied sevenfold over the preceding two hundred years.

(04:20):
So basically, in economics, that means you get increasing returns,
and the presence of increasing returns implies the existence of
monopolies concentrated structures, and according to traditional neoclassical economic theory,
the presence of monopolies and concentrated structures is not a

(04:42):
good thing. But at the same time, one could see
that living standards had increased tremendously and that middle income
people ended up living far better than emperors did in
the Roman era, and the population had gone from having
nine twenty five percent of people in extreme poverty to

(05:04):
less than ten percent. And in that context, the question
was how it could be that something that had lifted
so many people out of poverty, that had improved human
conditions so much, could be something bad for economic theory,
meaning something was not right. So in their context, I
remember that one of the people who worked on my

(05:27):
team suggested I read an article by Murray Newton Rothbard
called Monopoly and Competition. I remember reading it like it
was today, and after reading it carefully, I said, everything
I've taught about market structure in the last twenty years
in courses on microeconomics is wrong. This caused a very

(05:52):
strong internal commotion in me. So I called this person
who used to work with me, and they recommend a
place to buy Austrian School of Economics books, and I
remember I bought at least twenty or thirty books, which
I went to pick up one Saturday afternoon, and when

(06:13):
I visited the bookstore, I was fascinated by all the
stuff they had there. So I went back the next
day and I started calculating how much money I needed
to pay for my dog's food, that's my four legged child,
and how much I needed to spend on the taxi
fare and food, and then with what I have left,

(06:36):
I spent all of it on more books. And then
I started to read very intensively, and I remember, for example,
the experience of reading Human Action by me Sis, and
this was a book that I didn't know about, and
I remember that on the following weekend, I started to

(06:57):
read this book right from the first page and I
didn't stop until I finished it. And that was a
true revolution in my head. And having the chance to
read Austrian authors like Rothbard, Missus Hayek Hope and Jesu
s Guerta de Soto, or others like Juan ra Monraalo,

(07:21):
Philip Bargus and Walter Block for example. That was very inspirational,
and at one point I got the opportunity to read
related to the works of Alberto Venegas Linchijo, and I
also had the pleasure and honor to meet him and

(07:42):
today we.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Are actually friends.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
So that paved the way for me to approach the
ideas of freedom. And another book that was a very
significant influence and impact on me was The Principles of
Political Economics by Men. It was truly eye opening, or
let's say for reading Ugenfon Biembabwerk. These were things that really.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
That really challenged all of my former thinking.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
I had a vague idea and poor about the Austrian school.
The only thing I had read about the Austrian school
until then had been Money and Time, a very good
book by Garrison. But now that I understand a little

(08:35):
bit more about Austrian economics, I know that it was
rather poor. This doesn't mean that the book isn't good,
but there were a whole lot of things to read
that ended up being truly fascinating.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
So from that, what is now today, and maybe you
can talk about the evolution is your philosophe economics philosophy.
You've described yourself as an archo capitalist, market anarchists, libertarian,
that's the ideal, and then maybe in practice and reality
you've said that you're more of a minarchist. So lay

(09:15):
it all out. What's your economics philosophy today?

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Strictly speaking, I am an anarcho capitalist. I despise the
state government. I despise violence. Let us suppose we take
the definition of liberalism. I usually use the definition of
liberalism given by Alberto Venegas Linchico, which is very much
in line with the definition of John Locke, which essentially

(09:44):
matches the definition by Alberto Benegas lynch Junior, who said
that liberalism is the unrestricted respect for the life project
of others, based on the principle of non aggression and
in defense of the right to life, libert and property.
So I frame all of the discussions within those terms.

(10:05):
And the fact is that when you get to that notion,
I would dare say that you become an anarcho capitalist
de facto and what that describes it is an idea
which represents my ideal world.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
I mean that is the ideal world.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Now, real life poses a whole lot of restraints, and
some of those you can lift, and those restrictions and
others you can't. So in real life, I am a monarchist.
I advocate for minimizing state size. I try to remove
as many regulations as possible. In fact, that is what

(10:45):
I used to say during my campaign, and let's say
that is what I'm now carrying out. We have just
carried out the largest structural reform in Argentine history. It
is a structural reform that is eight times larger than Menims,
which had been the.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Largest structural reform in his history.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
And we did that with fifteen percent of the representatives
and ten percent of the Senatus. Furthermore, we have a
deregulation ministry where basically every day we eliminate between one
and five regulations. On the other hand, we have three thousand,
two hundred additional structural reforms pending to the point that

(11:21):
the day we finish all these reforms, we will be
the freest country on the planet. With the consequences they
have in terms of well being. Think about this. When
Ireland started market reforms just over forty years ago, it
was the poorest country in Europe. Today it's GDP per
capita is fifty percent higher than that of the United States.

(11:44):
So this I have a current situation, and what I
am constantly looking for, whether from my academic works and
my outreach notes and books, is the world we have
today that every day we are closer, that every day
we gain more freedom, because there are some very interesting

(12:09):
things here. First, I would like to quote Milton Friedman.
There's a moment when they do an interview with Milton
Friedman and they ask him about liberals, and then he
says that there are three types of liberals. There are
the classical liberals, where for example Adam Smith or Milton
Friedman himself could fit. Some say that Hyek could fit

(12:33):
into that category. For me, Hyek is a menarchist. Then
you have the menarchists, where you could clearly find in
that place me says Hyek, one could find in philosophical terms,
no Sick and basically iron Rand. And at one point

(12:54):
Milton Friedman, based on his own son, he says, but
if you look closely, there are some who are anarchists.
Let's say, probably from my point of view, the person
who has been the greatest inspiration in my life is
essentially Murray Newton Rothbard. So therefore there are two dimensions.

(13:19):
One is where I want to go, and the topic
is where I stand. So the most important thing is
to try each day to advance further toward that ideal
of anarcho capitalism. In that sense, sometimes we face strong
and harsh criticism regarding that ideal vision. I think that's

(13:43):
the Nirvana fallacy. If you compare yourself against paradise, everything
is horrible and miserable, but you don't live in paradise.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
You live on Earth.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Basically, what you need to understand is something called the
state conditions. Let's suppose that you don't like rectangular tables.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
You prefer circular tables.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Now the reality is I have only a few hours
until I go and catch my flight, and the table
is rectangular. You like a circular table around one, but
there isn't one. What you have is a rectangular table.
So either we do the interview here or we just

(14:29):
can't do it. So what you do you adapt to
the current conditions. This is what there is now so
then you have some restrictions that you can change and
others that you cannot. The idea is to modify all
the ones that can be changed in the short term
and start working on those that can be modified in
the medium or long term. For example, for example, if

(14:55):
you really like round tables, perhaps the next interview we
may do at a round table. We're going to try
and solve it. But today it's something that we couldn't
possibly solve. So that's basically the idea.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Right.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Let's say, it's about understanding that some restrictions you can't change,
others you can, and there are institutional restrictions too. There
are many anarcho capitalists who are dedicated to criticizing, and
incredibly they do so with more violence towards liberals, and

(15:31):
many of them actually criticize me, which truly make no
sense because it is precisely the Nirvana fallacy. But the
reality is that look in Argentina, for example, the most
popular sport is soccer. When you go to watch an

(15:54):
Argentina much, it is beautiful. The stands are full and
they're all painted sky blue and white colors.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
There is a lot of joy.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
People sing songs that are very fun that are very distinctive,
very it's very much part of Argentine folklore, so to speak.
But you see, that beautiful show is external, that is
to say, it does not determine the outcome. You place
the ball in the middle of the field and no

(16:25):
matter how much people shout, the ball doesn't move. The
one who moves the ball and scores the goals is messy.
So what do I mean if you don't get involved
and don't get into it, no, you don't do anything.
So I mean, what do I know is that there
are many liberals, libertarians and anaco capitalists who are really

(16:47):
useless because all they do is criticize, let's say, those
of us who want to lead the world towards the
ideas of freedom. And what they don't realize is that
power is a zero sum game and if we don't
have it, then the left will have it. Therefore, if
you level your harshest criticism at those in your own ranks,

(17:11):
you end up being subservient to socialism probably And also,
for instance, you have cases of strong hypocrisy. Let's say
I have seen cases of agorists. I mean, it's the
anarcho capitalists who criticize Rothbart because he said that you

(17:33):
have to get into politics otherwise the socialists will advance.
And it's interesting because some of them I have seen
them criticizing proposing agorism.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
And I remember one of them one day.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
The police showed up and honestly he was peeing himself.
So I mean, it's very easy to criticize, propose and suggest,
but if he was truly such an agonist, he should.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Have been willing to endure going to jail.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
However, when it was time to face the consequences of
the idea he was promoting, he froze, wet his pants,
and ended up, let's say, accepting all the restrictions because
clearly it was better to be out of jail than
in jail. But in doing so he sold out his ideas.

