Did it work well for Call-Me-Dave and Gideon? Austerity that is. Milei's law is essentially a strict austerity law. It'll never pass, because Turkey's never vote for Christmas. So its meaningless. The Argie Leader, former stand up comic, is right that Argentina needs to get its finances under control, but his “Fiscal Shackle” is the sort of daft idea you get when an economic nincompoop mixes a simple slogan for an understanding of how government and an economy actually work. This half wit thinks its a good idea to have a national holiday marking a football match, costing Argentinian businesses millions of mickey mouse Argentinian pesos in lost productivity. A government isn't a household that has to balance the books every single year: sometimes you borrow to get through a recession, a crisis or to invest in things that benefit the country for decades. A rigid no-deficit rule could force governments to slash useful spending simply because it's easier to cut than politically protected programmes. Guess what, your hero will likely plough billions into arming the Argentinian armed forces to go and attack the Falklands, to lose again. Argentina needs sensible fiscal discipline and politicians who can be held to account—not a pair of handcuffs that prevents any government responding sensibly when circumstances change. You don't cure fiscal recklessness by making economic stupidity compulsory. The problem is they are Spanish Catholics, which seems to relieve them of the ability to carry out hardwork in an Anglican Protestant manner.
