Cry for Argentina?
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
12/07/23
•32m
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Why not? The country's inflation rate is approaching 150%. 40% of its people live in poverty. The currency is practically worthless. And Argentina is the IMF’s largest debtor because practically no one else will lend it money.
By any definition, the country is an economic basket case. However, unlike the rest of the world’s failed economies, Argentina has a well-educated population, innovative world-class tech sector, robust natural resources, and world-leading wheat, soybeans, and meat exports.
Arguably, Argentina isn’t a failed state, but it has mostly been run by failed politicians.
So it is not surprising that voters just opted to try something radically different, electing a president who describes himself as an "anarcho-capitalist" and promised to use a chainsaw (one of his favorite campaign props) to slash government spending. Can Javier Milei fix what’s broken? Will Argentina’s entrenched politicians get out of the way of his promised shock therapy?
Eduardo Amadeo is optimistic, as you will hear in this episode of New Thinking for a New World. That’s a good sign since Amadeo--economist, businessman, social entrepreneur, and politician—has spent much of his career trying to get his fellow countrymen headed in the right direction. Maybe a radical libertarian economist will finally get the job done.
Listen and tell us whether you think Argentina can finally escape the mess it has made for itself HERE.
Previous Episode
War Without End?
November 30, 2023
•27m
On January 1st Ukraine’s President Zelensky welcomed 2023 with the words, "Happy New Year! The year of our victory!’ Instead, as we approach year’s end, the conflict seems to have settled into a war of attrition which neither side can win or lose. In spite of the bravery of Ukraine's troops and more support from the West than anyone expected, Ukraine's much-heralded summer offensive looks to have failed, or at least stalled.
What comes next? Rinse and repeat? Negotiation? Some kind of dramatic escalation that changes the rhythm of this horrible war?
Our guest on New Thinking for New World is Svitlana Morenets, a Ukrainian journalist who is now a staff writer at Britain’s Spectator magazine recently published an absolutely brilliant article titled “Zelensky Must Be Honest About the State of the War.” She ended her piece this way. "The real question is the extent of the sacrifice everyone is willing to make and what the most probable outcome will be if they choose not to pay that price anymore.”
Listen as we discuss what an honest assessment might mean. And join the conversation: “Do you think Ukraine can win?"
Next Episode
What’s Warmer, Wetter, and Greener? (Spoiler Alert: The Arctic—and It Shouldn’t Be!)
December 21, 2023
•33m
The Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet. All the vital signs—sea and land surface temperatures, terrestrial snow cover, the melting rate of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the extent and timing of sea ice—are all flashing red. The Arctic is Ground Zero of a rapidly warming, changing planet.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA for short, recently issued its annual Arctic Report Card, which mostly makes for grim reading. At the same time, one of the storylines is that it’s not too late, that there is still time to slow and even to reverse the most pernicious changes that otherwise threaten all of us.
“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic,” says Tero Mustonen, one of the authors of the report. He knows the Arctic as a scientist, as a fisherman, as a leader of the innovative Snowchange Cooperative, as the head of the village of Selkie in North Karelia, Finland. And, as worried as he is by what he sees happening around him, he and his colleagues have developed a solution: rewild spoiled lands in the Far North to turn them back into the massive carbon sinks badly needed by Earth.
Listen as he explains the problem as well as the solution, with some geopolitics thrown into the mix to make matters worse. Then tell us: do you think climate change can be slowed in your lifetime?
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