The subtext to the improbable election of Javier Milei revolves around a question that has haunted Argentina for generations. Why is this country such a mess? For as long as anyone can recall, Argentina has been synonymous with South American disfunction, to the point where the name of the country is often used as an epithet to criticize first world countries. There was even a Broadway play based on the life of a famous Argentine lunatic named Eva Perón.
The first place to start is the ruling elite. If you do an image search of “Argentine leaders” you get a collection of images that would answers the same question if you replaced Argentina with Italy or Spain. Like most South American countries, the ruling elite looks like the colonial elite that founded these countries. In some of these countries, they have been ruled by a small set of families since the 16th century when their ancestors arrived from Spain.
In other words, you do not see the Venezuela problem. In some of the more dysfunctional countries in the region, you have indigenous leaders rising up to claim some power, which always ends in disaster. They tend to be Marxists, but the illiterate sort that just understand the theft and violence parts. Venezuela is a rich country in terms of natural resources and location, but the smart fraction was chased off long ago by indigenous lunatics, so it is a basket case.
On the surface, Argentina does not have this problem. The most notorious ruler of the place was the Latin fascist Juan Perón. Anyone who has been around international organizations like the IMF or World Bank knows the sort. Perón was a populist and demagogue, but he was also highly educated and sophisticated. His politics were a populist suit her wore to garner support, but he was a man of the European elite that has run the country since forever.
The point is the ruling class of Argentina is not a lot different from the ruling elites you see in better functioning countries. Perón is typical of the ruling class in that his family tree has Spanish, French and English ancestry. Go through the long list of Argentine rulers and all of them trace their roots to the old country. You never see any references to Africans or Amerindian ancestry. The rulers always look like the sort of people who spend their career at places like the UN or now the EU.
In other words, Argentina is a country rich in natural resources, has a prime location on global trade routes and has an educated and sophisticated ruling class. On paper, it should be one of the more prosperous countries in the New World. Instead, it has been defined by government incompetence, corruption, and some of the most outlandishly terrible economic policies on the planet. Argentina has become synonymous with every failed economic policy to come out of the academy.
One clue as to why Argentina is a mess is the people. The average IQ of the population is 87 according to the most recent data. People will quibble about this score, but it is best to think of these numbers comparatively. Japan clocks in at 106, so that means the Japanese are more than a full standard deviation smarter than Argentines. Even if the measures themselves are not precise, which is surely the case, the margin of error will be similar for every country.
To give this gap some clarity, imagine a population full of people who could test into law school or business school. Assume they have not actually attended college or graduate school, but their test scores indicate they could do it. Now take a population of high school dropouts whose test scores indicate they are going to struggle getting their GED while in prison. That sounds a bit extreme, but the typical prisoner in the United States is going to have an IQ similar to the typical Argentine.
Now, take that collection of smart people and make them the talented two percent of the population and the collection of dumb guys is the population. For starters, the average IQ of the population will not change much. The average IQ of the population jumps about one point with this new smart fraction. Make it the talented ten percent and the average IQ jumps three points. In other words, in our experiment, that smart fraction is not going to change things very much.
The way to think of every human organization is to imagine a man carrying a sack full of ro9cks up an incline. The steeper the incline, the slower his pace. The more rocks in the sack, the slower the pace. The smaller the man, the slower the pace. The man is the smart fraction, while the sack in society. The incline will be the natural resources available to that society. The greater the resources, the softer the incline, while fewer resources gets a steeper incline.
Japan is a big man with a small sack, but facing a relatively steep incline due to Japan being an island nation. Even so, Japan is a rich and modern place due to the large smart fraction and the relatively small dumb fraction. On the other hand, Somalia is a tiny man dragging a boulder up a cliff wall. The smart fraction, such as it was, now lives in Minnesota leaving the rest to make what they can from very little. No amount of clever political theory is fixing Somalia.
This explains why Argentina remains an ungovernable mess. Of course, the good times in the country have often been under non-democratic rule. When you combine democracy with a low-IQ voting base, the result is populist demagogues who promise to use their power to overcome nature. The pattern in Argentina is authoritarianism, followed by democracy, followed by populism, which leads to collapse and the return of the authoritarian to restore order.
Javier Milei is toward the collapse portion of the cycle. This enigmatic weirdo, whose first act after winning election was to convert to Judaism and make a pilgrimage to the Hassidic community of New York, is in the populist tradition. He has decorated his populism with libertarian slogans, but what the voters heard was that he will take from the elites and give to the people. Given the IQ of the population, most could probably not be able to tell a libertarian from a rhinoceros.
Given his backers, there is a good chance that Milei will succeed in pushing through his changes, as they have been done before. He will put the economy on the dollar, and this will stabilize prices for a spell. Then the shortage of dollars will lead to borrowing from his backers in dollars. Those bonds will then be passed off onto American pension funds and other institutional investors. This will continue until the Argentine government can no longer make its interest payments.
What Argentina tells us is what every ball coach knows. It is not about the X’s and O’s, but the Jimmy’s and Joe’s. In the realm of sport, a great coach can only do so much with bad players. His great coaching and brilliant strategy will always run into the limits of his players. In the realm of human society, the political and economic systems will always be limited by the available human capital. it is why the Nordic countries made socialism work, while Argentina cannot make anything work.
There is another useful lesson here for people in the West. The people running Argentina have always known the math of their human capital. This is a truth that is spoken about openly in the homes and offices of the ruling class. Despite the limits it puts on their ambitions, this gap between them and the masses is what keeps them in the elite, ruling over those masses. It turns out that being a smart fish in dumb pond is a pretty good path to the good life.
This is one reason Western elites love low-IQ immigration. It is like an acid on the middle-class, diluting the layer just below them. Sure, mass migration means the subways are unusable and much of the cities are too dangerous for cafe life, but it beats having to compete with smart strivers from the middle ranks. Western elites look at Argentina and envy their rulers. No matter how stupid they are, they never have to worry about being displaced by people with genuine talent.
