“One swallow does not make a summer; neither does one day.”
~ Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (330-340 BC)
Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Buenos Aires, Argentina...
It’s a rainy ol’ day here in the Paris of the South, cold and wet in roughly equal measure. This morning we trudged to a nearby café, our favorite, to take our customary cortado and thumb a dog-eared paperback (quoted above).
There were few people out on the streets, the local porteños being allergic to rain, and by the time we arrived our shoes had filled up with water, like the lyrics to a sad Jeff Buckley song. Still, compared to the searing temperatures north of the equator, this is a pleasant change of climate.
Agreeable, too, is the refreshing reversal in political trajectory down here at the End of the World. Which brings us ‘round to our regular beat...
As patient readers well know, we’re following along with what’s happening here in Argentina, largely because a) we live here, b) we have a soft spot for lost causes and, c) what’s happening here is, as we’ve described it before, “the greatest political experiment of our age.”
There are other reasons, too... but mostly we’ve forgotten them.
Before we proceed, however, let us recall Aristotle’s important caveat: politics is not an “exact science.” To borrow The Philosopher’s words, “Our account of this science will be adequate if it achieves such clarity as the subject matter allows...”
The Long Way Home
When we left these fair shores back in May, it seemed the ship of state was gradually being righted. President Javier Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” had all but snuffed out the raging inflation conflagration... poverty was on the decline along with falling prices... the economy was growing (especially the private sector)... and his trademark motosierra (chainsaw) was busily hacking away at the termite-ridden branches of the overgrown State.
For four long months, your editor journeyed far from home... from the Pyrenees to the Pyramids... the Balkans to the Nordic states... the Iberian coastline to the Buenos Aires of the North, the Big Apple and the Gulf of America...
... then home.
It is sometimes said that Argentina is the kind of place you can leave for ten years and return to find everything the same... or leave for ten days and return to find everything different. For us, it was both.
The first thing we noticed was the (relative) price stability. At 1.9%, July’s monthly inflation print was the third consecutive month below the 2% mark. That’s down more than 90% from its high of 25.5% per month when Sr. Milei arrived at the Casa Rosada, back in December of 2023.
The annual rate – necessarily slower to come down than the shorter, monthly series – also declined to “just” 36.6%. If that seems like a lot (and it is), compare it to the eye-watering high of ~289% in April of last year. Here’s the past 12 months, courtesy of the official National Institute of Statistics, INDEC:
Phony Fed Fiat
Of course, in an economy flooded by the fed’s freshly-inked fiat tsunami, not all prices are inflated equally. And just as rough seas toss helpless vessels in different directions – up and down, hither and thither – so too do prices settle down in unpredictable fashion… some ending up on the ocean bed, others on top of trees or on the front porch.
So while Recreation and Culture (4.8%), Restaurants and Hotels (2.8%) and Personal Care and Services (2.1%) were above the average, things like Household Utilities (1.5%), Home Appliances (1.5%) and Healthcare (1.1%) came in below average...
... while the extremely rare fish of deflation was even spotted over in Clothing and Footwear (-0.6%).
Needless to say, it is the poorest who are most impacted by the ravages of government money printing, i.e. inflation. And it is they, the working poor and long-suffering middle class, who stand to gain the most, on a relative basis, from price stability and real wage growth.
So we noted, with cautious optimism, that wage growth again outpaced inflation for the latest month recorded (June). This is important, as it is real growth – that is, adjusted for inflation – in which real people measure their real wealth in the real world. Everything else is fantasy.
In June, while monthly inflation came in at 1.6%, wages grew by almost double, at an average monthly rate of 3%. More encouraging still, it was the “non-registered private wages” (representing Argentina’s massive “informal” market) where most of the growth was generated.
That is, while real public salaries declined slightly (trailing inflation at 1.3%, as cuts continued across the board in the public disservice sector), and rose slightly in the “registered” private sector (up 1.7%), it was the informal market, where wages are generally lower and more volatile, which saw the strongest growth. At 8.9%, wages for Argentina’s poorest “en negro” workers grew at 5.5 times the rate of inflation.
These are jobs – often part time or seasonal – which tend to “firm up” during periods of sustained economic growth. Speaking of which...
Deep Cuts
When we left Buenos Aires, Argentina had recently registered an impressive 5.8% annualized GDP growth rate for the first quarter of the year. That rate then accelerated to 6.8% annualized through June, making Argentina the fastest growing economy in Latin America.
This is all the more impressive as President Milei’s administration continues to aggressively cut government spending, meaning the growth is not coming from phony-baloney government make-work programs and shifty accounting, the preferred method of ledge-goosing Keynesians... but rather a robust rebound in the private sector, long ignored and plenty underfunded.
Here’s how the original DOGE master, Minister of Deregulation Federico Sturzenegger, charts the ongoing effort at hacking back the Leviathan in a recent post on X (translated):
“WE CONTINUE WITH DEREGULATION. There are so many obstacles we've removed that it's hard to quantify them. The graph shows the number of articles that repeal, eliminate, or simplify regulations since @JMilei took office. The road ahead is long, but we move forward every day.”
That’s over 8,000 federal and provincial regulations simplified, repealed or eliminated altogether in just 20 months... and counting.
Of course, “One swallow does not make a summer,” as Plato’s famous student reminds us. “Similarly neither can one day, or a brief period of time, make a man blessed and happy.”
To that end, we’ll have a closer look at the opportunities blossoming here as, day by day, the country embraces less state and more liberty.
In the meantime, stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
P.S. Are you enjoying our boots-on-ground coverage of The Greatest Political Experiment of Our Time?
Javier Milei’s Libertarian Laboratory is beginning to yield results, dear reader… and it’s not looking good for Big State apologists, goose-stepping collectivists and world-improving do-gooders... not to mention their drooling lackeys in the Establishment Press.
Speaking of which, as of mid-2025, trust in mainstream media remains at historically low levels. According to Gallup:
“Only 31% of U.S. adults express a ‘great deal’ or ‘fair amount’ of confidence in the media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. This figure is consistent with the previous year and matches the lowest levels recorded since Gallup began tracking this metric in 1972.”
In fact, more than a third (36%) of Americans reported having ‘no trust at all’ in the mainstream media, up sharply (and, we might add, deservedly) from just 6% in 1972.
It’s a good time to be back down at the End of the World, in other words, tracking the goings on in Argentina from our perch here in the nation’s capital. You won’t hear positive news about free markets in the Mainstream Media, whose job it is to give you the old “mushroom treatment.”
Fortunately, through platforms like Substack, independent news sources such as these humble Notes can reach increasingly large audiences… spreading the word of Free Markets, Free Minds and Free People far and wide.
If you’re like to support our work and join our growing community, now’s the time to do so. We’ve got a lot planned for the back half of the year, including some upcoming members-only events and exclusive interviews.
Join Notes today for less than it costs you to buy the one sugary Starbucks “coffee” drink a month, without all the empty calories, right here…
I had such high hopes that Trump would follow the same path as Milei…sighhhhh
Yep, that mushroom syndrome. Feed them sh"" and tell them lies . That appears to be the mantra of a lot reporters.