The Argentine Libertarian Dog-Friendly Darling?
Plus: Libertarian lessons in the wake of the Maui wildfires

In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman consider libertarian responses to natural disasters in the wake of the recent wildfires in Hawaii and examine the outsider candidacy of Javier Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist, in his bid for the Argentinian presidency.
0:26: Maui wildfires
23:13: Javier Milei wins Argentina's presidential primary
37:03: Weekly Listener Question
50:34: This week's cultural recommendations
Mentioned in this podcast:
"California Regulations Prevent Insurers From Accurately Pricing Wildfire Risk, so Now They're Fleeing the State," by Ronald Bailey
"When the Government Makes Wildfires Worse," by Tate Watkins
"Dozens Died in California Wildfires. Why Is the State Forcing Insurance Companies To Ignore Risks?" by Scott Shackford
"Can Fire Insurance Manage Wildfire Risks in California?" by Ronald Bailey
"Why Are People 'Outraged' That Private Firefighters Saved Kim and Kanye's Home?" by Joe Setyon
"Rant: Burn the Rich," by Matt Welch
"UnFAIR," by Matt Welch
Annual number of deaths from disasters, 1900-2020, by Our World in Data
"HECO Kept The Power Flowing In Lahaina Even As Poles Toppled," by Marcel Honore
"Confessions of a Welfare Queen," by John Stossel
"Eric Boehm: How Protectionist Trade Policies Screw Us All," a Q&A by Nick Gillespie
"The Jones Act Is Driving Up Prices and Making Crises Worse," by John Stossel
"A Self-Described Anarcho-Capitalist Won a Plurality in Argentina's Presidential Primary," by Marcos Falcone
"Don't Confuse Javier Milei With Jair Bolsonaro," by Daniel Raisbeck
"This Politician Just Won Argentina's Primary. His Hair Is Baffling the World," by Jacob Gallagher
"'Private Tyranny' Is Less Private Than You Think," by Stephanie Slade
"Domination Fantasies," by Ben Compaine
"Mergers and Disquisitions," by Nick Gillespie
Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.
Today's sponsor:
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Audio production by Ian Keyser; assistant production by Hunt Beaty.
Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve
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The Jacket has found a new host to control.
Lesser-Known Cousin of Wolverine Wins!
I can't help but read the title, see the pic, and presume that Reason thinks the woman on the right is actually a golden retriever.
Hey, if you dyed her hair purple, she'd look like Ms. Mangu-Ward
Guy looks like a cross between Tom Jones and Vlad Putin.
We're all created in God's image. Even Vlad. But I don't think God wears a leather jacket.
He wears a bedazzled denim jacket.
/guess I'm going to hell now.
Enough of the podcast about Argentine presidential candidate, Javier Milei, was fluff commentary, that I thought readers would like to see a YouTube interview with a good English translation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhqq3zDW6E0
Very good interview. He does have serious economic proposals. He also admitted to the terms of the 'alliance deal' that may have made his win possible. If elected, his VP candidate - Victoria Villarruel - will be responsible for the interior ministry and defense and law-and-order issues. She came into that alliance because of a deal with Juan José Gómez Centurión. Those two are not at all comfortable with the military subordinated to civilian/democracy questioning/control. Given Argentina's history, things could happen.
MyLai babbles in the future tense like every looter with great plans. Observe that his peeve is atheistic "international socialism." Germany went on the warpath against non-Christians and FOR "Christian national socialism." But Hitler did not try to ape libertarian talking points the way girl-bullying prohibitionists like Bolsonaro, Herbert Hoover, Ron Paul, Trump, Nixon, 2Bush, Amash, the Afd and the lootvig fon Mises caucus. Smells like a Tea Party impersonation job doomed to make communism seem better in comparison. (https://bit.ly/3O1CZso)
Your apparently exhaustive list starting with Hoover omitted FDR, Ford, Clinton, and Obama, or were they your ideals compared to Javier's apparently deeply flawed libertarianism?