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Z, what would be the reason for the low average IQ? Brain drain?
I did a semester abroad in Buenos Aires in the late 80s and literally all the friends I made then moved to Australia, Europe or North America during the 90s, with the exception of one guy who made it in Argentine cinema.
Even in the 80s, sitting in a bowling alley I noticed the population in Buenos Aires was as white as my home town in the Midwest. Not just Spanish + Italian white, but rather French, English and German white too.
As the Argentina permanent resident on this board, I have my own ideas with respect to what will likely take place over the course of the next year. I’m not clairvoyant, so I’ll just have to wait and see how accurate my predictions are. I will say that I’m largely optimistic, but have lived here long enough to know that the old saw about the best-laid plans is on steroids here. And while I respectfully disagree with much of the post and comments, there is one observation with which I’m in whole-hearted agreement: “being a smart fish in dumb pond… Read more »
As long as the natives don’t eat you, the good
life can continue..
Could be worse, could get a stupid AND brutal people and end up with the Kahmer Rouge.
IQ is important, but only part of the equation. Culture, religion and morality are equally important. The West is presently controlled by Jews, women, and homosexuals, most of whom would score pretty well on an IQ test. Pete Buttigieg and Hillary Clinton and Sanna Marin and Justin Trudeau and Gavin Newsom and Jacinda Ardern and Emanuel Macron and Chuck Schumer are all probably have reasonably high IQ, but in another sense they are morons, fops, dandies, idiots and incompetents. I’m sure that Swedish and German IQ is higher than Polish IQ, but Sweden and Germany are importing Arab and black… Read more »
Good points. There is something to being over-educated and over-thinking things. The old saw about something so contrary to reality that only an intellectual could believe it.
A lot of it also has to do with posing. You don’t want to look stupid, so you fill your argument with a lot of modernist dribble that means nothing but has seven syllables per word, or you want to fit in with the “in” crowd.
The more I look at and read about Milei, the more I think the guy has brain damage. He doesn’t seem to be right in the head.
He should team up with Hobo Fetterman and do an olde tyme travelin’ freak show.
It’s strange to see a “right wing” politician not portrayed as stupid. Since Eisenhower that’s always been the official line. It was very, very significant to my English friends (commie aristocrats) that Thatcher was a “shopkeeper’s daughter.” That’s why her claim on power was illegitimate. She was genetic trash. Reagan being an actor, same. Trump being a “self-made”/TV/tasteless guy, same. Etc.
Milei’s media anti-image isn’t that he’s an idiot, but that he’s a weird sperg/incel—who are “coded” not as congenital retards but as (forgive me Zman but it’s the right word) unfuckable. The anti-Milei show is for women *only*.
Same deal with Sarah Palin, that white trash Alaskan hick chick. “She’s not our kind, dear.”
Milei has been publicly pro-life. I wonder when he will discover that the #1 Jewish political priority is abortion rights?
Argentina is not much different than Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal would be without the EU (Germany) propping them up. All of the PIGS countries were shit holes relative to the industrialized Northern European lands until quite recently.
Given the insanity and self destructive behavior of many Northern Europeans and especially Northern European elites, we may see the Latin countries continue chugging along as dysfunctional civilizations long after the hyper-industrial formerly first-world countries are destroyed.
I don’t know. The Euro has been a blessing and a curse for all countries. Sure, it allowed the PIGS to have a stable currency and borrow like crazy, but having a currency that’s stronger than your competitiveness allows means that your economy stagnates. And that’s exactly what’s happened to the PIGS. Their economies have barely grown over the past 10 to 20 years. On the flip side, the German benefit immensely from having a currency that’s weaker than what their own currency would be. It’s helped keep Germany as an export powerhouse. Over the past 20 years, Germany’s economic… Read more »
Pigs don’t make Ferrari’s fuck off!
Young people, only 500 or so years old. Could be the seed of another civ.
I certainly don’t want to play Rome, not to take anything away from them.
Argentina is still a country founded by Mediterranean people so its going to have the characteristics of a Mediterranean country. We just don’t notice all the same shit in Italy and Greece because when you go there you’re busy enjoying all the food and ancient ruins.
It’s because they get run by the EU (Germany, Netherlands, and formerly UK) and get all their money.
Large parts of Europe would be dumps if not for EU “infrastructure”
Thought experiment but is one of the problems with the American left that of stolen valor and the constant need to prove oneself? Everyone for instance knows about the super hardworking grind in school that wants to get into Stanford or northwestern. He/she always wants to prove themselves and can freak out about criticism because they are very sensitive about there image. I had this kind of view back when I was more liberal. Like I remember when Dems were winning places no one expected us to that were Republican strongholds like Orange county ca or dupage county Illinois. I… Read more »
Progressivism always needs to be the underdog, or at least to be seen as such, yet simultaneously it is required to be angry about possessing this underdog status which it necessarily must always have. Becoming the top dog doesn’t alleviate any of this. Peculiar features of western “progressivism.” It can never be seen to have succeeded, for what then would it have to “progress” against?
Follow your nose!
Or at least follow Javiers!
It is indisputable that there is an attempt by Western elites to lock in their elevated position. An if Europe is on the way to Lebanon, America is on the way to Brazil which is really just a stronger version of Argentina. The facts fit; the bastards look at Argentina and like what they see. Jail will not suffice
The most significant thing about the election of Milei is his promise to switch Argentina to using the US dollar, which is going to happen. The GAE will grease the skids to make sure he achieves it. This is part of the plan. The GAE’s solution to counteract the inevitable inflation of the USD which will result from monetizing its debt (in plain english, printing more dollars to pay its ballooning interest payments), is to get more people around the world using the USD, creating increased demand for dollars to suck up the increased supply. Argentina with its population of… Read more »
Argentina pegged their peso to the dollar in the past. It ended in disaster. The reason is the economy did not attract enough dollars for the elite to buy sufficient votes, so they had to either break the peg and print pesos or borrow dollars. If Milei drops the peso entirely, then he will be forced to borrow dollars.
