The expert class is opposed to freedom. They devise theories, supposedly backed by academic rigor, to promote greater state control and intervention over individuals. When something challenges their rhetoric, they pile on the propaganda and fear. Yet they are consistently wrong.
While the expert class was busy clutching their pearls and predicting total collapse, something strange happened at the edge of the world. Freedom and liberty improved people’s lives. The results, by all measures, are extraordinary.
Today we return with another guest article from our friend Joel Bowman and his Note From the End of the World. If you recall, two years ago, Javier Milei stepped onto the stage in Argentina with a chainsaw and the promise of smaller government and greater freedoms. The ivory tower elites shrieked about social chaos and destruction. They warned that a libertarian experiment would only bring suffering to the masses.
Fast forward to Christmas 2025, and a preponderance of evidence has piled up in support of Milei’s cause. From crushing triple-digit inflation to igniting the fastest growth in the Western Hemisphere, the data tells a story the mainstream media refuses to touch.
Grab a glass of Malbec and settle in. Here’s the latest from Buenos Aires…
Enjoy!
MN Gordon
P.S. After giving Mr. Bowman’s article a read, please head over to his website and subscribe to his newsletter for all the latest happenings in The Greatest Political Experiment of Our Time. We have no financial arrangement with Bowman and do not profit from publishing his work. We merely find his observations and writing to be valuable and believe that you will too.
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The Most Freedom in the World
The nascent light of liberty shines bright in Argentina…
“We are not going to stop until Argentina is the country with the most freedom in the world.”
— Javier Milei speaking at the 41st IAEF congress in Buenos Aires, December 2025.
Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Buenos Aires, Argentina…
When we left you last week, we were lamenting the sorry situation regarding vanishing freedoms in our nanny state of birth, Australia. But where the tide of liberty ebbs cruelly from one shore, it flows gently upon another.
Today, we offer a pithy, Christmas Week update from our adopted home, where The Greatest Political Experiment of Our Time is two years young this month…
Readers will recall that, at the time the “libertarian” experiment began, the expert class were warning off unmitigated disaster and “devastation” for the country at the End of the World. Remember the clairvoyants over at The Guardian, all idiot, no savant:
And really, who doesn’t love an “open letter” from sneering know-it-alls in academia, whose favorite saying a dear reader summed up recently: “Sure, it works in real life… but does it work in theory?”
From the article…
“Ghosh, a development economist from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said she and the letter’s other two co-authors, Piketty and Milanovi?, worried Milei’s policies ‘would be deeply damaging for Argentina and very unfortunate for the entire continent’.
‘“This is not just the social chaos that could be generated by extreme right positions but also the economic chaos that would ensue from a decline in both public revenues and public spending,’ Ghosh added.
‘“Argentinians are going to vote in an election where there are these very tough choices. But a libertarian solution that vilifies the public sector will only add to the suffering.”’
Inconvenient Truths
Damning prognostications, to be sure. How’s it going so far, then? Herewith, a few choice data points to chew on over the Chrissy holidays…
- When “far-right” Milei took office, inflation was running at a white hot ~300% per year. It has since fallen 90%, to around 30% annually.
- While Piketty et al were sounding the false alarms, warning anyone who would listen of the dark evils of free markets and the redemptive virtue of public bureaucracy, the economy, which was shrinking at a rate of 1.6% annually, was teething on the brink, accelerating to a 2.6% decline in Q4, 2023. Today, Argentina is one of the fastest growing economies in the entire Western Hemisphere, registering 5.3% growth year-over-year.
- According to the Ministry of Economy, the 4.5% accumulated growth in the first 7 quarters of Milei’s presidency is the highest in the last 20 years.
- November’s $2.5 billion trade surplus was four times higher than the market had forecast, according to the REM (Relevamiento de Expectativas de Mercado — the Market Expectations Survey published by the Banco Central de la República Argentina (BCRA)
- When Milei took office, wholesale inflation (essentially the same as the Producer Price Index) was running at 276% annualized. The latest data, for November, shows it has slowed to 1.6% per month, or 24.3% year on year, a greater than 90% drop.
- As for employment, the private sector has added +238,000 thousand jobs in the last 12 months… quadruple the 60,000+ “jobs” Milei has slashed from the government’s well-marbled underbelly with his trademark chainsaw.
- On the investment front, Argentina’s “country risk,” (the premium investors demand to hold Argentine sovereign debt relative to U.S. Treasuries), has fallen from over ~2,000 basis points when Milei took office… to just ~600 today, the most positive reading since 2018.
- Meanwhile, total exports are at all time highs, Industrial Manufacturing Exports had their 4th highest month in the last 11 years, the country just registered a massive accumulated energy surplus, with the Neuquén geological formation producing 575.4 Mbbl/day of oil for the month of November, a staggering 32.9% higher than the same period a year ago…
- So the list goes on, and on, and on…
The Heart of the Matter
But perhaps the most heartening data point of all, at least for those who suffer the occasional pangs and pains associated with possessing the requisite organ in the first place, comes from the Ministry of Human Capital (translated from the official):
“Poverty in Argentina reached 27.5% during the third quarter of 2025, according to a projection by the National Council for the Coordination of Social Policies (CNCPS) based on information from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (@indecargentina).
“This represents a year-on-year decrease of 10.8 percentage points compared to the third quarter of 2024, and a decrease of 27.3 percentage points since President Javier Milei took office.
“It is also estimated that extreme poverty fell by 3.8 percentage points compared to the third quarter of the previous year. Since the beginning of this administration, extreme poverty has decreased by 14.8 percentage points. This means that millions of people have been lifted out of extreme poverty.”
Liberty’s Light
When we began following this “devastating” experiment, back in 2023, the conspicuously compassionate socialists had left the place an utter quilombo… with poverty at 52.9%.
For those esteemed economists, who claim so verily to care about the downtrodden, the unwashed masses, the ignorant and indigent, that rate has since fallen every… single… quarter (source, Ministry of Human Capital/INDEC):
Q1, 2024: 52,9%
Q2, 2024: 44,7%
Q3, 2024: 38,3%
Q4, 2024: 36,3%
Q1, 2025: 34,4%
Q2, 2025: 31,6%
Q3, 2025: 27,5%
Now, will Piketty and his cadre of rich-nation snobs be issuing any retractions or apologies anytime soon?
Will these enlightened experts feel any shame or embarrassment for condescending to poor countries from their ivory towers, forecasting “devastation” where hope was being sown, mongering fear and darkness when liberty’s light was but a nascent glow?
Will they, in good faith, finally admit to being wrong, recognizing that the wellbeing of real world people is more important than the fantasy of their wrong-headed theories?
Nobody knows for sure, dear reader. Better yet, nobody cares.
Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World…
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
founder of Notes from the End of the World
P.S. For all of Bowman’s latest musings head over to his website. While you’re there, subscribe to his newsletter for all his latest analysis and insights as they’re reported in real time.
