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Tucker tackles our money printing problem, how it destroyed Argentina and will destroy us next

September 14, 2023 | | Print Article

The latest episode of Tucker Carlson’s Twitter (X) show deals with hyperinflation and how it’s wrecked Argentina’s economy and could potentially wreck the world economy.

Carlson started the episode by describing how endlessly printing money to pay for things devalues a country’s currency and triggers hyperinflation.

Listen:

“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,” he said.

“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,” he continued.

“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?” he added.

To find out, Carlson traveled to Argentina, a South American nation that used to be “one of the richest places in the world” but is now a veritable dump.

“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,” Carlson explained.

“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.”

As an example, Carlson then introduced the audience to Hernan, a business owner who’s “been trying to run a restaurant in one of the richest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires.”

“We spend more money as a country than we earn money. It’s very, very hard to work in Argentina, to live in Argentina. We are tired. I think that’s one of the main feelings of the people. People are tired of the politicians saying the same things a couple years but nobody does nothing good,” Hernan told him.

Continuing his reporting, Carlson noted that Argentina’s currency has become so inflated that it’s practically worthless.

“Over the course of the average month, the Argentina peso loses 10 percent of its value. In other words, everybody gets 10 percent poorer every month of the year. Doesn’t take long for people to go hungry,” he said.

“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 U.S. dollars. The problem is the government lies about this. Banks aren’t allowed to exchange dollars at market rates, and that drives the entire population underground to the black market,” he added.

Carlson proceeded to visit one of these black market exchanges and exchange a $100 bill for Argentinian pesos — a BOATLOAD of Argentinian pesos.

“It’s obviously amusing, but it’s also sad. Imagine if that was your country and this was your national currency, and it had the value of home insulation. And this was your work product. This was what you spend all day working for,” he said afterward about the exchange.

“And this is what you hope to feed your family with and send your kids to school and buy clothes, 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. That’s theft,” he added.

“Imagine if your life entailed going four times to a [black market] cave just to get the actual exchange rate on your money that you made by working. Again, they’re (the government) stealing, and they’re lying, and they’re enforcing that lie at gunpoint. They close those places [the black market caves] down because they’re this little window into reality that the government can’t tolerate,” he continued.

Getting to his core point, Carlson then dropped a major truth bomb.

“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 [black market] 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,” he said.

Watch the full episode on X.

Vivek Saxena
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