I agree. This was tried before under Carlos Menem, who outsourced his monetary policy to a Johns Hopkins applied economics professor Steve Henke, who was a heavy influence on me many years ago. I still like him, he’s very good. But as you mentioned the dollar shortage problem ended up untethering them from that policy. Although while it was in place they had a good 8% growth in some quarters as I recall. I think the difference is that he wants to outright dollarize and remove the central bank altogether. Right now their current policy is driving a steak knife… Read more »
The chances of the EU switching from EUR to USD are zero. None. It is far more likely that the EU will return to the original currencies. And even more likely is that the EUR will be still around in 10 years and there will be discussions of its inevitable collapse within a decade, especially if one or two countries leave the Eurozone.
Currency systems require mobility of labor. The same way Californians are going to NV and TX. Otherwise terrible imbalances are created. You don’t see too many Portuguese heading to Munich and Amsterdam. Europe doesn’t work that way. They have very old cultures where people don’t just pack up their tents and move like some American vagabond in an RV. It’s also what makes Europe special with a deeply rooted people. The inclusion of the Mediterranean countries in the Euro was a mistake altogether. The Euro will fail and eventually become Germany and next door neighbors. As the Euro is designed… Read more »
Yeah, but the north, particularly, Germany benefit from using a currency that’s weaker than what their own currencies would be. Germany’s export-driven economic model was somewhat based on cheap gas from Russia and a Euro that was lower than what the DM would have been.
Now, Germany has lost the cheap gas. If it also lost the “cheap” Euro, it’d really be in trouble.
They benefit upfront, but look at all the Italian and Greek bonds they have to back. So anything they gained will be slammed into reverse in any future default. If you vendor finance, you better do it with people who have a great credit record. And if someone needs vendor financing they generally don’t.
Exactly. Hence the more likely scenario of falling back to the national currencies. One thing that may mix things up a little bit is the demographic situation…
Still, these same arguments and predictions of EUR demise existed 10 years ago, 20 years ago, etc. Predictions are difficult.
One more note re: “North financing the South” – The North is literally draining the most valuable resources from the South – qualified labor, especially highly skilled labor – and it’s having very negative effects on the Southern economies. It’s a vicious cycle.
Argentina had the most massive Italian immigration of any place. Look at what the Italians did to New Jersey since 1900 and they did the same thing for Argentina. Just as they took a beautiful state and ruined it with their Guinea nonsense, they did the same to that country. You can’t build anything with intractable corruption. Throw democracy on that culture and you’re throwing jet fuel on the fire. Democracy barely works where it works and sure as hell doesn’t work for any latin culture.
I lived in NJ in the nineties amongst the Italians. Hell, I married one. It wasn’t a bad place. But the immigrants keep pouring in. You don’t like Italians? How do you feel about orientals and hindus and aztecs?
(Let me guess; You’re Irish).
Yeah, I daresay the Wops were and are the least of Jersey’s problems.
The strange thing is that I like Italians just fine but I can’t stand Italian-Americans. They all seem to be trying to imitate characters from those stupid gangster movies.
I apologize. I don’t mean all Italians, just the North African ones that live south of Florentines. The northern ones don’t count, but that was a sliver of the immigration from there,
Today’s posting is yet another example of a small cadre of parasitic elites pretending to lead while privately enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else. In this example, the scam involves taking out huge loans that can never be repaid and shifting the default expense onto unsuspecting pensioners in the US and elsewhere. And as long as the plates keep spinning (read US dollar fiat printing), the can gets kicked down the road to become someone else’s problem when the shit hits the fan. And by then, the original culprits will be long gone and living large in New… Read more »
Argentina is one of the most disappointing countries in the world. It had all the ingredients but somehow still managed to screw things up.
> most could probably not be able to tell a libertarian from a rhinoceros.
Wait! I’ve got this. One is a slow, lumbering creature hopelessly adapted to living in a bygone age and the other is a rhinoceros?
On top of that, add in that any smart strivers from the middle class get the heck out, diminishing average IQ further.
Just got through the security line. At the funnel to the escalator to the shopping mall and billboard center disguised as airline gates, was a massive This Airlines Wishes You A Happy Chanukah. As an orthodox walked by we were flanked by Arabs wearing hijabs. Disney’s Wish was on plasma screens lining every wall in all directions. It struck me then. Only one group gets its winter solstice holiday celebrated. Wish seems to feature a villain with blue eyes and a multi cultural cast. Christmas is gone. Wish is the new winter religious myth – the consolation prize for the… Read more »
May I suggest a diversion for your travel woes? An old army buddy and I take surreptitious pics of the freaks and failures in airports whenever one of us travels and sends them to the other. Much commentary and hilarity ensues. It’s become a modern tradition for us and a bit of a competition. You are going to be exposed to these human tragedies anyway, might as well make it a fun and funny bonding experience with a like-minded soul.
Sheeit. You think airports are freak-shows? You fellas should take pics of waitresses and cashiers instead.
Got some good pics of the:
“All Gender Family Restroom” with
“Todo Genero Familia Bano”
Spanish underlay. Didn’t see many spanish speakers. A lot of continental Africa Star Wars bar action though. Well, you have to hand it to them. They’ve implemented their dream society. Be interesting to see how things go as more awaken to it.
