Cry for me... Argentina ranks #1 on Misery Index!

[sergio]

Hanke’s 2023 Misery Index | National Review

Without dollarization, Argentina is destined to remain miserable.

www.nationalreview.com

 

[Lisandra]

Elections have consequences.

 

[perry]

Im not surprised by this as poverty is over 60% and the cost of living makes Europe seem cheap to live in .

 

[Quilombo]

Health: Plague of Dengue and skyrocketing waits at public hospitals as people can't afford Prepagas
Education: Strikes due to poverty salaries for teachers, K - University
Economics: $197.85/month minimum wage; Infobae reported the average en blanco wage is now a poverty wage
Social Indicators: 60% of country in poverty
Food: Costs same as SoCal and Europe in many instances, yet w/Argentine wages
Macroeconomic Indices: 200%+ Year inflation,
Presidential Priorities: Travel abroad to personal religious events/conferences once a month, and shitposting on Twitter

A true mystery as to why the plebs are angsty...

 

[pixer12]

This author touts dollarization as the magic bullet but does not seem to address how there were/are no dollars to effectuate dollarization. Maybe in the future, but not in December and not now.

 

[Reply Guy]

There seems to be some organized effort among the right in the US to pressure Milei into immediate dollarization.

Hanke, O'Grady, Daniel Raisbeck from the Cato Institute, and others have been publishing articles recently criticizing Milei for not dollarizing already and blaming Argentina's problems on it.

 

[mikic007]

I checked the list, and it's really funny. Spain is supposedly worse than Chad, and Luxembourg on par with Cameroon. If nothing else, it's doubtful.

 

[toast]

I checked the list, and it's really funny. Spain is supposedly worse than Chad, and Luxembourg on par with Cameroon. If nothing else, it's doubtful.

Hanke's Misery Index is not funny to me. It is a shameful, intellectually feeble descent to click bait. Whereas the UN Human Development Index has GDP per capita, Hanke's index only incorporates rates. If a Misery Index has Norway roughly similar to Mali and Burkina Faso, my instinct is to reject the Misery Index. Mali and Burkina Faso have crushing poverty and ongoing civil strife/ terrorism. If Norwegians are risking their lives to seek refuge elsewhere, that is news to me.

 

[sts7049]

most argentines are perpetually miserable

 

[ben]

Hanke's Misery Index is not funny to me. It is a shameful, intellectually feeble descent to click bait. Whereas the UN Human Development Index has GDP per capita, Hanke's index only incorporates rates. If a Misery Index has Norway roughly similar to Mali and Burkina Faso, my instinct is to reject the Misery Index. Mali and Burkina Faso have crushing poverty and ongoing civil strife/ terrorism. If Norwegians are risking their lives to seek refuge elsewhere, that is news to me.

I checked the list, and it's really funny. Spain is supposedly worse than Chad, and Luxembourg on par with Cameroon. If nothing else, it's doubtful.

Yes and yes, question of funniness notwithstanding.

This list is absolutely moronic, it reads like something coming from the Forbes contributor network. From the first paragraphs:

Each year I produce Hanke’s Annual Misery Index (HAMI). By using readily available economic data, I can measure the temperature of the patient, so to speak, to determine just how “miserable” or “healthy” an economy is.
[...]
Then, in 2022, I made a further amendment to HAMI. Following Andrew Oswald’s suggestion, I decided to double the weight put on the unemployment-rate component in HAMI. So, HAMI is the sum of the year-end unemployment (multiplied by two), inflation, and bank-lending rates, minus the annual percentage change in real GDP per capita.

OK, let’s go with that analogy. How many people would go with adding up a person’s BMI, pulse rate multiplied by 2, and oh I don’t know, red cell count, and take that to assume that person’s health and/or happiness?

Ukraine is # 17 on the list, and its main issue is “unemployment”. Something tells me they might have other issues, which may or may not make it onto Hanke’s preferred indices.

Canada being at par with Russia, at 98 and 97 respectively, might make me rue every moment I’ve spent reading this, bringing to mind the quote from Billy Madison (emphasis added):

“What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”