According to a recent report from the National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina (INDEC), the South American country’s inflation rate for September was 3.5%, representing a significant decline under the leadership of President Javier Milei. The latest reading on price increases is the lowest recorded rate of inflation since November 2021.
Milei, who has a background as an economist, has been praised for his “shock therapy” economic policies that have substantially reduced inflation. When Milei stepped into office in December 2023, Argentina’s inflation was recorded as 25.5% which steadily declined to September’s reading of 3.5%. A significant portion of Milei’s agenda has been to undo the policies of his leftist predecessors.
When former socialist President Alberto Fernández, who served between 2019 and 2023, was in office, Argentina was on the brink of collapse. In September 2023, the rate of inflation was 12.7 percent under Fernández. However, when he left office in 2023, cumulative inflation throughout his term came in at 1,020 percent.
“SEPTEMBER RECORDED THE LOWEST INFLATION IN THE LAST 3 YEARS The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 3.5% in September, while core inflation, which excludes regulated and seasonal components, rose by 3.3%. Overall inflation for the month was the lowest since November 2021,” the Ministerio de Economía posted on X. “Consumer prices ( #IPC ) increased by 3.5% in September 2024 compared to August and by 209% year-on-year. They accumulated an increase of 101.6% in the first nine months of the year,” the INDEC wrote.
The economy has also become a contentious political topic in the United States, where American consumers have been ravaged by inflation throughout the Biden-Harris administration. Former President Donald Trump has also railed against Kamala Harris’ economic proposals, explaining how they would make Americans worse off.
“Kamala went full-communist. She went full-communist,” Trump said earlier in the summer. “She wants to destroy our country. After causing catastrophic inflation, comrade Kamala announced that she wants to institute socialist price controls. You saw that, never worked before. Never ever worked. This is the Maduro plan, Venezuela, Maduro plan of the old Soviet Union. They tried it. How did the Soviet Union work out? It became Russia.”
Continuing to outline the hypothetical impacts of Harris’ agenda, Trump added, “It will cause rationing, hunger, and skyrocketing prices, just like their Inflation Reduction Act caused one of the great scams of all time. They got it approved with a beautiful name, Inflation Reduction, because inflation under their system has been so bad, it’s gone up much more than 50%, you know they say 30%, 40%, 50% … people are being devastated. They’re being devastated, but it’s gone way up, way up.”
“Now Kamala is reportedly proposing communist price controls, she wants price controls,” the former president said, doubling down in his criticism of Harris’ proposals. “And if they worked, I’d go along with it, too, but they don’t work. They exactly have the exact opposite impact and effect and it leads to food shortages, rationing, hunger, dramatically more inflation.” He added in other remarks, “She’s running on the Maduro plan. we call it the Maduro plan, like something straight out of Venezuela or the Soviet Union. This announcement is an admission that her economic policies have totally failed, and caused really a catastrophe for our country and beyond that, a catastrophe in the world.”
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