It may yet come to pass that Europeans from both north America and Europe will evacuate to a place like Argentina in large numbers. It’s not certain to happen but there are plausible scenarios where it does
Now wouldn’t that be the expat nightmare. You finally get away, and here they all come after you
RealityRules: My husband and I joined our dearest friends for dinner last night (we are in DFW for a quick 2 day trip). Friday night in the ‘burbs and every restaurant was packed (friend had to call about half a dozen before she could find even one who would take a reservation). Totally aside from the late seating and overly-loud music, the other diners were a microcosm of how degraded AINO has become – just like your travel experience. As we entered, a White man exited with an Asian female. Just inside the vestibule, waiting, was a White man with… Read more »
Hmmmmppffff. It’s obviously a well written piece and clearly plausible and defensible. But… what about the former African colonies, Z? In those places, a handful of whites ruled over masses of blacks that are even dumber and more violent than the south americans. Most blacks remember them as the good ol’ days before the countries were taken over by black baboons. If I were a western elitist, the LAST thing I would want is mass immigration by violent, stupid morons. They’re bad for business. Look at the blossoming ‘food deserts’ in America where you can’t sell anything because some black… Read more »
It has been mentioned before, but comparing anything to the Blacks is fraught with problems. Black disfunction is at a level that truly makes them a candidate for a separate species. To this I’d add that IQ—as in smarts—is separate from behavioral proclivities, such as violence and time preference and also genetically passed on.
Look at the problems we have here in the States where the average Black has a 25% White admixture, then compare them to their African cousins. One can only imagine the dysfunction that follows when trying to develop into a 1st world society.
25% cream in the coffee? I thought it was rather lower than that.
Ostei: I’ve read it’s around 20% on average, but like you most that I have seen would be lucky to have 10%. I wonder just how much mulattoes skew the numbers, and I wonder just how honest that 20% average is, and who came up with it and how. Fwiw, the two mulatto children I saw last night looked nothing like their White father, and were only minimally lighter in skin tone than their mother. From personal experience and online pictures etc., I think perhaps any less than 80% White and the admixture – of whatever type – is pretty… Read more »
Not trying to be a dink, C – just asking for my own edification: On what grounds do you separate IQ from behaviour? Surely the two have to be linked? How can they not? And yet, you have to be on to something. The studies I see show that the average black IQ is 65~85… on par with their counterparts in south america. But the crime stats clearly show blacks owning the lion’s share of the various crime stats. Why is this? Clearly, impulse control has to tie in to IQ… doesn’t it…? I wonder what the South American IQ… Read more »
Low IQ when combined with high testosterone equals greater implusivity, risk-taking.
S. America, excepting Brazil, Venezuela, Suriname and like, doesn’t have much in the way of an African pop. It’s meztizos and Europeans, lots of Europeans. They banished their freed slaves to the jungles to die, castrated nearly all male slaves, or just hunted former slaves down for sport. Except the aforementioned formet slave countries, S. America is WAY better off in terms of nogs as compared with the US or caribe. Down there the problem is aggressive meztizos who think they can live like white people despite it’s clear even to them they are.savages and not us nor can they… Read more »
Compsi
Candidate for a different species?
I’d say they are a different species.
Just as a dog and a cat both have four legs, a tail, and sleep on the floor, a dog is not a cat. Your North American Pavement apes look like us. But they ain’t us. And therein lies the problem.
I watched the sad story of the fall of Minneapolis which showed from police cameras other than the one showing Derek Chauvin “kneeling” on George Floyd that Floyd was actively resisting arrest until he finally collapsed from drug overdose and a large jolt of adrenalin which his over-worked system couldn’t handle. I noticed how well-built he was, revealed by the tank tops he was wearing in various pictures (from his many arrests), but how SMALL his head was in proportion to his body. His prominent lips were the most noticeable facial feature; a sloping forehead, then the head kind of… Read more »
Floyd had the body of an ape and the mind of a child…
Remember, Clouds think they are immune to the consequences of their policies and to a large extent that has been true. It may not last forever (hence the New Zealand bug out plan).
“If I were a western elitist, the LAST thing I would want is mass immigration by violent, stupid morons.”
Z references elites making no mention of their ethnos. It all makes sense once you realize that the elites are an outgroup. Specifically the outgroup is Jews. I am tempted to use vile language to describe their treachery but the reality is our forefathers should have known better. Jews are not us. They never should have been permitted to have rights. C’est la vie.
James Watson ( of Watson & Crick fame) lost (had to auction) his noble prize for the “discovery “ of the DNA double helix structure, in 2014…. For stating the verboten Truth (that Zman so deftly illustrates above) only Re: Deep Dark Africa and I think, including the MENA. …..saying essentially “we” cannot deal with “those” countries diplomatically and more specifically FINANCIALLY ….as we do “normal “ countries because of the record setting low regional IQ #’s…….. He was PROMPTLY cancelled and his lab put in jeopardy of closure…at the tender age of 80 I believe …. Story goes it… Read more »
It’s not the ignorance that is so striking, it’s the outright hostility to the truth
TOTALLY…..From a guy referred to as THE FATHER of DNA science….. Nobel for the “insight described as the greatest achievement of science in the twentieth century”…
Like Elon (well vice versa, actually) he doesn’t suffer fools and basically told them to “F OFF”!!
I’m sure it didn’t help that his lab …Cold Spring Harbor is a dog whistle for the left synonymous with EUGENICS….(even though that is almost a century old)
BWOOOOHAAAAAAAA…..!
Very good point about old Africa. I suspect the reason is that blacks were kept entirely out of all administrative authority which renders them irrelevant to the organizing of society. IOW they were hardly part of society. Whereas in other places the left side of the curve is sufficiently involved to demand a say. This may partly be because they are less far to the left than subsaharans. It would be intuitive if it were better to have your dumb people extremely dumb than just dumb enough to screw up.
Moran ya Simba: Yes, the African blacks were kept out of administrative society. Unfortunately, the British brought in both east and south Asians to perform those duties, thus creating a third ‘colored’ class throughout Africa, parts of Latin America, and the Caribbean. And in some places, those Asians have out bred and taken over from the native people, as happened in Fiji, for example.
An essay with a treasure trove of insights and explanation of the Argentinian political landscape – and some lessons on politics for AINO to boot.
