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Of course it felt better under Kirchner, they were spending way beyond the country's means. Inevitably they hit the wall when nobody would lend to them anymore and the printing presses caused inflation to skyrocket. This is the hangover and it's not going to pass quickly or easily.

Makes a lot of sense. Argentina never had any competitive edge in tires, nor most other things under protectionism. One thing that really stood out during my visit was the dichotomy of prices. Things like property, ubers and food were extraordinarily cheap whereas clothes, cars etc were...

You may be right Avocado but it's very hard to know. We typically don't learn the true scale of corruption until long after an administration is gone. Still... $10 billion is a lot to steal out of an economy the size of Argentina's, and Milei will have the IMF breathing down his neck.

There's no excusing the ongoing corruption in Argentina, but Milei's administration has a long ways to go before joining the leagues of Kirchner and Chavez. The Kirchners' accountant testified they stole about $10 billion, and here's a snapshot of the surreal level of corruption under Chavez:

Amazing job Mike, I'm sure it will be a huge hit!

It's based on how much you paid in and for how long. I believe the calculation is based on your highest 35 years of earnings starting from age 22 to when you pull the trigger on SS. To get the maximum you have to have earned $176k for 2026, which is inflation adjusted so earlier years are...

I suspect a big part of that is just economic decay. A lot of rot can set in over 25 years when your government has been making questionable decisions going back decades.

Of course not, it went up. Michigan tuition is $64k for freshman/sophomore and $68.5k for junior/senior, so it averages $66.25k. But those numbers will keep going up as your child goes to school, and including books and room & board you're probably looking at $400k for undergrad. That is for...

Agreed Betsy. Last year the University of Michigan closed it's Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion after an expose showed they had over 160 administrators. Think of the annual cost of 160 people with salaries, healthcare, pension plans, office costs etc. And that is just for DEI which is...

I wish they were referring to the number of teachers, at least kids would be getting a great education there :) That figure is just for administrators, which are the bureaucrats of universities. The number of administrators at US colleges has absolutely exploded the past 20 years, and tuition...

https://students.bowdoin.edu/bowdoin-review/features/death-by-a-thousand-emails-how-administrative-bloat-is-killing-american-higher-education/

Congrats Mike and Wally! I feel your pain with a college freshman and one heading there next year. One of the problems with tuition is you have these consultants running around telling every school they can charge more because they might only be in the 2nd or 3rd quartile relative to peers...

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/hong-kong-media-tycoon-democracy-activist-jimmy-lai-sentenced-imprisonment.html Trust is something China just doesn't understand, it's one step forward two steps back.

The latest theory on de-dollarization: https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/02/06/hugely-important-bessent-issues-surprise-warning-that-could-be-about-to-trigger-a-gold-and-bitcoin-price-shock/ “China is moving toward a digital currency that is likely backed by gold,” Otavio Costa...

Kids these days, geez :)

Power generation is one area where China is kicking the world's collective behind. Half the US's capacity is 25-30 years old and in need of replacing, so we have to grow just to stand still, and getting a new power plant approved is extremely difficult. Whereas China has no trouble damming up...

They should do an Argentine version of the show Storage Wars

Agreed, US is the least bad option. Europe? Big structural problems + stagnant economy. Japan? Most indebted + oldest population. Switzerland? Way too small. China? India? Russia? LatAm? SE Asia? Middle East? No way, they're trying to form trading blocs but to some extent it's a bunch of...

China can make certain countries accept their currency (and they do) but a becoming a reserve currency requires trust. China has none at the moment and I don't think they're trending in that direction either.

It was a special election so you have to take it with a grain of salt