Javier Milei: The Maverick President - with Robert Marstrand

In the Company of Mavericks

During the pandemic, an Argentinian economist called Javier Milei began to make a name for himself on TV panel shows for his wild libertarian ideas and idiosyncratic, abrasive delivery. Milei raged against politicians of all persuasions, always prepared to outrage his opponents and entertain his audiences.

By 2021, he had become a congressman, denouncing the political class as useless parasites who had never worked and thought only of self-enrichment. He assured his electorate that he would kick these criminals out. He didn't seek to lead lambs, he told them, but to awaken lions, and the lions he awoke were younger people attracted to his unique combination of in-depth economic knowledge and flamboyant shock-jock delivery.

While other politicians and the mainstream media depicted him as a performative clown, Milei had taught economics for twenty years and published over fifty academic papers. Unlike most academics, Milei was a showman, playing drums for a Rolling Stones cover band. He was an evangelist who sold out increasingly large venues, lecturing his audiences about the workings of the price mechanism, the moral justification for capitalism, and the crime of collectivism while raising a sense of moral outrage.

The coincidence of Argentina's economic cycle of despair with Milei's arrival as a chainsaw-wielding showman, backed up by the deep conviction that he knew the solution to his country's woes, unexpectedly led him to the highest office in the land in less than a year. Last December, he became Argentina's 59th president. He won the largest number of votes and the largest percentage of votes recorded in any election since the transition to democracy, but it came with only a minority position in the legislature.

This left him with an enormous challenge in executing his reforms, but despite this, his first year in office has been largely successful. Unanswered are the questions as to whether Milei's remedies will prove sustainable, whether this time will differ from all the other times, and whether he can end Argentina's era of missed opportunities. Can he continue painful reforms while remaining sufficiently popular to complete the project?

I spent a few days in Buenos Aries in early November to learn more about this man and the libertarian experiment he was implementing. I met several people there, including Robert Marstrand, an author and investor who writes the investment stack OfWealth.

Robert has a background in investment banking and has lived in Argentina for 16 years. He was very generous with his time and explained the opportunity for Argentina and how investors might like to think about this Maverick nation with its maverick president.

Please enjoy our conversation about Argentina and its maverick president.