(18:29):
So it seems to me that no, not taking into
account the restrictions of the situation only serves to be
functional to socialism because all it does is strike against
one's own.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
So you became president eleven months ago, can you again
describe some of the actions you took? For example, you
cut half the number of government ministries, layoffs, removed price
controls to lay out the first steps and what's next.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
If you allow me, I will first give you a
description of the situation we received, and based on that,
I will tell you each of the things we did
when we first took office. Basically, what we found was
that in the first week of December, inflation was rising

(19:27):
at the rate of one percent per day, which means
three thousand and seven hundred percent annually. In the first
half of December it had accelerated to seven thousand, five
hundred percent annually. When you look at wholesale inflation in
December of last year, it was fifty four percent, which

(19:50):
if annualized, would equate to an inflation rate of seventeen
thousand percent per year. And in addition, Argentina for the
previous ten years had not been growing, with a drop
in GDP per capita of approximately fifteen percent, and the

(20:11):
reality was that nearly fifty percent were living in poverty.
Now later I will get deeper into that discussion, and
the reality is that we had a fiscal deficit which
amounted to fifteen percent of GDP. Five points were in
the treasury, ten points were in the Central Bank, which

(20:34):
was indogenous monetary issuance. And the reality is that we
also had interest bearing liabilities at the central Bank equivalent
to four monetary bases maturing in one day, meaning we
could have quintupled the amount of money in one day.
We had Pasot denominated maturities amounting to the equivalent of

(20:59):
ninety billion dollars. The central Bank had negative net currency
foreign reserves minus twelve billion dollars. We had commercial debts
in the central bank equivalent to fifty billion dollars. There
were company dividends held back amounting to ten billion dollars. Therefore,

(21:20):
if we if we had instantly opened up, you see,
I say we are liberal libertarians.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
We are not liberal fools.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
That's what some anarchist liberals suggested, meaning that we basically
open everything on the first day, so that in that context,
of course, if we had done that, we would have
encountered hyperinflation. Therefore, that would have led to the number
of poor people being around ninety five percent, and probably

(21:57):
and by December the Perona party would have organized supermarkets, lootings,
and would have done all sorts of things, and would
have probably been ousted, and by the first part of
the year the Paronis would have gone back to office.
So to us, it was crucial to end fiscal deficit.

(22:19):
One of the things we promised during the campaign had
been to reduce the number of ministries, and indeed we
reduced to less than half the number of ministries. Because
we went to nine ministries today we have eight. We
have also laid off a large number of civil employees.

(22:39):
Today I can say that we've already dismissed about fifty
thousand of them, and we practically don't renew any contracts
unless the positions are.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
Absolutely necessary.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
At the same time, we have stopped public works and
we have eliminated this discretionary transfers to the provinces. We
have also diluted public sector waits. Also we have eliminated
economic subsidies by restoring utility rates to the right levels. Well,

(23:20):
and in that, let's say, in this context, we achieved
fiscal balance as far as the treasury is concerned. This
is very important because in the last one hundred and
twenty three years, Argentina had a deficit for one hundred
and thirteen of them, and in the ten years it
did not have a deficit because it was not paying
the debt. So that was absolutely false, and they told

(23:44):
us it would be impossible to do that.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
We had planned to do so.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Within a year, and they said it wasn't possible to
adjust by more than one percentage point, and we achieved
fiscal balance in the month of January, that is the
first month of administration. At the same time, we also
cut social plans linked to intermediation. This is very important

(24:11):
because we knew we were going to make a very
tough adjustment, and we knew that this was going to
have a got in social terms, and we knew that
we had to offer support. During the first month, I
mean the first quarter and second quarter in office, one

(24:32):
of the things we did was to eliminate what are
known as poverty managers, that is intermediaries. Basically, people have
a guard through which they receive assistance, but it happens
that they had to provide a counter service and that
counter service was verified by a group called the picateros.

(24:54):
So in that context, when they were going to sign,
the counter service took away half of the money. So
by removing that payoff, they stopped extorting them, stop stealing
their money, and with the same amount of money they
received double the resources. And of course we also provided

(25:15):
an additional boost. So let's say that This is related
to the five adjustment points in the treasury. Now, what
happens as we began to achieve fiscal balance and no
longer needed to issue money to finance ourselves, and as
we also met interest payments and some capital repayments, one

(25:38):
of the things that happened is that the debt market
began to be recreated, so we were able to take
debt out of the Central Bank and transfer it to
the treasury where it should have always been, and that
meant an adjustment of approximately ten percent of GDP. Everyone
said this would be impossible and couldn't be fixed. Essentially,

(25:59):
what we did was implement a fiscal adjustment at the
Central Bank amounting to ten percent of GDP.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
So if you ask me, it's.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
Clear that we have not only made the biggest fiscal
adjustment in the history of humanity because we made a
fiscal adjustment of fifteen points of the GDP, but also
most of that went back to the people as less saniorage,
as a lower inflation rate. It's true that we temporarily
raised the country tax, but we lowered it in September

(26:32):
and now in December we're going to eliminate it. Today,
for example, we also announced that in December we are
eliminating import taxes. In fact, in that regard, what you
have is that we returned to the people thirteen and
a half points of GDP because the real tax burden
is the size of the state. So while back in

(26:55):
December we were discussing hyperinflation, today we are discussing thirty
year loans. In other words, all those resources that the
national government used to take are now back in the
private sector, and that's what has allowed it to be
very dynamic. And this has two very strong impacts. The

(27:17):
first one is that if you look at wholesale inflation,
it went down from fifty four percent to two percent,
so it went down by twenty seven times. It was
divided into twenty seven so we had inflation at a
rate of seventeen thousand percent annually and it's now closed
to about twenty eight percent a year. But it's not

(27:38):
only that. You could consider consumer inflation. The latest consumer
inflation rate was two point seven percent. Now it happens
that we essentially due to a matter that is related
to the Central Bank's balance sheets and also due to
the dead stocks, we still have controls in place and

(28:00):
we are eliminating restrictions day by day. Now, the interesting
thing is that we have a two percent monthly day
valuation standard, and there's international inflation, of course, which means
that you then have to subtract two and a half
points from the inflation observed by the consumer. This indicates

(28:21):
that inflation in Argentina, the true inflation, not the induced one,
but the actual monetary inflation, is zero point two percent
per month. At zero point two percent per month, this
equates to two point four percent annually. What I'm saying
is the original discussion was about whether inflation could reach
seventeen thousand percent. Now we are bringing inflation down to

(28:46):
levels of two point five percent annually, and that is amazing.
And we achieve this by considering a number of factors.
The first one is that we did not experience a
preview US hyperinflation, which would have simplified the process of
implementing a stabilization program. Typically, when hyperinflation occurs, monetary assets

(29:10):
are diluted, leading to a natural restoration of demand. And besides,
we did not resort to any expropriation. For example, before
the Convertibility Plan, which was the most successful program in
Argentina's history, Argentina experienced two instances of hyperinflation. During Alfonsine's administration,
inflation reached five thousand percent and under Menem it was

(29:32):
one two hundred percent. Additionally, there was the Bonex plan,
under which debt was exchanged on a compulsory basis. In
other words, what we did instead was clean up the
central bank balance sheet. So with that we we cleaned
up the central bank's balance sheet. We cleared a loss
of forty five billion dollars, all voluntarily. And the most

(29:57):
amazing thing is that we did it in just six months.
And at the same time, we have not controlled prices,
nor have we fixed the exchange rate, and this is
very important. All previous stabilization programs, in an effort to
show quick results, used to do this. What they would
do is before announcing the plan, they would adjust the rates,

(30:21):
and once the rates were adjusted, they would launch the plan.
But in our case, we couldn't afford that luxury, so
we had to implement it on the go. And also
over the past few months, that is to say, companies
brought in rates that covered only about ten percent, whereas
today they cover eighty percent.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
So you get the picture.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
Just imagine the adjustment we are making, and in that sense,
it is also incredible what we have achieved, because if
we were to work with the inflation we have in
our country today, considering the exchange rate situation, the figures
are even even better than during the convertibility program, which
was the most successful economic program in Argentina's history. And

(31:10):
in fact, there is an article called passing the Buck,
which is by Gherado de la Palera, Bozzoli and irigoin
that demonstrates that Menem's first government was the best government
in history, and basically it argues two things in the
success of the stabilization of the convertibility program. So if

(31:31):
you take a closer look, when you examine it carefully,
when you account for all these factors, our disinflation process
is actually much more genuine, and not only that, it's
also much deeper. We restored freedoms to Argentinians while simultaneously
implementing a structle reform eight times larger, and we accomplished

(31:54):
this with only with fifteen percent of the representatives, ten
percent of the senators, and within the first six months
of government. In other words, our deregulation agenda continues daily
and we still have three thousand, two hundred structural reforms
pending this will ultimately make Argentina the freest country in

(32:16):
their world.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Moreover, to have a.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Sense of magnitude, the reforms that we already have made
with the Executive for our seventy twenty three and with
the Basis law, we have actually jumped ninety places in
terms of economic freedom. What this means is that today
Argentina has institutions similar to those of Germany, France, Italy,
and we obviously want this to continue. And let's say,

(32:44):
we are going to surpass, no doubt the levels of
economic freedom that Ireland reached in its best moment, and
not only that, we're going to exceed the levels of
economic freedom of Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland. We are
undoubtedly going to be the freest country in the world.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
And this.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
And this means that thanks to what we've done today,
we are on a path that allows us to multiply
our per capita GDP by two point five times when
you apply the relevant correction. And this, of course is
something very interesting because it implies a huge increase in
well being. And furthermore, today the Argentinian economy is already

