Javi’s first Midterms
Javier Milei seems to think that Argentina no longer needs International Relations, he fired the Minister for International Relations Gerardo Wertheim (of the Werthein Group and Calwaro Capital) replaced him with the US-based JP Morgan executive Pablo Quirno. Is the Argentine Chancellory to be run by a bank for the United States? It certainly looks that way.
Almost a dozen private jets were lined up on the asphalt in the Buenos Aires Aeroparque Airport the week of the October 26th National Midterm elections this week. Rumour had it many of them, if not all held executives from JP Morgan Bank including the CEO Jamie Dimon who lined up with Javier Milei, in the Decorative Arts Museum in in the Buenos Aires right next to the airport and in the embassy district of the city. Also in the photo were Toto Caputo the Minister for Economics, Pablo Quirno the new Foreign Minister designate, and two other executives of the JP Morgan Bank Facundo Gómez Minujin and Alfonso Aguirre. The only person not currently working for JP Morgan bank might be the president themselves, three of the four are current executives including Dimon the CEO and two others bought and sold shares and companies all across South America; who knows whether they’ve quit their roles to date?
The arrival of the bank in town just before the elections on Sunday 26th of October along with the announcement, that same same week, by Donald Trump and the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, of a $40Billion line of credit in the form of currency swaps contingent on certain business and mineral rights plus election success on Sunday as well as anti-trade and finance measures to disconnect Argentina from the largest economy on the planet (by PPP) China… Well let’s just say the cash comes with strings attached. Notably it is also being funneled through private banks including —yes you guessed it— JP Morgan. Could it be that Dimon is here talking loan collateral (mines land real estate?). Are there some juicy mergers and acquisitions on the chopping board? Maybe including some State Asset privatization. Or. Just maybe, Jamie stopped by to take tea with a weak president to wish him well in the elections? Milei has been oddly absent of late as the election preparations have been worse than disastrous. He could use some caffeine or maybe some stronger stimulants (which has been his wont).
Oh to be a fly on the wall as Javi Milei watches the results of his midterm elections on Sunday the 26th.
When Milei came to power he held only had one pillar of government (the Executive Branch, himself and his curious sister Karina). Milei had little or no power in either the legal or the legislative branches, the latter being in question in this election. The Argentine elite successfully manipulated and de-fanged the legal branch decades ago so Milei left it that way. Many of these same elite, including former presidents are (not) facing legal proceedings in the defunct Supreme Court and in other infinitely slow courts across the nation.
This leaves Javier Milei at loggerheads with only one branch of government that can face up to his destruction of the Argentine state, his shrinking of the Argentine economy and a slew of corruption cases piling up against his family —mainly his sister Karina who was recently caught with her hands deep in the cookie jar stealing money from state purchases of medicines for incapacitated Argentinians — she’s nice that way.
Karina and Milei’s Vice President Villarruel known in Argentina for trying to get torturers and state terrorist out of jail have been spending a not-so-small fortune buying votes from less than scrupulous legislators including one that was caught by border guards with a quarter of a million in undeclared cash crossing into neighbouring Paraguay. The Mid-term elections shall be a test of the ability of the Argentine electorate to stomach corruption. They have been rather tolerant for the last half century we shall see whether they have had enough or have they forgotten what happened with Toto Caputo’s mates the last time they tried to rescue the nation by taking on debt?
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