Valuetainment - January 15, 2026


＂Argentina Moved BUCKETS!＂ - Milei SHOCKS Critics With $2.5B Loan Payback


Episode Stats

Length

10 minutes

Words per Minute

199.48647

Word Count

2,020

Sentence Count

160


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.320 Argentina, folks, has repaid U.S. for currency swap deal.
00:00:07.280 If you remember when this was first taking place, everybody was saying,
00:00:12.040 you guys got behind Millet. You thought this was a good idea.
00:00:15.560 It's a horrible idea. There's no way this is going to work.
00:00:18.560 Where Millet came out and repaid the United States for currency swap framework
00:00:23.820 and provided to the South American country last year to stabilize the economy,
00:00:28.120 the U.S. Treasury, Scott Besant, and Argentina's central bank said on Friday,
00:00:32.920 Rob, is that the tweet that you have?
00:00:34.420 I am pleased to announce that reflecting its strengthened financial position,
00:00:39.560 Argentina has both quickly and fully repaid its limited draw on the swap facility with the U.S.
00:00:47.060 such that the exchange stabilization fund currently does not hold any pesos.
00:00:54.060 Besant said in a post on X,
00:00:55.820 we look forward to continuing our enthusiastic support of President Millet and Argentina.
00:01:00.380 He added, again, this is Scott Besant,
00:01:03.860 in a separate post, Argentina's central bank added that it had settled the swap line in December,
00:01:09.120 two months after it was announced.
00:01:11.280 According to a local newspaper, La Nancion,
00:01:13.820 $2.5 billion of a possible $20 billion had been used in that time.
00:01:17.600 A source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that the agreement remained in force
00:01:21.360 under the agreed terms.
00:01:22.840 Tom, what happened here? Why is this such a big deal?
00:01:24.520 Well, this is a big deal because, do you remember when all the banks were being asked,
00:01:28.240 oh, yeah, would you like to do this deal with Argentina?
00:01:31.240 And Trump opened it up to the U.S. banks.
00:01:33.400 And all the U.S. banks says, well, we would want a backstop.
00:01:37.020 Well, what a backstop is, is someone's going to stand good for the loan.
00:01:40.880 And so all these U.S. banks were really asking you,
00:01:44.540 the U.S. taxpayer in the form of the U.S. government to be the backstop for this $20 billion for Argentina.
00:01:51.760 Meanwhile, Millet was down there, got inflation under control.
00:01:56.080 You remember him with the chainsaw and the whole thing running?
00:01:59.220 Well, he went from the chainsaw to the pen, and it was afuera, which I think means-
00:02:04.920 Kill it off.
00:02:05.820 Take it off.
00:02:06.700 And it was like, okay, Department of Nothingness and Trees, afuera.
00:02:10.580 Remember, he took all those labels off the board and said, this is the government we need.
00:02:15.780 We need defense.
00:02:16.700 We need police.
00:02:17.760 We need fire.
00:02:18.800 We need pension for our people.
00:02:20.320 We need a working government.
00:02:21.540 All the rest of this stuff, afuera.
00:02:23.560 Well, then he went to the U.S. government and says, hey, getting this under control to float the peso,
00:02:29.840 you know, we need a little bit of liquidity.
00:02:33.200 We need several billion dollars of liquidity.
00:02:35.120 So this was a currency support line that the U.S. banks didn't want to do.
00:02:39.800 And so instead, it got done through IMF and the U.S. government.
00:02:45.680 And guess what?
00:02:46.900 They only needed $2.5 billion of the $20 billion line, number one.
00:02:51.620 And number two, they stabilized the peso with the IMF, International Monetary Fund.
00:02:58.920 And now Besant comes out and says, by the way, all of you who doubted, it's working.
00:03:04.220 So what Besant is really saying, it's working.
00:03:06.480 Inflation is down.
00:03:07.840 They've stabilized the peso.
00:03:09.840 They want to make a fund where the peso will peg with the dollar on a more consistent basis.
00:03:16.220 And Besant is saying, and by the way, ladies and gentlemen, the American taxpayer made tens of millions of dollars in interest on the $2.5 billion over the amount of time that the loan was dating back to the election they had end of last year in Argentina.
00:03:33.860 So this is a big deal.
00:03:36.180 Pat, this is the kind of intervention that's good.
00:03:39.140 You're not your intervention.
00:03:40.280 Hey, I need a loan to help myself, and I need this.
00:03:43.680 And you find great leaders with a reliable risk.
00:03:47.060 And you do it, and then the taxpayer gets paid back.
00:03:50.680 So this isn't just foreign aid going into a bucket somewhere and never to be seen again.
00:03:55.660 And so this is no less than Scott Besant saying, hey, it worked.
00:03:59.960 It worked for Argentina.
00:04:01.060 It worked for Malay.
00:04:01.800 And it's worked for the American taxpayer.
00:04:03.540 And we've been paid back.
00:04:04.380 Let me tell you why I think this is a big deal.
00:04:06.140 And, Mark, I'm going to come to you.
00:04:07.000 I want to hear your thoughts on this.
00:04:08.720 You know why this is a big deal?
00:04:10.200 When I looked into it, is imagine you go to a guy.
00:04:13.560 Do you have that one person that every time they borrow money from you, they've never paid?
00:04:17.640 Think about that person.
00:04:18.700 Everybody has that friend, right?
00:04:20.440 You may be that friend to somebody, but we all have somebody that never pays back the debt, right?
00:04:25.360 You're watching and saying, man, I'm kind of that person.
