Of saints and sinners

One is dead and likely to be proclaimed a saint some time, and the other is alive and performing miracles now. They both come from the same country. One was a pope, the other is a politician.

On matters of economics one was wrong, and one was right. On matters of theology who’s to question a pope but I think the politician (who though a Christian is toying with converting to Judaism) may actually have the edge.

I’m referring of course to the late “great” Pope Francis, whose funeral and the following conclave have attracted huge secular interest, and the President of Argentina, his home country, Javier Milei.

If Francis is to become a saint, he has to produce two miracles…after his death. Milei is already well on the way to more than two miracles, well-before his death.

I’d say the first miracle is winning the Argentinian presidential election. Argentina has been suffering the depredations of government interventionism and left-wing populism for the best part of 100 years.

In 1913 it was the 10^th richest country per capita in the world. Today it stands at around 71^st – a tribute to the definition of madness being repeating the same thing and expecting a different result.

But miraculously the country is at least temporarily sane.

The second miracle is that the Argentinian President’s party controls only 40 seats out of the 257 in the Chamber of Deputies and only 7 out of 72 in the Senate, yet he’s made significant progress in liberalising the economy.

And his support seems to be growing if the latest local elections in Buenos Aires are anything to go by, with Milie’s  La Libertad Avanza topping the poll, albeit at the cost of the centre right party Republican Proposal.

This is despite an austerity regime said to be causing widespread misery. Or maybe not.

Which is where the second miracle occurs.

The nation’s statistics bureau INDEC released results on Monday showing that under Milei poverty had dropped by almost 15 points from the preceding half year to 38.1 per cent. It doesn’t take long for market incentives to cut in.