(33:26):
strongly and amazingly recovering, and we can say analyst hypotheses
were suggesting that next year we would be growing between
five and six percent. Today JP Morgan has now corrected,
or let's say, revise the projections upwards. And besides, when
we normalize the price situation, the true poverty rate came

(33:47):
up and it was fifty seven percent in January. Today
it is a forty six percent, meaning we lowered poverty
by eleven percentage points. Let's say, I mean it seems
truly like a mereracle. And not only that, but actually
not a single job was lost in the process. When
it comes to all of this inflation reduction process, people

(34:08):
said that our economy and economic activity would collapse. And actually,
when you look at the deseasonalized data, you see that
in August there was a recovery that took us back
to December levels.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
To December levels.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
That means that in the year we made the largest
fiscal adjustment in the history of humanity. We will end
up with less inflation, fewer poor people, better real wages,
and additionally a GDP higher than what we started with.
And if you look at it in dollars, I can
assure you that the numbers are phenomenal because basically today

(34:48):
the dollar is below the levels we had when we
took office. So the reality is that in all of this,
when you take my popularity levels and the government's acceptance
level today, they are above the moment we assumed office.
If you know that the moment of maximum popularity is
when you take office. Therefore, this means that far from

(35:14):
resting on our laurels with this, we're going for more reforms.
We're going to deepen the reforms, and I tell you
we won't stop until Argentina is the freest country.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
In the world.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Furthermore, a recent work by an Argentinian economist named Juan
Pablo Nicolini was presented at the Central Banks monetary meetings,
and he works at the Federal Reserve. And it's interesting
because he shows that only on the basis of what
we have done in fiscal matters, it ensures that in
the span of ten years we can double the GDP

(35:49):
per capita, meaning that Argentina could grow at rates of
seven percent annually, which is very much, very much, and
that has strong consequences in terms of improving quality of life,
reducing poverty, reducing indigens. Therefore, if during the worst moment,

(36:12):
our image didn't suffer and we stayed strong in our ideas,
now that everything is working much better, why should we change.
On the contrary, we are ready to redouble the bet,
to redouble our efforts because we've done things that no
one else has done.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
I will give you an example.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
There's something that seems trivial, but there's what's called the
single paper ballot. Argentina used to vote with huge ballots,
which were very above all, very costly, and that reform
it never let's say, it wasn't done because it always

(36:53):
harmed the ruling party. So everyone talked about going to
the single paper ballot, but no one.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
Did when they were in power.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
They didn't want to implement it because they preferred to
commit fraud or use some kind of trickery to avoid
applying that rule that makes the election more competitive. Well,
what's interesting, we sent that law and it was approved.
What's more, now we are finishing with the open, simultaneous

(37:22):
and mandatory primaries because it was a mechanism by which
politics was also stealing. We are eliminating the financing of
political parties. If you look, we have reduced the fiscal
pressure by fifteen points. To the Argentinians, we are restoring
freedoms with a deep set of structural and regulatory reforms.

(37:46):
That is, I think that any sensible liberal could perceive
we are already delivering a wonderful government. In fact, it's
the best government. And in the history of Argentina. If
the best had been that of Menem, we've already outpaced him.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Maybe you can explain to me the metrics of poverty
and unemployment. As you said, unemployment went down, real unemployment
went down, real poverty went down. But even that aside
would have been the most painful impacts of these radical reforms,
and how many of them are required in the short

(38:27):
term to have a big positive impact in the long term.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Let's take it step by step, all right. That is,
we in fact we started to do things right. Therefore,
we did not create poverty. The poverty was an inherited poverty.
The point is that what we did was to reveal it.
I'll try to explain it with an example that I

(38:52):
think clarifies what's happening in Argentina. Argentina was an economy
so that had a total price controls. It had a
fiscal deficit, which was financed through money printing.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Just for you, to give you an idea, in.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
The last year, Argentina financed thirteen points of the gross
domestic product with money printing. In other words, a real disaster.
So that situation provoked these artificially demand and puts pressure
on prices. The issue is that price controls are applied
additionally over the prices that they enter the price index

(39:37):
with which inflation was I'm not saying they were lying
about it.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
It was distorted.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
And since Argentina measures poverty and indigence by income line,
then what happens That distorted the true levels of poverty,
of course, but that's not the only effect. I mean,
Let's say the real poverty level were higher, quite a
bit higher than those shown by the previous government, which

(40:05):
showed them at forty one percent, and also did so
on a six monthly basis.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
So if you, let's say.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Have a growing trend, they are actually leaving you a
bomb and you don't see it because let's say, basically
the indicator was measured with a delayed form. But not
only that, imagine that you are also given you are
in the middle of an island alone and they give

(40:34):
you one million dollars. What can you do with that?
You cannot do anything because you cannot buy anything. It's
the same as if someone tells you that the price
of classes is ten dollars, but when you want to
buy it.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
It's not available.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Actually, there's a joke told by an Argentinian professor named
Juan Carlos de Pablo, who says that a man goes
to a basad and asks for a vase. Then he
says to him, well, I want that vas how much
would you charge me? Then he says five thousand dollars. Oh, okay,
five thousand dollars. But why five thousand dollars if across

(41:14):
the street it's one thousand. He says, well, go buy
it across the street for a thousand. Ah, there's none
for a thousand. Well, then here when there's more, it'll
also cost a thousand. In other words, prices at which
they are available. So what happens when you were faced
with that situation? The supermarket shelves were empty, So what

(41:35):
was the point of having a price at which you
couldn't buy anything? You left those prices. The shelves were empty.
So the statistics showed that you were much better. But
the reality is you couldn't buy anything. You couldn't make
it happen. So if you left the situation as it was,
people were going to starve because they couldn't buy anything. Yes,
they had a certain amount of money that could supposedly

(41:57):
buy certain goods, but those goods were not available. What
is the only thing you can do to save people?
Make the prices transparent and allow products to reappear. Well,
when you make the prices transparent, you also make transparent
the cost of the basic food basket and the total
basic basket, meaning the poverty line, sorry, the indigence line

(42:19):
and the poverty line respectively.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
And when you do that, clearly, you will see.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
A jump in poverty that brought poverty up to fifty
seven percent. Now, Argentina found its activity floor in the
month of April. From that moment, Argentina began to invent
a cyclical recovery. Real wages have been growing every month
above inflation. Therefore, nominal wages are beating inflation. In fact,

(42:46):
we are already at levels similar to those we had
in November. The same goes for pensions. Moreover, also, let's
say there is a rebound in activity due to the
recovery of the stock cycle. Therefore, this is also contributing
to more and better paid jobs. In fact, this is
so strong and evident that the wages growing the most

(43:08):
are in the informal sector. This means that poverty and
extreme poverty are decreasing much faster than we imagine.

Speaker 3 (43:16):
But not only that.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
By eliminating inflation, you remove the inflation retax, but the
real burden is the fiscal deficit, which was fifteen points
of the GDP. Okay, we temporarily raised the country tax.
Now we lower it, but we returned that to the Argentinians.
We gave back fifteen points of the GDP. Not only that,

(43:38):
but also when you eliminate inflation, you remove the distortion
of relative prices. Therefore the allocation of resources is much better.
Not only that, but also with the strong fiscal adjustment
we made, we have reduced the country risk from three
thousand basis points to seven hundred and seventy. Today, Fitch
raised Argentina's rating to trip will see so what do

(44:03):
I mean? That translates into a lower country risk and
interest rates, and that generates an increase in investment, also
generates an increase in consumption. In other words, the Argentinian
economy is currently in an absolutely flourishing moment. And how
is that sustained in the long term with structural reforms
which we implement daily, deregulating the economy and introducing new

(44:27):
laws that free Argentinians from the many oppressive measures that
have burdened it over the past one hundred years.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
You've spoken about the cast the corrupt political establishment. So
there's a lot of powerful people and groups that are
against your ideas. What does it take to fight once
so much powers against you.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Look, we have fought against corruption like never before in Argentina.
In fact, when we took office, for example, there were
about nine hundred roadblocks per year. That is, people who
made a habit of blocking the streets. They prevented free movement.
And besides, they were given social plans and they were

(45:17):
given a lot of money. If you remember, when I
started by explaining the cuts, one of the things I
said was that we removed the middlemen of poverty, in
other words, the managers of poverty, those who lived by
stealing from the poor. Well, that is a huge source
of corruption. In fact, when we did that, two days later,

(45:41):
one of the most renowned and influential Picqueteros, called for
a demonstration. He claimed that fifty thousand people would attend
because he was actually expecting one hundred thousand, so he
wanted to showcase it as a success. And so then,
let's say, with the decision made in Human Capital to

(46:04):
cut their funding, the anti blockade protocol was also enacted,
where those who blocked the streets wouldn't receive welfare benefits
and those who broke.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
The law would go to jail.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
All of that, and also we were informing this through
transportation channels. Well, in that march, they expected to have
one hundred thousand people there and actually it turned out
to be three thousand people. And from that point on
they didn't block the streets anymore. We also evidently put