00:04:26.940 Or it's Johnny, my cousin, my brother, whatever.
00:04:31.660 Argentina was that person.
00:04:34.120 They came, they got debt.
00:04:35.620 82, they never paid it back.
00:04:36.960 They defaulted.
00:04:37.660 89, defaulted, never paid back.
00:04:39.160 All one defaulted, didn't pay back.
00:04:40.680 And it happened two more times.
00:04:42.020 So the entire world looks at Argentina and says, this is the one country that if you give them money, guess what?
00:04:47.500 Never expect it back.
00:04:48.900 And then all of a sudden, boom, here's your money back.
00:04:51.600 Wait, what?
00:04:52.980 To pay it back, the $2.5 billion portion of it, and to do it this fast, their credibility went to the roof.
00:04:58.920 He gets in.
00:04:59.580 Inflation, I think, is at 200%.
00:05:01.700 Now it's at 31.5%.
00:05:03.360 He's telling the entire country we're not going to be printing money.
00:05:06.660 I think, as an operator, the world is now looking around, looking at countries that if you can lend them some money to make interest and expect that money to be back, I think Argentina officially moved from one bucket that nobody trusted to give money over here.
00:05:20.260 And I think that's a very, very big thing that's happening to Millet.
00:05:23.300 Mark, your thoughts on this?
00:05:24.580 Yeah, I can see the initial pushback on this with it's just more government intervention.
00:05:28.900 And so there's a knee-jerk reaction to that, and I understand that.
00:05:32.100 But to the point that you made about Millet and what he's done in Argentina, I mean, a complete turnaround.
00:05:37.180 I mean, what he's been able to do in a short period of time is nothing short of a miracle.
00:05:40.860 But really what I think is when I look at this is I just look at the absolute competence in the Trump administration.
00:05:48.120 Scott Bessent is a complete surgeon.
00:05:50.660 He understands rates.
00:05:51.880 He understands currencies.
00:05:53.200 He understands swaps.
00:05:54.700 And think about the competence that we have in the administration compared to previous administrations that we've had.
00:05:59.600 And for him to be able, with his expertise, right, helping George Soros break currencies, he understands currencies.
00:06:05.720 He was able to help a country out, a country that needs the help, benefit the United States taxpayer, the United States citizen.
00:06:12.160 And so, you know, all in all, I think it's a really good deal.
00:06:14.540 Yeah, and by the way, what a great hire, right?
00:06:17.100 At first, when everybody heard Scott Bessent, you're like, wait, what?
00:06:20.780 Who is this guy?
00:06:22.200 And the more and more you listen to him, you're like, this is a very qualified guy.
00:06:25.960 He's been the right guy.
00:06:26.780 But on my list of guys, the executive that's been hired, he's probably number two or number one on the list of doing a great job so far.
00:06:35.560 Brandon, your thoughts on this?
00:06:36.820 Yeah, it's like the concept of good debt versus bad debt.
00:06:39.180 It's not like we're just giving them money just because they need it.
00:06:42.300 Like, it's an emergency situation.
00:06:43.980 We don't know what they're going to do with it.
00:06:45.040 It's like a credit line for a business.
00:06:46.360 There's a reason that most businesses will take out a line of credit so they could operate and then pay their expenses.
00:06:50.920 And then they'll make enough money to pay it back quickly.
00:06:53.020 So it's like the concept of taking out a line of credit to do something productive rather than taking out a loan where you don't know if it's going to be used for something productive.
00:07:00.940 So, yeah, I'm all for it.
00:07:02.520 That's what the swap lines were created for in the first place, I believe.
00:07:04.860 Like, after 2008, we set up those swap lines so we could inject money into Europe or other places around the world if need be.
00:07:11.000 So, yeah, I think it's really important that we keep this anti- or counter-socialism movement going in South America.
00:07:16.940 Like, so, you know, we got Argentina now and now we got Venezuela, right?
00:07:21.020 So, one by one, hopefully we de-socialize or de-socialism South America.
00:07:26.900 Yeah, you know what's crazy?
00:07:28.840 When you think about this, taxes were supposed to be this way.
00:07:33.460 In 1860-something, 1861, when Civil War comes to an end and Lincoln needs money, we're in debt.
00:07:41.860 We're in debt a lot.
00:07:42.500 He goes to the American people and says, listen, guys, we need to create a tax.
00:07:46.440 You guys got to pay us and help us out.
00:07:48.340 So, he creates a progressive tax.
00:07:50.420 Rob, can you pull up, was it a flat tax?
00:07:53.120 It was a, I thought it was three tiers or something like that.
00:07:56.240 The 1861 tax was a flat tax, 3% on incomes over $800.
00:08:01.560 And then the later modified, okay, there you go, later modified to progressive tax.
00:08:05.200 You know what happened with this?
00:08:06.520 They said, we need to pay this up and we're going to put this tax until we pay off the debt.
00:08:10.920 How long do you think that tax lasted?
00:08:13.500 Seven years.
00:08:14.880 Seven years later, after it was paid off, they eliminated the taxes.
00:08:19.080 This is how taxes were before.
00:08:20.820 Today, God forbid, they launch a new tax.
00:08:23.480 It is never going away.
00:08:24.720 They're just going to raise it.
00:08:25.520 This is why a lot of billionaires from California are escaping.
00:08:28.720 No one in California just wants to tax people to death.
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