Comparison of US in 2010 with Argentina

Among Irigoyen’s changes: mandatory pension insurance, mandatory health insurance, and support for low-income housing construction to stimulate the economy. Put simply, the state assumed economic control of a vast swath of the country’s operations and began assessing new payroll taxes to fund its efforts. (Beginning to sound familiar?)

With an increasing flow of funds into these entitlement programs, the government’s payouts soon became overly generous. Before long its outlays surpassed the value of the taxpayers’ contributions. Put simply, it quickly became under-funded, much like our Social Security and Medicare programs.  

The death knell for the Argentine economy, however, came with the election of Juan Peron. Peron had a fascist and corporatist upbringing; he and his charismatic wife aimed their populist rhetoric at the nation’s rich. 

This targeted group “swiftly expanded to cover most of the propertied middle classes, who became an enemy to be defeated and humiliated.”

Under Peron, the size of government bureaucracies exploded through massive programs of social spending and by encouraging the growth of labor unions. 

High taxes and economic mismanagement took their inevitable toll even after Peron had been driven from office. But his populist rhetoric and “contempt for economic realities” lived on. Argentina’s federal government continued to spend far beyond its means. (That can’t happen here!)

Hyperinflation exploded in 1989, the final stage of a process characterized by “industrial protectionism, redistribution of income based on increased wages, and growing state intervention in the economy…” (Never!)

The Argentinean government’s practice of printing money to pay off its public debts had crushed the economy. Inflation hit 3000%, reminiscent of the Weimar Republic . Food riots were rampant; stores were looted; the country descended into chaos. 

And by 1994, Argentina ’s public pensions