(46:40):
an end to that corruption. One of the things that
also generated a lot of corruption was public works. Another
thing that led to significant actual corruption where the discretionary
transfers to provinces. In general, these transfers were made to
the provinces with the counting as obscure as possible, so

(47:03):
the national government, in collision with the governors, let's say,
the money ended up being used for other things, not
only that with which we have already done many things. Furthermore,
the Ministry of Human Capital is always filing complaints.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
In court, not in the media, in court.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Acts of corruption like never before in Argentine history. Not
only that, but also in terms of condemning corruption, that
is we have done.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
For example, two.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
Days ago it was condemned Christina Fernandez de Kushner got
a sentence for corruption, I mean due to corruption, and
the next day, that is yesterday, we took away their
privileged pensions. At the same time we are for example,
we have discovered that Kerchnarism used the ability pensions for

(47:59):
acts of corruption. For example, there is a city that
has more disability pensions than people. In other words, to
give you an idea of the things being done in Argentina,
and also in Argentina, we have restored freedom to the judiciary.
We do not pressure the judiciary. And this is so

(48:20):
true that during my government, not only was Christina Fernandestigational convicted,
but also the two terrorist attacks carried out by Iran
were condemned. So if there is a government that is
truly fighting against corruption, it is us not only that,
but also with each deregulation. It is a privilege that

(48:43):
we take away either from a politician or a prebendary
company or a power group.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
That is also very powerful.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
No one in Argentina has ever fought against corruption the
way we have. In fact, I will move on to
something that is deeply corrupt, and one of my great
battles the corruption of the media and social media. That
is to say, I removed the official advertising. That's why

(49:16):
you will see that even though we generate wonderful news
every week in large quantity, the media speak terribly. In
other words, they demand to have a monopoly on the microphone.
That is, they are entitled to insult, hurt, offend, and
they don't want anyone to bother them, and they expect
me not to even respond. That's why a large part

(49:39):
of journalism in Argentina hates the X network, and that's
why the liberal libertarians love the X network, because we
can all say what we want. However, let's say these
supposed journalists who defend freedom of expression, actually what they
want is to censor the ideas they don't like. And

(50:00):
of course, because they are leftists, because they are wokes,
because they can't stand the competition because if they had
to fight face to face, hand to hand on a
level playing field when it comes to ideas, they would
lose because they were a failure in the economic, social,
and cultural aspects. And also we must not forget that
those murderers called socialists killed one hundred and fifty million people,

(50:24):
so they clearly cannot fight on equal terms. Therefore, they
demand that social networks have censorship and that the truth
cannot be told to them because when you tell us
socialist the truth, they cry, claiming it's hate speech.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
No, it's not hate speech, it's.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
That you are useless people who have ruined the planet.
They have made the planet much worse. And fortunately, today
thanks to social media, especially due to the enormous and
brave work of Elon Musk and their role of Twitter
today x right allows information to flow, which makes it possible,

(51:07):
let's say, to expose politicians and also expose the media.
And that's why journalists in Argentina are so violent. Why
because before they could, for instance, a journalist went and
for example, he would go to a person and he
would throw a folder at them and say, if you

(51:28):
don't give me x amount of money, I am going
to publish all of this and tarnish your reputation. And
I know for a fact a case of a journalist
who carried out this extortion twice to a businessman. That
businessman told him that he wasn't going to pay, and
evidently the journalist did it. Obviously, they went to court,

(51:49):
there was a trial, and that journalists lost both times.
But that process is very slow, and in the meantime
they smeared. So since the justice system takes a long time,
so what is the problem. The problem is that in
the meantime your life got dirtied. So why can journalists
do all this? Well, that's why they dislike X. They

(52:11):
dislike social media. They dislike the new form of communication
because it took away their monopoly over the microphone. And
by taking away the monopoly over the microphone, it removed
the economic benefits of extortion. So clearly that's another battle
I'm fighting. You read a newspaper in Argentina and eighty

(52:31):
five percent of what you read is a lie. That
is to say, the fundamental characteristic of most journalists, not all,
but the vast majority of journalists in Argentina, with some
honorable exceptions, is that they are liars. Slanderers and defamers,
and if the monopoly they demand were still in place,

(52:53):
that they want to reign again, I have no doubt
that they would demand money in exchange for silence, because
that's what they are. They are extortionists, they are thieves,
they are corrupt, and then of course obviously when you
take away a privilege from a sector they get upset.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Well, welcome to freedom.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
So you're not only fighting for economic freedom, you're fighting
for freedom of speech exactly.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
I fight for freedom in all aspects of life. That
is to say. One of the things that seems most
interesting to me is that when the Berlin Wall fell.
It's true that officially fell in the year nineteen eighty nine,
but the reality is that the wall or socialism fell

(53:41):
in the year nineteen sixty one. When they had to
build the wall. I mean they built it because people
were leaving communist Germany for capitalist Germany. They realized that
those on the western side were much better off, and
of course to vent people from leaving, they put what

(54:03):
a wonderful system, right, So, I mean they had to
trap people.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
They couldn't let them go.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
I mean, these are such wonderful ideas that they had
to apply them at gunpoint. It's quite well, it's no
coincidence that they killed one hundred and fifty.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
Million human beings. So what happened then? The official fall
of the Wall.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
In the year nineteen eighty nine made it clear that
socialism had failed.

Speaker 3 (54:31):
In that context. The socialisms.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
They moved the discussion of class struggle in economics and
took it to other areas. So, for example, socialism or
what is of the twenty first century, or cultural Marxism
or post Marxism, whatever definition you want, is to take
class struggle to different aspects of life. For example, one

(54:59):
of the the aspects of life where you, let's say,
have this is in gender ideology. I mean, it's incredible
because the first ones to defend equality before the law
were the liberals. The first to defend women's rights were
the liberals. Jeremy Bentham in the year seventeen fifty was

(55:20):
the first to demand equality before the law for women,
I mean the cause of equality, equality before the law
for women and equality of rights. The first ones who
advocated for this were the liberals. Did you know, however,
what does the left do? They just go on to
radicalize it and then it moves to what is called

(55:42):
female chauvinism. Female chauvinism is let's say, the fight against males.
And then I mean, how do they do it. They
do it by assigning rights. But when you assign a right,
someone has to pay for it, and that has consequences.
And in general, let's say this always happens. The consequences

(56:03):
are that the results are worse than what you had before.
I mean, in any state intervention, the subsequent result is
often worse than what you originally had. So that's one thing.
And not only that, but the other side of this
is the environmental agenda, which sets man against nature, involving

(56:24):
all aspects of environmentalism and everything related to climate change.
In other words, they can't stand any serious discussion. Therefore,
all environmental policies are nothing more than an excuse to
collect taxes so that a group of parasitic bureaucrats can
live at the expense of others and finance sinister ideas.

(56:45):
Where the most sinister idea of all is that there
is no room for everyone on planet Earth. That is
an idea that failed with Malthus at the beginning of
the nineteenth century, a murderous idea that was also applied
by the Egyptians against the Jews, and this is famously
recorded in the Book of Seamo or Exodus, or for example.

(57:08):
Another thing is Black Lives Matter, that is black people
against white people, or indigenous people against the established communities,
or I mean everything related to LGBT agendas. Definitely, these
are some of the ways in which, you know, socialism

(57:29):
extended the class struggle into other aspects of society, creating
divisions and fostering deceit with the sole purpose of absorbing taxes.
I mean, what was the Ministry of Women in Argentina doing.
Did it manage to reduce a single femicide? No, none
at all. The number of femicides exploded just the same.

(57:51):
In fact, the most feminist president in Argentine history, mister
Alberto Fernandez, used to beat his wife.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
Is such a strange feminist.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
I mean, well, so within the ranks of feminists, let's say,
you will essentially find the largest number of rapists and
women beat us.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
And it's.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Quite interesting what they do. Their hypocrisy is truly striking.
It's not just about that though, I mean, the battle
is on three fronts. You have the economic front, which
is free enterprise, capitalism.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
Then we have the political level.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
Currently, the system that the world has designed is a
republican liberal democracy with checks and balances, and I mean.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
At the cultural battle level.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Notice that socialism has been very successful in the cultural battle.
It has been very successful politically because it was able
to trans that political battle in winning many elections. But
why is it falling apart? Why because it produces misery
and because the economic system is a disaster, so people

(59:13):
eventually realize that it is making things worse for them.
Liberal libertarians are very good when it comes to economics, yes,
and those good economic results can actually lead well to
the generation of solid political processes. But what happened the
liberals neglected the cultural battle. Much of the blame was

(59:36):
placed on Fukuyama when he said this is the end
of history. No, it was not the end of history,
because the following year, in nineteen ninety, the socialists gathered
at the Sampoleo Forum and based on the ideas of
Gramsci designed a strategy to infiltrate the media, culture, and education,
which ended up changing the entire discourse. And they established

(59:58):
that what they said was politically correct and that any
idea outside of it was to be considered reactionary and
had to be censored or even persecuted, and they claimed
to be the ones defending freedom even though they were
the ones persecuting people. It's the same with journalists who
get upset with Twitter. They say they defend freedom, but

(01:00:21):
can't stand it when those who think differently speak. Is
that freedom, yes for them, but not for those who
think differently. That's not freedom, that's fascism. Then what do
we say? Then? We must fight on the economic front,
and I believe we are implementing an extremely successful economic
program that is being recognized worldwide. In fact, the other night,

(01:00:45):
the President elect Donald Trump indeed gave recognition for the
achievements we are having in Argentina and the speed at
which we have done it. At the same time, you
have to fight the political battle, because well, soccer matches
are not one by shouting from the stands, they are
one by playing on the field. But that alone is

(01:01:05):
not enough, because you have to, let's say, you need
to convey to society the values of capitalism, the free market,
what liberalism is, the value of freedom right, And when
you succeed in that, then we will indeed be able
to advance steadily. If you don't fight the cultural battle,

(01:01:28):
what happened in Chile will happen to you. They had
economic success, it was, let's say, sustained over time, but
at some point it collapsed. Why did it collapse because
they hadn't fought the cultural battle. Then socialism, little by
little took control of institutions in education and the media.

