Tucker Carlson Ep. 23

For politicians, money is power. They always crave more. But because they don't actually produce anything, they've got limited ways to get it. They can hike taxes on the population and collect the cash at gunpoint. That's the most straightforward way. But it's also highly unpopular. Voters don't like paying higher taxes. They resent it. So over time, most politicians in most places decide it's a lot easier to devalue the currency. You keep the tax rate pretty much the same. You just print more money. At first, most people don't even notice that it's happening. The money seems free. This is how the U.S. government just paid for the COVID checks and the war in Ukraine and pretty much everything else that Washington has done for the past couple of decades. Just churn out more dollars. You can see why it's a popular strategy. But what happens if you keep doing it year after year? We really ought to know. So to find out, we flew to Argentina, a country of 45 million people on the Atlantic coast of South America. 100 years ago, Argentina was one of the richest places in the world. It had everything. Abundant natural resources, vast open spaces, a well-educated, capable European population. Its capital, Buenos Aires, once looked like Paris, but probably richer. You can still see remnants of that time as you walk around the city today. But the buildings are ratty now and marred by graffiti. Argentina is no longer a rich country. It's one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly half the population here lives below the poverty line. Chicken for dinner is a luxury. The people are still impressive. The natural resources still exist. But Argentina's leaders have destroyed the country by devaluing its national currency. Argentina now has Weimar-like hyperinflation. It takes a brick of bills to buy lunch. Roads and bridges fall apart and nobody can afford to fix them. Things unravel. We spend more money as a country than we earn money. This is called Hernan. He's been trying to run a restaurant in one of the richest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. It's really, really hard to work in Argentina, to live in Argentina. We are tired. I think that's one of the main feelings of the people. The whole people are tired of some, all of the politicians saying the same things a couple of years and nobody does nothing good. Over the course of the average month, the Argentine peso loses 10% of its value. In other words, everybody gets 10% poorer every month of the year. Doesn't take long for people to go hungry. Our institutions have something wrong. Diana Maldino is an economist and a candidate for the Argentine Congress. Basically, the problem we have right now, we are 47 million people, out of which only 11 million people have a, what you would call a job. Slightly under 3.5 million people work for government and seven million people work in the private sector. 10 million people, 11 million people, out of 47, 25% of the people. And that's kind of the government workers. So if you take out the government workers, and that really is an electric window. Yeah, one seventh of the country would have a private job. So that means seven million people are working to support the other 40 million people. And let me add something. 60% of the children are poor. So if you ask me, if 60% of the children are poor, the whole country is poor. Argentina's currency is so inflated and worthless, it can no longer be used to buy anything of value. Cars, houses, even bicycles are priced in US dollars. The problem is the government lies about this. Banks are not allowed to exchange dollars at market rates. And that drives the entire population underground to the black market. So we're in downtown Buenos Aires. It's a Friday afternoon, and we're on our way to a cueva, a cave, to change US dollars into pesos. Now, the caves are the only place in the country that gives the actual exchange rate. The government lies about what its currency is worth and gives about half its value to people in exchange for dollars. So this is kind of the last outpost of economic honesty in the country. And of course, the government is trying to shut them down. So we're gonna see if we can exchange a hundred US dollars for Argentine pesos. Hola! He's my friend, Tucker. Oh, hola. Is there security here? Yes. This is so cool. Well, we're on the top floor of a building, unmarked. We just got buzzed in after waiting outside for a while and trying to change a $100 bill. Okay. How many money do you expect are you going to receive? I don't know. More or less, guess. Enough to keep my door from closing, a doorstop. Well, now I feel rich. This is like Mad Max of caves. Don't seem like that. So how much is that worth? Thank you. Well, thank you. Amazing. You're welcome. How do you carry all this? Hold on. In a bag. You know, it's obviously amusing, but it's also sad. Imagine if that was your country. This was your national currency and it was like, had the value of home insulation, you know? And this was your work product. This is what you spent all day working for. And this is what you hope to feed your family with and send your kids to school and buy clothes. I mean, and it had been rendered worthless by greedy, dishonest pigs, running your government and lecturing you about transgenderism. But in the end, you were left impoverished and they were left rich. I mean, that's theft. It wasn't some sort of, you know, savage situation there. It looked like a bank, almost. Though it's, you know, it's illegal. And it was, you know, had a kind of Sodevoce vibe. It was very orderly. But imagine if your life entailed going four times to a, quote, cave just to get the actual exchange rate on your money that you made by working. It's, again, they're stealing and they're lying and they're enforcing that lie at gunpoint. They closed those places down because they're this little window into reality the government can't tolerate. That's what a collapsing society looks like. Everybody's moving backwards. Nobody can tell the truth about anything. The functions of ordinary life have to be conducted furtively in caves. In Argentina, the incentives are now so perversely inverted that many people decide it's not worth working. They can make more money sitting home idle. Sometimes we don't work because it's cheaper not to work than to work. Why is it cheaper not to work? Because you have to pay a lot of taxes to the people and the unions and those sort of things, they're very, very expensive. Sometimes we prefer not to work. Is that common here? Yes, it's common. For young people in a country like this, the obvious solution is to leave, and millions have, the future of the country slipping away forever. What's remarkable is that's just fine with the current Argentine government and with the Western media and NGOs that prop it up and relentlessly defend it. They're happy with the corrupt status quo. They're thriving. So they attack anyone who challenges the way things are currently done. Not surprisingly, they especially hate Javier Mille. WITHOUT WINDOWS! THEY WERE HUMILIATING! WE HAD THE TOWERS OF TWIN TOWERS UNTIL A SON OF A BITCH THREW THEM DOWN! WE HAVE THE BUCHENGAU! IT'S WONDERFUL! WE INVENTED THE MINIFONDA AND THE BIKINI! YOU KNOW WHAT? I'VE DECIDED! LET'S GO FOR CAPITALISM! VIVA NUESTRA GALAXIA! Look, I think the big problem in Argentina is a cultural problem. I mean, this is a society that is infected with socialism. Politicians are a kind of sociopaths who want to make us believe that we are mentally invalid, invalid in every way, because we can't live if it weren't for them. In reality, those who can't live if it weren't for us are them. Mille is an economist who's running for president here in the election next month, and the polls show he's winning. Mille's main observation is that things in Argentina are not working. Socialist monetary policy hasn't made people happy and secure. It's wrecked pretty much everything. It's destroyed the economy and families and the national spirit. It's enriched just a few. That's hardly a radical interpretation of events. It's obviously true, and everybody knows that it's true. But for daring to notice it, the Stooges at Jeff Bezos' Washington Post and many other Western media outlets have denounced Javier Mille with rising hysteria as some kind of crypto-Nazi. Thankfully for Mille, the working class young people who support him don't read the Washington Post. We sat down with Javier Mille for a long and interesting conversation, which will air here tomorrow in The Space. Keep in mind as you watch it that it's not just about Argentina. It's about you and your future too.