“The point is the ruling class of Argentina is not a lot different from the ruling elites you see in better functioning countries. Perón is typical of the ruling class in that his family tree has Spanish, French and English ancestry. Go through the long list of Argentine rulers and all of them trace their roots to the old country. You never see any references to Africans or Amerindian ancestry.” I don’t think they have any noggers. Argentina is not Brazil. Many of the people are of Italian descent, with perhaps some Spanish blood as well. The joke that an… Read more »
I tend to agree with this. Argentinians don’t seem stupid to me. Given that the average IQ of US blacks is 85 and according to some sources even 91 (no way), then 87 for Argentinians seems utterly ridiculous.
Yes, I am dubious on this one.
My retirement plans are either Argentina, (suburban Buenes Aires) or Mexican border town. Depends on when I cash out. Staying put is the final option.
I liked suburban Buenos Aires, the areas from Olivos to Tigre are quite nice.
Been a while, but my idea of heaven is along the riverwalk in Tigre.
I’ll buy the first Quilmes.
Quilmes is undrinkable even by US standards. I cannot even think of beer there with all the delicious Malbec available lol
I prefer the Euphrates myself…
Though I have to add that there has been an influx of Bolivians and Paraguayans in recent years and this will drive down the average IQ. These are probably the people who inhabit the “villa miserias” (slums).
Even so, the US nogger average is 84 and its seems risible to me that Argentinians are in that neighborhood. My guess would be somewhere in the low to mid-90s.
What I’d heard, and I didn’t look into it as it wouldn’t be surprising, is that the brown hordes from up north continue to migrate in such numbers that the indigenous White population cannot overcome the…”rocks in the sack”.
Why would there be mass migration from the north into Argentina? Given the latter’s perpetual dysfunction, it can hardly be a prime landing spot. Uraguay and Chile seem far more likely destinations.
Argentina is much better than the headlines make it seem. It’s always nice to be close to White people.
I like Uruguay, but going from Montevideo to Buenos Aires almost feels like going from an average Eastern European country to an average Western European country.
Chile has a lot of migration from Peru and Bolivia and Venezuela, but in general is more difficult to just walk into, because of the big barrier to the east.
One way of characterizing IQ is pattern recognition. It’s why the idiots always fall for the political solution that has never worked before, apart from special circumstances, i.e., Nordic socialism.
Any population that can say, “Hey, let’s try Marxism again. It’s gotta work better than it did last time” is not very bright.
Sources other than Z’s put the Argie g IQ at 94 which, given the meztizo portion of the population — the Europeans don’t mix with them — seems right. The Euro g IQ is higher, likely equaling the US white IQ.
You will have very different experiences depending which Argie demographic you may interact with, same true here in Chiraq.
Its my vague impression Argentina did fairly well under the generals when they were tossing commies and troublemakers out of helicopters.
Then they seemed to have lost their minds in the early 80s and invaded the Falklands to disasterous results. That gave the commies and troublemakers fresh wind.
I have to think the humiliating defeat tainted the desire for strong leadership and a firm hand, like in Germany.
Javier Milei is a clown. His obsession with Jews and Israel is just so strange. He’s taking over a country with a 143% inflation rate. Somehow it manages to have a fairly low UE rate of 6.x%. Point is, the country is a mess and they now have a leader who loves foreigners more than his own people. Like Americans, they will never get a politician who is loyal to the country and people and not to themselves and the global elite.
I assure you this has something to do with Argentina’s bond market. Guess who holds a lot of those bonds?
It’s really quite amazing, and upsetting. Yesterday the US Congress voted like 6 million to 2 to say that anti-Zionism was anti-Semitism. (Oh, that brave soul: Thomas Massie. The Jeanette Rankin of our time. God help him.) The ZOG talk gets tiresome to me, but in recent weeks…yes, all that Stormfront stuff I scoffed at when I was younger. It’s all true, apparently.
That actually surprised me given that there are a lot of not-poor Jews who are not fans of tying their fate to the Israel experiment (after all, if anti-Zionism=anti-Semitism then anti-Semitism=anti-Zionism). I guess whatever argument they put up, they lost.
The only thing that surprised me was the 2.
I remember reading somewhere that the Bush family had a lot of dealings with Mexico and the Mexican elite, probably related to oil. Obvious, Jeb married a Mexican woman. I always suspected that the Bushes look with envy and a certain familiarity to the Mexican elite and, really, all of South America. A small number of connected families ruling forever. Naturally, the Bushes have been in power for a very long time, but they always have to look over their shoulder to make sure that they stay on top. That’s not a problem in Mexico and South America. Those families… Read more »
Someone challenged them back in the 1980s. He was shot in the head at a campaign rally. It was captured on film and is probably still floating around on the internet.
Usually the elite marry beautiful women. They don’t come any more homely than Jeb Bush’s wife. Even GW’s wife is ordinary.
Laura Bush is Monica Belluci compared with Jeb’s wife.
There’s a meme for this
Add to that the fact that jeb gave an interview to a Mexican periodical back in ’15 when his campaign was getting ramped up and it featured him admitting that that thing he married had him by the short and curlies, “My wife will not permit me to speak English in our home, as she is proud of her Mexican heritage. I may have been born into one of the oldest WASP families in the United States, but I consider myself Mexican by marriage and I prefer their culture.” I remember thinking “Then run for president of Mexico, what the… Read more »
A moon-faced, pig-eyed slob, he is.
For the longest time I heard whispers in forums regarding a cozy relationship between the Bush family and Latin American drug trafficking operations. Do these have any credence?
I hate the Bush’s as much as anyone, but want to make sure I hate them for reasons that are true.
A reliable “rule of thumb” in Latin America is that 25% of government spending will be stolen. Therefore, the more successful countries will keep government small. For example, in Chile (according to IMF data), the government is roughly 28% of GDP. In Argentina, it’s 42%. The populations here are ethnically pretty similar (with Chile actually having more indigenous citizens). But Chile is obviously way more successful economically in recent years. (Mexico spends 29% on government, but obviously exports a big part of this problem to us. They are more successful than Argentina with worse demographics.) Big government is a big… Read more »
Another angle on this is the role of Latin fascism. If you want to get some sense of what would have happened if European fascism did not die on the war, Argentina provides some clues.