(01:01:49):
So they took over the media and culture, and on
that basis they attacked and broke up the system. And
then they found themselves with increasing doses of socialism. And
the only thing socialism generates is poverty. Therefore, what you
must keep in mind is that you have to fight
the battles on all fronts. And if you don't keep

(01:02:11):
that in mind, I can tell you are headed towards collapse.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Like you said, in this fight against corruption, you're challenging
some very powerful people, a powerful establishment. Are you ever
afraid for your life potential assassinations?

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
No, tell me what good is it to live life?
I mean in slavery. Look, there is a song by
a Spanish singer called Nino Bravo. Just to be clear,
he has already left this earth, so we can say

(01:02:53):
he has passed on to the beyond.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
The song is called Libre.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
And the song it tells the story of Peter Fetcher,
an eighteen year old boy who when the separation was
made and I mean the construction of the Berlin Wall begins,
his family ends up on the western side and he
accidentally ends up on the eastern side, and for a

(01:03:23):
whole year he plans his escape to the western side, right,
and in that context, when he tries to escape, he
gets murdered. So, really, what is the point of life
if it's not in freedom?

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
I mean, what is the point of living without fighting
for your values? If I am willing to give my
life for my values, then what is the point of
living without freedom?

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
Look?

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
Can I tell you something interesting that happened to me
here in the United States. Let's say back in the
year nineteen ninety eight, I came to the United States
to take a series of courses to improve my English,

(01:04:14):
which I never use in formal terms because as president,
as you can imagine, if I make a mistake, I
can create a serious situation. Fortunately, I have an interpreter
who is a superstar, and if I make a mistake,
even in Spanish, he corrects me. In the version of
the other language. And so back then in that year,

(01:04:36):
I went to San Francisco and I visited Alcatraz. You're young,
but I mean the visit was an audio tour. You
got a walkman and you would choose the different tracks
and listen to the story. The most interesting thing is

(01:04:59):
that the Alcatrust tour ended in the recreation yard, where
the basketball court, exercise areas, and all recreational facilities were located.
So anyone would have thought that this was the best
part of Alcatross. And yet look what they said in
the guide was that that was the hardest part for

(01:05:21):
the inmates. Why because I mean that recreation area in
particular is built.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
In front of the San Francisco Bay, so the inmates.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
Could all see how San Francisco continued to build up
and evolve and develop every day while they were locked
up in there. They couldn't take part in that. They
were confined in that prison, and that made them fully
aware of the value of freedom. So in my experience,

(01:05:54):
for me, the fight for freedom is relentless. Okay, I mean,
my greatest hero in all of human history is Moses.
The feet of Moses is like one person alone with
his brother Eron, both confronting the combined forces of the

(01:06:15):
United States, China, and Russia together, and it was Moses
who said to Ramses, let my people go. Well, Ramses resisted,
and the forces of heaven ran him over.

Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
But what I mean is.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
I don't see any other possible way to live other
than with freedom. And I would always fight for full freedom,
and I would be at the forefront of this cause.
I mean, it's a cause that I'm going to die
with my boots on. I mean, I'm not going to
make do with living any other way other than with freedom.

(01:06:56):
I will fight everything. I'm going to fight as much
as it takes. At least that's the way I feel.
So what good is it to be alive if you're confined?
What good is it to be alive if you're not free?
It's no good. What good was it for Peter Fetcher
to be alive in communist Germany? Well, at least he

(01:07:23):
had a moment of happiness while he tried to escape.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Another guy who fights for freedom, freedom of speech in
the cases your new friend Elon Musk, what do you
admire and what have you learned from your interactions with Elon?

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
I have a huge admiration for Elon Musk.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
He is he is an absolutely unconventional person. He's a
great fighter for the ideas of freedom, what he has
done on Twitter now known as x and.

Speaker 3 (01:08:02):
How he is helping the world nowadays to wake up.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Once and for all and become aware of the socialist virus,
the woke virus, that in itself makes him a hero
in the history of humanity. But it's not just that.
One of the things that happened to me is that
when I went to first talk to him, I thought

(01:08:32):
I was going to meet a successful businessman, and that
I would have a typical successful businessman conversation who understands
business and that some of his businesses, some of his
business slightly more exotic. But that's the kind of talk
you would expect to have. And business people are truly

(01:08:54):
admirable right because they are true benefactors of society, but
they are usually very much focused on their own business.
And one of the things that really really shocked me
when I met Elon Musk, we had scheduled a meeting

(01:09:16):
for no more than fifty minutes. The first time we
were in the meeting for a little over forty five
minutes because he was about to miss his flight. So obviously,
if someone as important as him doesn't fly as planned,
it has to be rescheduled and he loses a lot
of hours. Imagine, every minute is very valuable. And one

(01:09:43):
of the things that happened was that basically he brought
up the topic of demography and we started discussing demographics
and growth. I never imagined that I would end up
discussing demographics and growth with him, you know. And another
very fun thing was that something funny he said to

(01:10:07):
me was that since we shared our vision regarding demographic
issues and the need to populate the planet, he asked me, now,
what about you, when are you going to move in
that direction? I mean, I said, oh, look, I have
five children, and he said, well, the four legged ones
don't count. That was the first meeting I had with

(01:10:30):
Elon Musk. The second the second meeting was when here
at the universities we started seeing anti Semitic demonstrations where
basically Palestinian flags were displayed and Jews were harassed and persecuted.

(01:10:51):
And at that moment, when we had that second meeting,
he showed himself.

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
To be very deeply involved with.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
And brought up the issue of the cultural battle, So
I mean, it's not quite conventional even in the political field.
During our last talk, which lasted for about two and
a half hours, right, one of the things we talked
about was freedom and what was at stake for the

(01:11:24):
United States in this.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Election.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Therefore, he is a person, you know, Honestly, I can
say he is well above average, I mean, a person
of unconventional intelligence, right. And also he is very charming,
So I mean again I have a great admiration for him,

(01:11:52):
and I really interact very closely with him. He is
very interested in what our Ministry of the Irregulation is doing,
which seeks to remove regulations. But at the same time
he works with another person who is also interested in
the chainsaw approach. And so I'm very pleased because they

(01:12:16):
are going to try and replicate the model we are
implementing in Argentina. And also Donald Trump himself is very
enthusiastic about this and anything in the way of reducing
regulations and cutting public spending and taking government out of
the equation means more freedom for the people. So I'm
very pleased with what's going on and with Trump's victory

(01:12:41):
because the United States will be better off Argentina is
going to be better too, and the whole world is
going to be better off. Today the world is a
much better place than it was just a few days ago.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Like you said, Ilan and vivekro Maswami are heading the
DOGE Department of Government Efficiency. So, from your experience this
year as President of Argentina and every chainsaw economic policies
that you've implemented, what advice would you give to Elon
and Vivek about how to do it in the United States?

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
Just cut to the chase, got to the chase, simple
as that. I'll tell you a story and you're going
to love it. Currently, in Argentina, due to the political
balance we've achieved, we have had certain powers delegated from
Congress to the executive branch, and therefore we can resolve

(01:13:37):
it by decree that the Regulation Minister Federico Strseneger, in
his ministry shows a counter that displays in front of everyone.
There he displays the number of days all right, during
which the delegated powers will continue to be valid. Therefore,

(01:14:00):
he has a hold the Regulation division, also a public
spending cut Division and Government structure Reduction Division, and he
also has an elite corps. That's cleaning up all of
the laws that hinder the economic system and progress. And
every day he removes between one and five economic restrictions.

(01:14:25):
So my advice would be for them to go all
the way, to push it to the very limit, and
do not give up, do not let.

Speaker 3 (01:14:34):
Down their guard.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
Furthermore, that agenda does not have political purpose because at
the end of the day, you are removing privileges. Of
course there will be people complaining, but those are people.
These are people who are losing privileges. So they will
have to explain to society why they are keeping those privileges,
and that is quite uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
You've spoken with Donald Trump allegedly called you his favorite president.
What did you discuss and maybe again, what do you
admire about President Trump and what do you learn from him?