Thanks for the cautionary words. OTOH, this is as close as Argentina has come to starting with a libertarian plan. Must first win and avoid being tied up by an army of pygmies.
In 1972 the LP called for repeal of Comstock laws enslaving women. The Supreme Court saw the votes counted, sided with us and Roe was copied from the platform--even Canada rejected mystical coercion. Subsidized Christian Hitlerism (read his speeches) constantly dinned, failed until National Socialism accidentally won in America. Former Nazi collaborationist Argentina, like Ireland voted to DISenslave women. But now "Libertarian" there is plastered as transgressive enslavement of women thanks to Mises Trumpanzees.
What's even worse than climate change or neighborhood gentrification? Climate change AND gentrification!
https://apnews.com/article/maui-hawaii-fire-climate-gentrification-housing-displacement-aa827eabef48d2764aa58d01f7a6969c
With a housing crisis that has priced out many Native Hawaiians as well as families that have been there for decades, concerns are rising that the state could become the latest example of “climate gentrification,” when it becomes harder for local people to afford housing in safer areas after a climate-amped disaster.
If they've been there for decades, shouldn't they have a house by now, and be cashing in on the rising real estate values?
Thompson said Maui is one of the “scariest opportunities for gentrification” that she’s seen because of “the very high land values and the intense level of trauma and the people who are unscrupulous who will come in to try to take advantage of that.” Thompson predicted potential developers and investors will research who has mortgages and said Maui residents should expect cold calls. “You won’t be able to go to a grocery store without a flyer attached to your car,” she said.
Oh no, developers will want to buy your land! What will you do?
But climate change is so bad, even areas with mild, humid weather are at increased forest fire risk:
Until now, when homeowners in Hawaii have considered climate change, Tyndall said, it’s been coastal erosion, sea level rise and hurricanes, mainly. “Wildfire was something that was on people’s radars. ... But obviously the extensive damage, most people didn’t predict,” he said. Fire needs to be taken more seriously now, he said.
The government is trying to help, but not enough:
Maui has stringent affordable housing requirements for new multifamily construction, Tyndall said. But the practical effect has been that very little housing gets built. So new supply is low, both for affordable housing and rentals at market rate, “which just makes housing more expensive for everyone,” he said.
But don't jump to conclusions, warns one progressive professor:
Katharine Mach, professor at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, cautioned against immediately labelling a situation climate gentrification, because that makes it difficult to tease out the other factors such as decades of discrimination, racism and land use changes.
But the worm may have turned:
After using the term in lectures, Keenan went on to popularize the concept of climate gentrification as a lecturer at Harvard University in 2018 and published a study that focused on Miami, where Black communities have historically lived at higher elevations because the wealthy wanted to live close to the beach. Now that seas are rising and higher ground is becoming more valuable, that’s leading to disruption and displacement, Keenan said.
That explains why coastal properties are so cheap these days, fear of rising sea levels fueled by climate change. Oh, wait....
If they’ve been there for decades, shouldn’t they have a house by now, and be cashing in on the rising real estate values?
What part of “The Jones Act!” do you not understand (I mean aside from pretty much everything that Reason’s ever said on the topic)? If we just repealed all maritime shipping laws, goods would flow to HI as cheaply as they flow to Seattle or Portland or San Francisco. Then, the poor Natives of Hawaii wouldn’t live in relative squalor compared to the poor people and natives of those mainland counterparts, much less suffer the worse fate of being preyed upon by white (adjacent?) real estate developers.
Repeal and don't replace Jones Act now!
Yeah, that would definitely help.
But real estate prices are up everywhere, not because of climate change or because of the Jones Act, but because the Fed ran a Quantitative Easing program for a decade longer than they should have.
Lahaina. It is pronounced Luh-HIGH-nah.
Luh-HIGH-nah.
Luh-HIGH-nah.
Luh-HIGH-nah.