True enough. But Gen. Pinochet was a fascist and ushered in great success in Chile. So it’s difficult to generalize. But at the risk of generalizing, I’d say the combination of indigenous/ethnic grievance socialism and left-wing fascism has been particularly deadly – Peru in the late 60s-80s (Velasco then Garcia), Venezuela now, Bolivia under Morales. Argentina is different in that the left-wing stuff was generally economic – aligning the unions with the State (Peronism) – and not ethnic/racial. What scares me about the US now is that the Left combines the worst of Peronism with the ethnic grievance crap of… Read more »
Milei’s purpose is to blow up the existing system. At least that’s how he presents himself and that is also how the few Argentines I talked to describe him. I suspect he will be at best like Menem, which is just part of the same old cycle. If he succeeds in going further and implement his most radical proposals, then things can get very interesting, in various ways. Short term, it will be very painful for the average Argentine.
Maybe. But if he just cut government spending 20% and ended the export tax on agricultural products, Argentina would likely improve immensely. I’m going down this spring and will report back to everyone here after.
‘A reliable “rule of thumb” in Latin America is that 25% of government spending will be stolen.’
Enviable. I wish ours was so low.
I don’t quite follow. Argentina doesn’t have a Venezuela problem, it doesn’t have a brain-drain, its rulers are white or swarthy-white, yet Argentina has an overall 86 IQ?
How does Argentina have an overall 86 IQ? Was it overrun with Amazon immigration, or something? And if so, how would that stop the swarthy-white leadership from imposing their big-brain economic or social plans on a dumb citizenry? Britain/whites managed India and South Africa quite well. Was it that Argentine whites were dumb or especially malicious, or something?
These were the questions that leapt to my mind, as well. Since Argentina has been described as “the last European nation”, how did they devolve into this dysfunctional status? Just before WWI, Argentina boasted a very high standard of living. Buenos Aires was very much like Paris in appearance. The nations from whom Argentina drew its population – mostly Spain and Northern Italy, but also large numbers of English, Germans, and French – all have indigenous populations of high IQ citizens. Why did Argentina’s average IQ drop so precipitously?
I know Argentina had immigration issues, but so does Germany, yet Germany is not “a cautionary tale”. Yet, anyway. I think you’d have to be seriously overrun to get an IQ drop like that.
Z’s favorite city, Baltimore, is overrun by low IQ types. But I’ll bet if the city were run by high-IQ types who were somewhat moral, it would be a fair enough place to live. In places, anyway. I guess my point is: wise leadership is enough to make a bad place not bad, even if the leadership has a sack of rocks and is going uphill.
Botswana (black-run, but wise) and Rhodesia (white-run, and wise) being prime examples.
Botswana has more whites than you might think (3% of population) and they along with foreign companies are instrumental in protecting and operating the diamond mining business (which accounts for 50% of the GDP.) They are probably a modal for how sub-Saharan countries can properly exploit their abundant natural resources, but calling them “black run” might be a stretch.
As Mister Generic hints at, Botswana is a subsidiary of Anglo American Corporation (De Beers) & Friends masquerading as a kind of semi-Wakandan Republic. Up-and-coming native ‘leadership’ candidates will be heavily vetted and nurtured and if they show the right attitudes won’t receive a 3am visit from Executive Outcomes and will eventually move up the local curses honorum and not @#$% with the goose that lays the diamond eggs. Doesn’t hurt that it has a definite dominant tribal majority (the Tswana) and isn’t riven by the inter-tribal hatreds common in most of Bantu Africa. It’s a huge outlier and a… Read more »
Perhaps it comes down to morals. There are different types of corruption, some being more harmful. Cousin Vinny getting the garbage collection contract is one thing as long as the garbage gets collected. President Macho Camacho getting kickbacks from ExxonMobil to allow it to rape the country’s resources is another.. maybe Argentina has more of the latter?
Foreign direct investment in Chile is nearly double that in Argentina and it’s a smaller country by far. Nobody is raping their resources but nobody is investing much either. It’s too hard to do biz in Arg.
Two quotes sum up this article: “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” Self-explanatory. “”In their mating and migratory habits, liberals are indistinguishable from members of the Ku Klux Klan.” The libs of Martha Vinyard love infinity immigrants, but NOT a dozen Venezuelans on their island. Because they want anyone with equal or more ability than them (but in the middle class) to get swamped. They want their whiteness to become more rare and more of a privilege even if eventually all white people are under siege. They don’t care, by then they’ll be dead. All… Read more »
Looking online, the IQ specified for Argentina is all over the place, from 96 to 85. Given the demographics of Argentina is 80%+ white, I have trouble believing the lower figure.
This really might be the case of bad policy keeping back a reasonably smart population. While libertarians get mocked here, with good reason, bad economic policy can and will stifle even an intelligent population.
It is why I said you have to think of the IQ in relative numbers. Argentina is to Japan what Baltimore is to Boston.
As far as the demographics, it seems that the bulk came from the worst Europe had to offer at the time. Look at the PISA scores and Argentina is firmly in the third-world tier.
Ed Dutton did a piece sometime back about Argentina’s IQ decline. They once encouraged immigration from Europe, and those people built up the country. But in the last couple of decades there have been a lot of immigrants from the neighboring countries with indigenous, low IQ populations, but high birth rates. Meanwhile, the elites have a low birth rate.
I have to take a look at his piece. Looking through the demographic data, I do not see the huge change that would be required. I wonder if another fact was selection against smarts for an extended time so that the European that did emigrate were not on the right side of the European curve but the left side.