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
There are several things that I admire about President Trump.
The first is that he probably I think he's provided
ample proof of this in his first presidency. He understands
the nature of the cultural battle. He has openly confronted socialism,

(01:15:32):
His speeches openly target socialism. He perfectly understands the woke virus,
and that that is, you know, of great value because
it means understanding what it's all about. Another thing I
truly admire about him is his courage. In fact, thankfully,

(01:15:59):
thank goodness, he didn't get assassinated or killed, but it
was by a small chance occurrence that could have killed him,
just because he moved at the right moment. And yet
that didn't intimidate him, and he went on and in fact,
during his first campaign and in this one as well,

(01:16:24):
in the second one and third one, they criticized him,
insulted him, offended him, said awful things about him, made
up all sorts of horrible stories about him. In that respect,
I can say I deeply relate because probably no one

(01:16:44):
in our history has had such a negative campaign from
all the media like they did to me.

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
But let's say they were quite similar.

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
This is why it's so interesting, and I was so
deeply moved when last night I also got to meet
Sylvester Stallone.

Speaker 3 (01:17:02):
You know, because.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
Sylvester st alone talks about well, how important is that
no matter how hard they hit you, and keep on
hitting you all the time, despite all that, you keep.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
Going on and on and on.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
What I'm trying to say is that many of the many,
so many of Sylvester Stallone's approaches are truly inspirational, don't
you think so. Imagine I'm about to give the speech
and I see Sylvester Stallone, and Sylvester Stallone knows me.

(01:17:39):
It was truly insane. I had to pinch myself. I mean,
this can't be true. And besides, well, the people were
wonderful with me last night. They've been wonderful today. I've
taken hundreds of selfies. I mean, it's truly been I
would say it's been break. Let me say, after almost

(01:18:02):
a year in office and having to face all sorts
of media torture because of because the journalists who have
vested interests and are corrupt are professional torturers. Yes, because
they invade your personal life, your family and your privacy.
Let me tell you something to show you the kind
of garbage the media in Argentina can do. They send

(01:18:25):
three drones to spy on me at my presidential residence,
to spy on me. Do you think that's right? Exactly?
But that kind of thing happens in Argentina. Not to
mention the many lies and horrible things they say. I,
for instance, remember that time when my father was hospitalized.

(01:18:45):
My father is a man, of a really strong character
who has had two heart surgeries, all right, And one
day a journalist was saying all sorts of lies about
my father. My father was hospital well and he almost
died of a heart attack. So that kind of thing

(01:19:07):
is what journalism and the press do in Argentina. So
they start to attack your private life, your mother, your father,
your sister, even my dogs that I absolutely adore, they
are the most wonderful beings in the universe. They even
target my four legged children. So imagine that I've been
in office for nearly a year a year as president,

(01:19:30):
and since they can't criticize my management except by lying
and distorting the numbers, they meddle with all these things.
Things they have been doing all the time since the
year twenty twenty one when I officially entered politics. So
and I've seen what they've done to Trump. So that

(01:19:54):
also makes me relate a lot to him, because he's
a true warrior. He's truly he's a Viking. He's a Viking.
He's literally a Viking. I mean, he is someone I
admire for how he has kept fighting in the face
of adversity, even against all odds, and still he managed

(01:20:16):
to win amazing well, and that's why I can relate
that much. And I've also seen how he's been unfairly criticized,
like when he was accused of protectionism, or when he
wanted to discuss some matters within the context of public

(01:20:38):
debate regarding the design of monetary policy as regards the Fed,
and basically they have accused him of things. I mean,
isn't he entitled to give an opinion as a president?
I mean, any citizen could give their opinion, even more
so a president.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
Why is it important to you that Argentina has a
close reallyationship with the United States.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
Well, to us, that is truly important, Okay, you know,
because we've decided to be geopolitical allies of the United States.
Ever since our campaign that our allies. We have decided
that our allies will be the United States and Israel

(01:21:24):
because they basically represent the ideas of the Western world.
They represent the free world, that is to say, what
we would call today, let's say, a liberal democracy, okay,
by confronting the autocrats, and in that sense, that is
the geopolitical alignment. Moreover, in our campaign, we were very

(01:21:47):
very clear on three main points.

Speaker 3 (01:21:49):
One the economic pillar.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
We talked about cutting public spending and I would make
my appearances with a chainsaw. We talked about economic freedom,
regulation that is, and I talked about a competition of currencies,
and people you know, obviously were interested in the dollar.
So it was obvious that the economic policy was clear,
all right. And not only was it clear, but we

(01:22:13):
are also fulfilling it. That is the first point. Second
was our policy on security, the idea being to fight crime,
I mean relentlessly as well as security, no mercy right
and in fact, in Argentina there are no more roadblocks

(01:22:34):
which they said were impossible to end. Not only that,
we have strengthened the security forces and also our armed forces,
and we are waging a tough battle against drug trafficking
and narco terrorism. Therefore, we are also strongly fulfilling that.
Notice that these two points, which were the main concerns,
they were the biggest concerns of Argentinians when we took office,

(01:22:57):
are now in fifth and sixth place today. The problem
for Argentinians is corruption, whether there is unemployment, if there
is poverty, but they don't mention inflation and insecurity anymore.
And besides, a third point that I made clear was
that I would align with the United States and Israel internationally.

(01:23:18):
And you know at my campaign rallies there would be
groups that would come along with flags of Israel. So
it's clear that our international policy approach was always very clear.
And this is something I state during my speeches when
I talk about the values of the West and the

(01:23:40):
civilization of the West. In fact, yesterday and even more
so today, during my speeches, I talked about how the
different Greek groups or tribes go together to confront the Persians.
That is to say, it seemed that from that time

(01:24:02):
five hundred years before Christ until today, that struggle continues, right.

Speaker 3 (01:24:09):
But well, so of course we're all in.

Speaker 1 (01:24:16):
We are betting on the United States becoming once again
a leader in the West. We needed someone to come
back to make America great again, and that as part
of that process, being a commercial ally is also a

(01:24:37):
great idea. So we would really like to move forward
and deepen our trade ties and our investment ties, you know,
and well we would also like to be part of
the NATO as well.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
Do you think it's still possible. One of the radical
ideas you had as you were running for president was
to dollar rise the Argentine economy. Do you think that's
still a good idea? Are you still thinking about that?

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
Let's see, let's break it down. Let's say I, if
you review all all my statements, I talk about currency competition.
I'm not strictly talking about dollarization. I'm talking about currency
competition and eliminating the central bank. If people later decide
to embrace the dollar, that is their choice. Ultimately, in

(01:25:29):
the model I propose, what happens is the formation of
a currency basket tailored to the needs of individuals. But
I won't avoid the discussion. Today there is currency competition. If,
for instance, today in Argentina, you want to make transactions
in any currency, you can do it and it's allowed today.

(01:25:50):
There is currency competition. The other thing we talk about
is the concept of let's suppose we were discussing dollarization,
we talk about endogenous dollarization. The first point is that
you need to clean up the central bank. We had
to deal with the issue of the Cira, that is,
the central bank's commercial debt, which was fifty billion dollars.

(01:26:12):
We still have to resolve the dividend problem of ten
billion dollars. And in the meantime we did a write
off and cleaned up the central bank's balance sheet by
forty five billion dollars. So you can't just close the
central bank if it is bankrupt, because you need to
redeem the whole central bank debt, which is about the
issuing of money and the interest bearing liabilities. So once

(01:26:34):
we've finished with the interest bearing liabilities, it'll leave us
with the monetary base. Therefore, today we have a regime
where the amount of money is fixed. The monetary base
is not growing, and as demand for money increases, since
people can use dollars, they don't need to go and
sell the dollars and make the pay so appreciate, but

(01:26:56):
they can do transactions in dollars, So the economy grows,
you will have a greater share of dollars relative to pesos,
and at some point the amount of pesos compared to
the dollars will be so huge relatively the closing down
the central bank will be done easily, which means this

(01:27:17):
is working. Of course, if you were to give me
the money right now, I would go ahead and dollarize.

Speaker 3 (01:27:25):
I'd have no problem with that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
For example, I did have a proposal for this, and
this could have worked because the bonds, because the largest
creditor of the Argentine Treasury is the central Bank. But
central Bank bond we're trading at twenty cents. If I
had sold those bonds at twenty cents and nowadays they
are trading between sixty and seventy. With the whole bunch

(01:27:52):
of Neanderthals that are the opposition, who besides being ignorant
in economic also have bad intentions, I would be in
jail today.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
Let me ask you a very important, difficult question. I'm
a huge fan, have been my whole life of Diego,
Maradona and Messy. So who to you is the greatest
football player of all time?

Speaker 1 (01:28:18):
The way I see it, I have seen Maradona play,
all right. I saw Maradona play in the past. I
used to watch him, and I saw him during his
last year at Argentina Juniors before Boca Juniors in the
year nineteen eighty and I saw him in eighty one
playing for Boca. I saw him play in the youth

(01:28:40):
selection in Japan in nineteen seventy nine. I truly have
immensely enjoyed the talent of Maradona, but without a doubt,
the best soccer player of all time, not just from
Argentina of all time, even better than Pele is Messy.

