In 1994, the American scholar Lester Brown published an article called "Who Will Feed China". But in 2023, Argentina, a major grain exporter in South America with fertile pampas grasslands and a perennial surplus in agricultural exports, will face a more rigorous test than food.
Because on the *** that ended on November 19, they successfully "transformed" a TV personality into **, this TV personality is Javier Milley, and after officially taking office on December 10, this TV personality ** will officially start the craniotomy in Argentina.
The fertile pampas are a gift from God to the Argentines
The Argentine Republic is located in the southeast of South America, the country's topography is high in the west and low in the east, the west is dominated by the Andes Mountains, the eastern and central Pampas grasslands are famous agricultural and pastoral areas, the Chaco plains in the north are swampy and forested, and the south is the Patagonian plateau.
For many young people in modern times, Argentina is the kingdom of football, with Diego Maradona here, Leo Messi here.
But for those who are in charge of the country's destiny, the most important thing is the fertile Pampas, God's most precious gift to Argentines.
Relying on fertile land, Argentina has become one of the world's important producers and exporters of grain and meat, known as the "world's granary and meat depot", and soybeans, beef and other bulk agricultural products have strong competitiveness in the international market. Currently, Argentina is the world's largest exporter of soybean meal, soybean oil, sunflower oil, honey, pears and lemons, the second largest exporter of corn and sorghum, the third largest exporter of soybeans, and the fifth largest exporter of wheat and beef.
In Argentina, agriculture represents 25 percent of employment, nearly 30 percent of gross national product, and two out of every three dollars of foreign exchange earnings that enter Argentina are exchanged for soybeans, corn or wheat.
At the beginning of global industrialization, Argentina became one of the richest countries in the world thanks to strong agricultural exports.
But now, with the rise of the world's industrial powers, Argentines who can still export large quantities of food face a more serious problem than food.
Is there anything worse in the world than eating?
Is there anything worse in the world than eating?For the Chinese, there is definitely none. But for Argentinians, eating is never a big problem, and the biggest question they face is: how to stop the continued decline of the Argentine economy?
Statistics show that in the last 160 years, Argentina has experienced 16 economic crises, an average of one per decade. Thus, Kuznets, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1971, said that there are four kinds of countries in the world, developed countries, developing countries, Japan and Argentina. Japan's development is a miracle, and Argentina's development is also a miracle, but Argentina has created a miracle of decay.
In the history of Argentina's development, industrialization has not been taken into account, but the path of wealthy Argentines has not been smooth.
The economic crisis and the great recession in the 30s of the 20th century led to fundamental changes in the structure of the world economy, and the demand for agricultural and animal husbandry products in industrialized developed countries declined, resulting in difficulties in the export of agricultural exporting countries and a decline in primary products in the international market. At the same time, the industrial products that represent the development trend of the times are greatly reduced.
The industrialization process in Argentina also started from this, first around the food processing industry, the textile industry to promote the industrialization process, from the 50s of the last century to the direction of heavy industry, chemical industry and machinery industry.
At the same time, in order to continue to maintain a high standard of living for the people, Argentina has implemented high welfare policies, including free medical care and free education, in the context of industrialization and slowing agricultural export revenues, which are limited even for many developed countries.
As a result, revenues have not increased and expenses have increased, which has also opened the magic box of Argentina's frequent borrowing.
Historically, Argentines have tried
Of course, if we look at it from the perspective of the historical process, Argentines have been trying to maintain the level of high-income countries, but the process of hard work has been skewed.
Argentina's debt is growing in the context of industrialization in its infancy and agricultural exports not being able to cover the new needs of more social progress. In order to achieve revenue growth, Argentina has implemented a series of high tax measures.
These measures include high taxes on imported goods to guarantee the stable development of the domestic industry;Differential taxes on agricultural products, which account for a large part of the country's revenue, to encourage more agricultural products to be processed domestically, and to provide more tax revenues and jobs;In order to maintain a high welfare in society, a higher levy is levied on enterprises.
In Argentina, taxation is not only a tool for the secondary distribution of social wealth, it is also the main source of income. Therefore, high-income earners feel that Argentina has too much taxation, and low-income people feel that they do not feel the high welfare policy at all, plus it also has a large civil service much higher than that of other countries, and the ** department is inefficient and bureaucratic is prevalent, so both high-income and low-income Argentines are dissatisfied with Argentina in the past 100 years.
The Argentines who have abundant food** are also very simple and rude when they are not satisfied: tear down and start over!
As a result, Argentina has been in turmoil for nearly a century, with new incumbents generally gaining votes through high benefits, and when the debt is no longer sustainable, the successors are again borrowing to implement a new round of high benefits.
At the same time, it is precisely because of the lack of a stable development environment and a sustained industrial policy that to this day, Argentina's economic structure is still that of a third world country, and its main export commodities are still the same as those of 100 years ago.
Argentina is a success if it doesn't take a detour
Of course, although China's current dietary level is far better than any period in history, for people who are worried about food security in China, there are still people who envy Argentina's food capacity, after all, people have achieved food independence.
But what about the facts?If an Argentine earns 100 pesos in one year, then the next year the 100 pesos will automatically become 150 pesos, so that its purchasing power will not shrink, in other words, 100 pesos this year can buy three corn cobs, and next year it may only buy two corn cobs.
There is nothing more painful for modern people than watching their wealth shrink at a rate that is visible to the naked eye, and many times, hard work is not necessarily a good thing. This is the biggest blow to the economy because you don't see any future.
Perhaps it is out of this helplessness for the future that they chose a more radical ** this time, and they have the momentum of "if you don't succeed, you'd rather die".
Therefore, although this election in Argentina seems to be a very crazy move to the outside world, if you look at the results of this election as an Argentine, it is indeed the most satisfactory election for Argentines at present.
But Argentina is, after all, the world's leading grain exporter, and its diffusion effect will also be felt after the introduction of Milley's new policy.
From the results of current observations, in order to compensate for the financial problems, Argentina's high taxes on agriculture will be drastically cut in order to promote more exports and expand foreign exchange earnings, and at the same time, in terms of industry, the opening of imports and foreign investment will also be inevitable, which means that the new Argentina will become the first country in the world to be truly open.
It's just that no one can be sure at the moment whether the end of this road is a cliff or not.