World Politics Digest thread

Plus often in favour of legalising some drugs - the ones they use specifically and solely; plus often with opinions on age of consent that would not be particularly popular either; from my experience of having to deal with some of them.

The polish election is being called the biggest polish election since 1989, and there’s pictures of poles in lines all around Europe waiting to vote.

Feels like it could be a seismic election but I don't hold out much hope for fair democracy in elections in countries like this.

It's been a mess for a lot longer that 20/30 years. It was run by the military from 1930s to the 80s with only brief respites. Horrible mismanagement of what was once a strong economy and less value placed on the natural resources that made it strong were factors.

It's still in G20 which means their must be money in there somewhere or else the rest of the world really is a shtshow.

Safe to assume Argentina isn't gonna stop being a sht show over the next few years.

(Not that his defeat would have prevented that either.

This is veering into anecdotal territory but from what I've heard from Brazilian friends in my time in Brazil and my brother who lives in Chile, Argentinians (and Chileans to a lesser extent) see themselves as more European than South American.

I think Mauricio Macri said something to this effect with comments about Brazil when he visited Spain a while back.

Interesting to see the only other country mentioned by Milei in his victory speech was Ireland. Said he wants to replicate the success of the Irish economy. I assume he's referring to stuff like corporation tax and not housing.

yeah, never has anyone with fewer seats in congress been elected president. It seems Milei's election was a vote against the same old corrupt Kirchnerist/Personist politics, which Massa represented.

Former president Macri has offered his support so this will improve Milei's chances of making changes but it will be difficult to achieve his most extreme aims like scrapping the peso and central bank, and dollarizing the economy (getting rid of the national currency might require amending the constitution).

I think he has already back-tracked on some of this and other stuff like legalising the sale of organs, less gun controls, but he has re-committed to privatising public broadcasting and energy, and doing away with ministries for women/diversity/culture.

The energy issue is interesting as it's heavily subsidised - electricity costs almost nothing and petrol about 25 cent per litre. Similar with public transport in Buenos Aires. And Argentinians are struggling as is, so how will they react to increased costs under Milei. They're in for a tough few years so it might be back to Kirchnerism after this term.

It was a cause of big political division in the US in its early years. Serious political opposition to idea of a central bank slash federal reserve.

Alexander Hamilton and then Henry Clay Whigs in favour.

Jeffersonian and Jackson Democrats opposed it.

...take a close look at whats currently unfolding in many dollarized developing nations, particularly since fed rate rises! do you really wanna be at the whim of another countries central banks policies!

...or shows what desperate people do, i.e. turn to despots, tis probably in the post for here to, especially if the next couple of governments are deemed a failure here!