(01:29:02):
Of course, there is an article which is quite old
already now titled Messi is Impossible, and it looks at
all of the positions a soccer player plays in. That is,
all positions a soccer player can play in from midfield forward, okay,

(01:29:27):
and the most incredible thing is that Messi is the
best in each of those positions. You can be the
best in one or two positions, you see, Cristiano Ronaldo,
for example, was very good in two areas of the game,
so much so that he was almost like Messy, but

(01:29:50):
he didn't take part in the rest. However, Messy is
the best one in all respects. But at that time,
of course, nowadays you know he is an older player.

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
Right, and.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
I'm not sure whether he can still keep that performance
on all fronts. But honestly, I have never in my
life seen a player like Messi. I've never seen no
one like him.

Speaker 3 (01:30:19):
For real.

Speaker 1 (01:30:20):
If you look at the number of goals he scored,
I correct that considering the goal average in the days
of Ballet compared to Messi's golden era and his career now,
the number of equivalent goals is much greater than that
of Pele. Therefore, without a doubt, Massy is the greatest
soccer player of all time, of all time, no one

(01:30:43):
compares to him.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
But it's not just the numbers or the World Cup win,
it's the moments of genius on the field. Messi is
unlike any other in that way.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
Messi does things that seem technically impossible, seem physically impossible.
The moves he makes don't respect human logic. It's like
watching Usain Bolt run. It doesn't feel possible. He moves
in a way that doesn't respect human logic.

Speaker 3 (01:31:14):
Am I right?

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
Did you watch the nineteen eighty six World Cup with
Maridonna with the hand of God, with the game against England?
What was that like?

Speaker 3 (01:31:24):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
Yes, I do remember that very well. We watched it
in the home of my godfather and saw how he
did his gambit and dodged the team, the England team.
That was truly, it was absolutely, absolutely indescribable. There's no

(01:31:49):
way to put it into words. It's as if I
asked you to describe.

Speaker 3 (01:31:54):
For me.

Speaker 1 (01:31:57):
The love you have for your partner. You can't do that, right,
I mean, it's something wonderful. You can't describe it. You
cannot put it into words. There are things where words,
I mean, you know, just seem to fail.

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
Am I right?

Speaker 1 (01:32:16):
So I really think that there are times when humans,
or some humans, not all of them, actually, some humans
have the privilege of being able to vibrate closer to God.
Some puccini Arias, for example, when you listen to them,

(01:32:38):
when you listen to the famous aria from Laarndine or
the famous aria from Gianni Schichi, I mean, you get
the feeling that he was getting sat dictated by God.

Speaker 3 (01:32:52):
How can you put that into words? You can't.

Speaker 1 (01:32:55):
There's no way you do that. I mean those moments
where we humans are that we have the privilege. I
say it as human beings, right because I mean I'm
speaking from that perspective. Okay, I say this only as
an admirer. Some human beings have the ability to vibrate

(01:33:17):
so close to God that you can't describe it. You
can only enjoy it. This is why in Judaism they
don't use the name of God of the Creator, because
how could you put in words something like that. And
I believe those are times when us humans connect closer

(01:33:41):
to the Creator and create things, unique things. You cannot
describe them. There are no words to describe that. The
only thing you can do is enjoy it and be
thankful that you can witness it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
You're a grateful all yourself. In your youth, you were
a goalkeeper. Many people would say that's the toughest and
the most important position in football. Maybe you could speak
about that experience and in general, what's harder being a
goalkeeper or president?

Speaker 3 (01:34:13):
Lovely question.

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
Well, indeed, I used to be a goalkeeper, but I'm
not so sure about whether I was any good. But
the experience of having been a goalkeeper is very valuable. First,
the goalkeeper is the only player that can use their

(01:34:37):
hands in a certain sector of the pitch in the area.
The other thing is that he's also the only player
who dresses differently.

Speaker 3 (01:34:51):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:34:53):
Moreover, their training is a solitary one and the most important,
I mean it is the very climax the goal. Right
when the goal is called by their team, everyone is
celebrating on the other side and the goalkeeper is on

(01:35:15):
his own. And at the same time, he is the
one who suffers the most when a goal is scored
because he gets the direct impact. In fact, when the
goalkeeper makes a mistake, it's an own goal. Imagine a
teammate scores a wonderful goal like the one Maridona did,

(01:35:38):
it's marvelous, and that's just one goal. And imagine the
goalkeeper picks up the ball, and then if they bring
it into the area wrongly, it's like two goals. It's
a complete lack of proportion. So therefore, and this, in
my opinion, makes goalkeepers have a very strong temperament.

Speaker 3 (01:36:02):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
They are used to being alone, and power is precisely that,
because when you make decisions, you are on your own.

Speaker 3 (01:36:13):
And not just that, but also.

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
When you have a responsibility like that of a president,
when you make a decision it has an impact on
millions of people. So, just like goalkeepers, if you make
a mistake and score an own goal, and in this context,
it's negative consequences for millions of people. Therefore, that has

(01:36:43):
been part of the university of life that has given
me the tools to be president today. That is my
training in economics, my training in liberalism. Having been a
goalkeeper and also having had a very tough childhood.

Speaker 2 (01:36:59):
How hard is it, what's been the personal toll of
carrying the hope of a nation on.

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
Your shoulders well, you know, being defamed, insulted and attacked
every single day. But again, there's no point in life
if it's not with freedom. So like Sylvester Stallone once said,
the secret life is to carry on in spite of

(01:37:28):
the blows You get, the punches you take. And fortunately
we have been able to carry on in spite of
the blows, both coming at us from in front and
from behind our backs, because it have been more honest
if we had been attacked directly.

Speaker 3 (01:37:46):
But well, you know in Argentina.

Speaker 1 (01:37:50):
Politics and the mess media, they do love to attack
behind your back.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
What role has God played in your life? And who
is God?

Speaker 1 (01:38:04):
Well, faith, i'd say has been a very fundamental element,
you know, and especially in recent times during which I've
become actively involved, particularly in the teachings of Judaism and

(01:38:27):
in the study of the Torah. This has given me
a huge, let's say, a huge background to face the
many adversities which I've encountered and had to overcome in
the last few years. And as to who God is,

(01:38:48):
He's the Creator, the Maker, I call him the one.

Speaker 2 (01:38:54):
What is the better guide for humanity? The invisible hand
of the market or the hand of God?

Speaker 3 (01:39:00):
They're perfectly in sync.

Speaker 2 (01:39:03):
Well enough again, going back to your youth, you're a
lead singer and a rock band. Who is the greatest
rock star of all time?

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
Okay, well, the way I see it, the most amazing
rock singer in history of mankind was definitely Elvis Presley.
And my favorite band is the Rolling Stones. So I
also greatly admire Mick Jagger, you know, and I still

(01:39:35):
have this dream of getting to meet him in person.

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
How fen would it be to play together with the Stones?

Speaker 3 (01:39:45):
That would be a big, big dream.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
Don't get my hopes up because I set goals and
then I go and achieve them.

Speaker 2 (01:39:55):
Well, I'm close friends with the band that opens for
the Stones, so I would love to see this happen.

Speaker 3 (01:40:00):
Oh well, that would be great.

Speaker 1 (01:40:03):
Or we could also watch the whole concert from the stage.
I mean, I can't keep ruining the Rolling Stones is music.
I already had a tribute band and did quite a
lot of damage to the music.

Speaker 2 (01:40:16):
How much is your rockstar roots to find your approach
to politics, to life? Do you see yourself as a
kind of showman?

Speaker 1 (01:40:24):
In part?

Speaker 3 (01:40:25):
Of course. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:40:29):
My idea is that when you attend, when you attend
one of our events, it feels like going to a
Rolling Stones concert. In fact, in one of my most
recent performances at Luna Park, I even had the pleasure
of singing in front of ten thousand people. It's on YouTube. No, sorry,

(01:40:52):
not on YouTube, it's on my Instagram feed. At that event,
I sang a song called Panic Show, and the song
starts by saying, Hi, everybody, I am the Lion.

Speaker 2 (01:41:06):
Your intensity and passion have earned you the nickname El
loco the madman. Do you think some madness is necessary
to challenge the powerful establishment?

Speaker 1 (01:41:19):
Well, maybe it's a matter of perspective, right, It could
be the other way around that everyone else is crazy
by living in a way contrary to the ideas of freedom,
and so maybe the same person who wants to fix
that is then considered a madman. Anyway, the nickname doesn't

(01:41:39):
bother me at all. In fact, I even enjoy it
because I've been called like that since I was ten
years old, So it's not something that particularly bothers me,
you know, because it's a nickname that well it's.

Speaker 3 (01:41:55):
It has been used for many years.

Speaker 1 (01:41:57):
But actually, if I present to you the case of
San Martin when he said he was going to cross
the Andes to liberate not only Argentina, not only our country,
but also Chile and Peru, and people called him crazy.
Imagine if you had tried and spoken with I don't know,

(01:42:18):
with Michaelangelo, you would have called him crazy too.

Speaker 3 (01:42:22):
Or if you had talked.

Speaker 1 (01:42:24):
To I don't know, hundreds of people who have changed
the world, surely they would have thought that Einstein was
crazy and so on. The list would be infinite. So
what is the difference between a madman and a genius success?

Speaker 2 (01:42:45):
Let me ask you about the market. It's so interesting
from your view of the world, how powerful the market
is at figuring out what's best for society. Why do
you think the market works so well? A guide for humanity?