It is hard to sort. Argentina started as a majority mestizo country, and then a pro-white immigration policy was implemented, and the country became majority European within a century. Even the recent arrivals from Paraguay, Bolivia and to a lesser extent Chile have not reduced Argentina to its former non-white majority (the number of actual whites there as a percentage actually may be slightly higher than the United States but the official numbers are dodgy). Most of the Europeans there today are the descendants of those who came from 1830 or so until 1940 or so. Demographics account for some… Read more »
The huge late C19 early C20 working class immigration wave to Argentina came from Naples and points further South + Spanish Galicia (Santiago de Compostela & hinterlands) — neither of which are renowned in their respective countries for producing the most desirable productive and law-abiding human stock. I have a colleague from Bologna who is as progressive as can be expected of a person from the most pozzed city of left wing intellectuals in Italy. He refers to native Neapolitans as ‘Africans’. The bulk of the White population of Argentina simply comes from not very good stock. Presumably the elite… Read more »
Dutton did an update on this a few days ago, triggered by the election of Milei. The Jolly Heretic on YT.
I think the lower IQ figure is suspicious as well. However, Argentina has been an economic basket case forever. I still remember their defaults to the IMF of 40+ years ago. Now take those defaults and their follow on ridiculous inflation numbers and one can see /predict an outward immigration of the smarter Argentines to other countries, like the US. Heck, in my college days I lived with one such individual in the dorm. Anecdotally this guy graduated and opened a couple of businesses and made millions. Still see him from time to time. He’s no dummy and no IQ… Read more »
I mentioned before that I lived in Latin America for 15 years, ten of those years being in Argentina. Your description of the country is exactly the case. I taught high school and college courses at the Lincoln School in Buenos Aires from 1993 – 2003. As that school was the most expensive school in South America, naturally the ruling elites of Argentina sent their children there. I got to know them well indeed. I hobnobbed with them, I drank with them, I partied with them. Their opinion of the mass of people over whom they ruled is the same… Read more »
Would just second the recommendation of VS Naipaul’s excellent “The Return of Eva Peron”.
Which Theroux book? “The Old Patagonian Express?”
Yes. Theroux wrote about the Argentine writer Borges, and criticized Naipaul’s views on Argentines. Theroux wrote that Naipaul disliked Argentines because he was a vegetarian Hindu, while the Argentines consume platters of beef at every meal.
I will insert the story here about Eva Peron going to France and meeting Degaulle.
She complained that some in the massed crowd along the Champs-elysees called her a whore. He sighed “I know just what you mean, my dear; I left the Army fifteen years ago and they still call me “General”.
I had not heard that one before. It’s really funny. Thank you.
Good piece!
I recommend this AmRen article: “Argentina: A Mirror of Your Future” https://www.amren.com/features/2017/04/argentina-a-mirror-of-your-future-buenos-aires-latin-america/
The mirror to our future is South Africa.
Whites are never going to be as sparse here as they are in SA, where they are something like 7% of the population. Even half a century hence, with the GR in full swing, it’s hard to see the white AINO population getting below 40%.
Exactly. There isn’t a demographic model where whites are less than a plurality for a century or more. I doubt the GAE lasts much longer in the form it has now but that point stands. I wouldn’t discount the borders were thrown wide open as a last-ditch effort to change that dynamic.
This was a useful link. Yes, there has been a heavy influx of Paraguayans and Bolivians. Economic migrants.
Before anyone comments wrt to Argentina, or for that matter immigration, the above article is required reading.
From the Article:
In 1912, Argentina was one of the first countries to establish the secret, universal, and mandatory franchise.
Strike one.
In 1918, the University Reform Movement started in Cordoba and Buenos Aires, transforming medieval canons of teaching into modern academic freedom.
Strike two.
European immigration stopped. Instead, there was migration of Mestizos and Amerindians
Strike three.
It remains mystifying to me that Argentina can sell bonds to westerners…Argentina defaults regularly, and the value of its bonds regularly plummets even before the defaults…Sounds like there is either bribery or stupidity on a mass scale–likely both…
That is because the bond market has been turned into a weird game of Old Maid. There are good bonds in the market, but lots of shitty bonds too, but they pay well until the bond issuer defaults. The game is to buy and hold these shitty bonds until you find a suitable sucker onto whom to offload them before they are worthless. Because central banks never let large issuers fail utterly, the market participants have a skewed understanding of the risk.
“No matter how stupid they are…”. And they are stupid, but also devious and they unfortunately have the power. No matter how much sewage they allow to flow over the southern border, their one problem (at least theoretically) is there’s still a large cohort of intelligent Whites who grow more disaffected by the day. Now, whether those disaffected Whites ever decide to do something about the trash that rules over us is the real question – the trash is probably feeling fairly comfortable still – kind of like the misbehaving kid who wonders what action will finally elicit the response… Read more »
But if you point out that jews inviting all these third worlders, many of them muslim, into your country, Israel’s propaganda stops being very effective…Then you are a wicked antisemite–ask Musk…
I wanted to think that we were on the verge of an epistemological breakthrough with Musk’s tweet. I even thought his Netanyahu visit might be a sly way of highlighting that Israel is an ethnostate. But his groveling apology (which effectively negates the “Fuck You” to advertisers) was disappointing.
Still, what he did cannot be untweeted . The ball advances, two steps forward…
I know Z it’s a on the fence about BAP, but he has a great article on Argentina, url below was changed due to the spam filters: https://mansworldmag DOT online/the-populist-moment-never-happened Artentinia, like most of the world has been stuck in a pathetic cycle since the end of WW2. It seems that American military power has kept the world in stasis for 80 years now, with countries bouncing between the allowed boundaries set by the US. Russia seems to be the first country to truly move outside of the American defined boundaries by gobbling up parts of Ukraine. As the US… Read more »
[…] ZMan wanders abroad. […]
Until Peron, who imposed his variety of communism, Argentina was something like the 4th wealthiest country in the world, in no small part because it was an emigration destination for a lot of Europe’s smart fraction. The problem is that communism simulates rule by the dumb fraction, and then Argentina experienced the same rapid decline as South Africa did when its dumb fraction came to power, taking SA from the 5th largest economy in the world to can’t-keep-the-lights-on. These two examples show that it doesn’t particularly matter if your society has a large dumb fraction, so long as the dumb… Read more »
Nicely explained.