Speaker 3 (01:43:03):
One must first understand what the market is.

Speaker 1 (01:43:08):
Simply put, the market is a process of voluntary exchange
where individuals cooperate through the transfer of property rights in which.

Speaker 3 (01:43:20):
Private property is upheld.

Speaker 1 (01:43:23):
This is the system that drives the allocation of resources.
In essence, socialism and this is what Missus condemns in
his book. Socialism shows is that without private property, prices
cease to exist and therefore resources are diverted. Why don't

(01:43:43):
you think it's the same to make a road of
asphalt of gold, why not make it of gold? Because
you have an understanding of economic calculation, You have an
idea of prices in your mind. So in this context,
if there is no private property, there are no price
and as a result, the free market capitalism, you know,

(01:44:06):
is the best mechanism ever developed by humankind for resource allocation.
This also implies that markets must be free, free from
state intervention, because when the state intervenes, it creates interference,
and the markets need to allow free entry and exit

(01:44:28):
what we call competition. However, it's better to understand competition
in the sense described by Israel Kerzner, one of the
foremost figures of the Austrian school, or in the neoclassical
framework as William bauml understood it, which was the concept
of free entry and exit in so called contestable markets.

(01:44:49):
And also let's talk about what pertains to the division
of labor and social cooperation. You know, the most wonderful
thing about capitalism is that you can only be successful
by serving others with better quality goods at a better price.
If you are successful in the free market capitalism, you

(01:45:11):
are a hero, You're a social benefactor, you are a
prosperity machine. So the better you do, you know, the
better you do, the better it is for society. This
is very important. I remember when I had my first
meeting with Elon Musk and this made me admire him greatly.

(01:45:33):
And this is something my sister commented on too. You know,
Elon must told me something he does every day. He
wakes up every morning thinking about what problem he could
fix for humanity. That's amazing. Of course, what is the
counterpart being successful? Therefore, in that sense, and moreover, in

(01:46:01):
my view on how the system works, on how.

Speaker 3 (01:46:05):
The market works, market failures do not exist.

Speaker 1 (01:46:09):
That is to say, that is a problem, all right,
a problem for neo classical economists because of the mathematical
tools they've used to develop economic analysis. But actually it's
not a real issue in everyday life. It's a problem

(01:46:30):
in the minds of economists. In fact, my latest book
called Capitalism, Socialism, and the Neo Classical Trap, deals precisely
with this issue.

Speaker 2 (01:46:40):
Yeah, you've outlined these ideas and capitalism, socialism and their
neoclassical trap. So the trap is that there's no such
thing as a middle ground. It's either capitalism, socialism, and
every middle ground ends up in a state of socialism.

Speaker 1 (01:46:55):
Well, actually that is what Missus said that there were
He said that there are only two systems free enterprise,
capitalism and socialism. And he also pointed out, and this
is proven in high x book The Road to Serve Them,
that any middle ground solution is unstable in terms of capitalism,

(01:47:18):
meaning it tends towards socialism. So when you implement an intervention,
it causes government failure, which then triggers further intervention, setting
up a trap that results in more and more intervention.
And in this context, the neoclassicals, with their market failure theory,
are in fact dealing with problems that are fundamentally mathematical,

(01:47:40):
rather than making the world a better place. They have
if you will be instrumental in increasing the levels of intervention,
let me tell you something. Well, you know, I have
an economist as chairman of the President's Advisory countsl doctor

(01:48:02):
Damian Radel, who studied here at Harvard University and completed
his PhD. Was mentored by Kenneth Rogoff, the American economist,
and the Roguoff has said that doctor Radel was his
best student. Nowadays, we're actually working with doctor Ridel specifically

(01:48:25):
on all these issues that arise from, you know, the
interventions proposed uh proposed by the by the mainstream, such
as the so called correction of market failures. And a

(01:48:45):
few days ago he conducted a survey of search algorithms
and the policy recommendations, and that resulted in a map
painted from red to blue, and well, the redder it was,

(01:49:07):
the more it was linked to socialism. There was an
intermediate thing that was yellow and blue was free market ideas.
And one of the things he discovered as as part
of that graph for chart was that the largest, the

(01:49:28):
largest number of policy recommendations, scandalously are actually left leaning.
So that is the empirical evidence of what I pointed
out in the book Capitalism, Socialism, and the Neo Classical Trap.

Speaker 2 (01:49:46):
You mentioned your four legged children. What have you learned
about life from your dogs?

Speaker 1 (01:49:54):
Well, from my four legged children, I have learned unconditional love.
In fact, well, my name in Hebrew means loyal friend,
faithful friend, and on the Chinese horoscope, I am dog.

(01:50:15):
And if there's one thing that defines me is loyalty,
being decent, and those virtues, you know, you can find
them in those wonderful beings that dogs are who who
love unconditionally. In fact, they are superior beings right spiritually speaking,

(01:50:40):
in my case, because because you know, I don't forget
or forgive those who have harmed me. That is to say,
all those who have insulted, defame me and criticized me.
I remember each one of them, but I don't have

(01:51:00):
the greatness needed to forgive them.

Speaker 2 (01:51:04):
On the topic of loyalty in politics, I'm sure there's
been a lot of people, some people who have betrayed you.
Does that hurt your heart?

Speaker 3 (01:51:17):
It depends.

Speaker 1 (01:51:21):
Because you sometimes think that you can expect some people
to be loyal, and if they betray you, of course
that hurts. But some people you actually don't expect anything
from them. So if there's betrayal, I mean, you won't

(01:51:43):
be annoyed or feel bad because because you owe it
to someone who didn't share your values. But politics does
have that. You know, sometimes many of the people you
may come across don't have the value use you advocate for.

Speaker 3 (01:52:02):
But it's cost benefit.

Speaker 1 (01:52:04):
You need to let the ship sail on, right or
would you rather let it sink?

Speaker 3 (01:52:10):
That's not my case. I fight until the end.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
There are traitors, but that's part of politics and that's
not my line.

Speaker 3 (01:52:20):
But of course they do exist.

Speaker 2 (01:52:24):
There are a lot of people who admire your revolutionary spirit.
What advice would you give them? Maybe young people are
had a level life like yours and have an impact
on the world like you have begun to do.

Speaker 1 (01:52:40):
I didn't do this thinking about having an impact on
the world. I have defined what makes me happy and
I live according to that.

Speaker 3 (01:52:52):
I live consistently by that, and.

Speaker 1 (01:52:58):
Most importantly, I would say never give up. Moreover, and
above all, never be half hearted.

Speaker 3 (01:53:11):
I would rather.

Speaker 1 (01:53:15):
Cry because I failed rather than not crying because I
never tried. I mean, I'm a perfectionist, so when I
do air, of course I have a bad time. But
still I prefer to go and get things done. If

(01:53:36):
it goes wrong, it's part of life.

Speaker 3 (01:53:39):
But I will never.

Speaker 1 (01:53:43):
Never have to regret not having done what I thought
needed to be done at that moment.

Speaker 3 (01:53:48):
All right, what.

Speaker 2 (01:53:50):
Gives you hope about the future of Argentina and the
future of humanity?

Speaker 1 (01:53:56):
Well, the fact that, thanks to social media and do
the whole tech revolution going on every day, more and
more people are becoming aware of how important freedom is
to live to live in peace and prosperity, and I

(01:54:20):
believe even though bureaucrats and the elites fight untiringly to
enslave us, a wave of freedom has been unleashed, which
if we do wage the fight, we'll have a much
better world.

Speaker 2 (01:54:42):
What does your famous words of Viva libertade? How did
that come about? And what does it mean to you?

Speaker 3 (01:54:49):
Long live freedom? Damn it?

Speaker 1 (01:54:52):
You know that first started while I was giving my
book presentations. At the end of my presentation, I would say,
Viva la libertad carajo, and that really stuck with me
since then, without thinking about it throughout my life, it
was going to continue being present. In fact, today my presentations,

(01:55:18):
all of my speeches end with May God bless the Argentinians,
May the forces of Heaven be with us, and Viva
la libertad carajo. The first phrase reflects my faith in
God fervently and that I'm deeply thankful to the Creator

(01:55:43):
for the wonderful things he has bestowed upon me daily.
The second one has to do with a quote from
the Book of Maccabees three point nineteen, which says that
victory in battle doesn't depend on the size of the army,
but on the forces of heaven. This has to do
with the victory of the Jewish people, the Maccabeans against

(01:56:06):
the Greeks and how they recovered the temple. And the
last one, well is my war cry.

Speaker 2 (01:56:15):
Well, there's no better way to end it. Thank you
for being a warrior for freedom, and thank you for
talking today.

Speaker 1 (01:56:22):
Thank you very much indeed for your interview, and thank
you for being so well educated, because very often interviewers
are not like that. And you did have windows to
play foul and you didn't and I recognize that, and
I thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (01:56:37):
Thank you, Thanks for listening to this conversation with Javier Malay.
To support this podcast, please checkut our sponsors in the description.
And now let me leave you some words from George
Orwell and a time of deceit, Telling the truth is
a revolutionary act. Thank you for listening. I hope to

(01:56:58):
see you next time. He