I’m going to capture and print out for my kids.
My only quibble is, it is “Gibs me dat”.
The concept (as I understand it) of the “Smart Fraction” is that it is the *percentage* of the population needed to, in essence, “keep the lights on”. In that, it is not a fixed percent for across all societies as societies will vary as to their current level of development (ie, need for higher IQ citizens). Z-man’s description is spot on, but tends to imply we arbitrarily pick a percentage, such as his 2% number. The number (percentage of population at or above a particular IQ) for a society, say the USA, will be much higher and can be estimated… Read more »
In 1940, Argentina was the 3d richest country in the world, and it was predominantly run by Europeans, including a lot of German and English businessmen…Those were the people who built Argentina’s extensive railroad network with English workers, who introduced the game of soccer to Argentina…When Peron got in as a populist, that all changed rather rapidly, and as indigenes and ex-slaves poured into the country, changed for the worse…
I attempted to post something to this effect, but it vanished (hopefully just stuck in moderation). The problem is that Peron imposed communism, which simulates rule by the dumb fraction; not really different shifting to actual rule by the dumb fraction (eg. South Africa).
What ex-slaves?
As for “indigenes”, they are still flooding the country, more than ever before. Believe it or not, Argentina is still one of the best places to be in South America, which says a lot about the rest of the continent.
It didn’t change with Peron. It changed in 1914. After WW1 there were were two decades of economic stagnation as the pattern of world trade changed. Peron was a response to the economic travails and not its instigator. The Argentinian populists have all tried to square the circle, and with no success. You have the “Descamisados” (shirtless ones) clamoring for a bigger share of the pie and a populist trying to placate them — but the pie itself does not increase in size. Something has to give somewhere. And that something is debt defaults and periodic hyperinflation.
Sounds like Argentina’s new Prez is Gaucho Marx.
This should get six million likes
*ahem* six gorillion likes.
Welp, the Uber-Morlock just died, at the age of 100.
That Adrenochrome keeps them alive dadgum near about forever.
Yes, and he is being celebrated for his womanizing.
Imagine the toasts in Sheol, that’s the term yes? Hey Harvey! Yes, Hen-hen? Wait another few minutes to pop the cork, Eppie is running late, he had to take a meeting with The Big Guy.
Edit: Harvey is not there yet.
A remember ages ago some starlet, I think it was Raquel Welch, said after a date with Henry the K, they went back to his place. She said nothing happened, but he asked her to hang around awhile before leaving because, knowing the press was following his every move, he had a reputation to uphold.
I read on WRSA that he was married to a tranny.
Is that factually accurate?
The photos were mind boggling.
O’Connor just croaked as well. Thought she was already dead.
Democracy. It’s always democracy.
Hard to imagine the US hasn’t been mucking around in their politics since at least the 1950’s keeping the commies out by any means necessary though.
There’s nothing the US won’t do to keep the Monroe Doctrine alive and well.
Extra punitive attention probably given to countries that sheltered German “refugees” post WWII as a bonus though.
Don’t know, don’t care. Vastly preferred the “isolationist” nation to the “world’s essential nation”.
“This is one reason Western elites love low-IQ immigration…. No matter how stupid they are, they never have to worry about being displaced by people with genuine talent.” Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the floodgates of the U.S.-Mexican border have been opened by the same rulers who thought all they had to do was kick in Russia’s door and the whole rotten edifice would all come crashing down (and refused to back down even when their assumption was proven wrong). Will be interesting to see their reaction should the masses ever turn on them. Latin America has only ever existed… Read more »
“Where will our elites flee to?”
New Zealand, apparently.
The Ruling Class here is like a team that sits on a three-point lead in the third quarter. It works only rarely. The apathy and derision now aimed at them hardly is the worst and likely fate they face.
Might make sense from a nuclear perspective, but not necessarily from a demographic one.
Not as many Maoris in the South Island. North Island is where bulk of them reside. Come TEOTWAWKI: After they’ve eaten all the Whites and Mystery Meats in the North Island perhaps they’ll head down South and try some Zuckerberg Hangi. I could see the Maoris doing quite well in a post-apocalyptic scenario. Not too smart, not too stupid. Just Right. You’d want to live on the other side of the planet protected by the Brigade of Gurkhas to feel even a little bit safer. If you can imagine the inverse curves for Indestructibility and IQ intersecting at an optimal… Read more »
Right now, Argentinian elites (and the rest of the South American rich) flock to Miami.
Or L.A. or Houston, depending on the flight paths from their particular país. It’s where they keep a second home and do their banking. Back in the day, our rulers were well aware of what had happened to Saint-Domingue, and dealt with their own proletariat commensurate with its importance as an insurance policy. Not now.
“…the improbable election of Javier Milei …”
Election?
Election? Agreed.
Javier Milei’s family name prior to their family’s immigration is Mileikowsky.
Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s father, Benzion Netanyahu, was born born Benzion Mileikowsky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzion_Netanyahu
Coincidence?
Here we see Javier paying his respect to The Rebbe:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-775439
But hey, there’s no conspiracy here.
Interesting coincidence, if true. 🙂
Do you have any sources? All I can find is “fact checkers” debunking this.
Follow your nose… Or at least Javier’s
https://thedistin.com/2023/11/22/the-deep-secrets-about-argentinas-javier-milei-his-early-life-career-net-worth-parents-siblings-wikipedia-biography/#google_vignette
There is not one mention about his family name being Mileikowsky in your links.
No there is not… They have scrubbed or just not published is heritage. You can find it. Wouldn’t you think you can dig past his dad? I can’t find anything…
But jus think: Like many US names from immigrants, it’s truncated.
I don’t need proof – just try to find that name in history prior to 1800’s. You can’t. There are only a few thousand using this name in the world. Tells you it hasn’t been around long.