How to Buy a Country: The Art of the Foreign Bailout
Startup Sins: Quantitative Easing for Clowns™
1By Riggs D. Thermonucleon, Distinguished Fellow of Fiscal Delirium and International Grift Studies
The Great Dollar Dump
The United States just wired $20 billion to Argentina.
Not to help the poor, not to fight inflation, not to stabilize Latin America — but to stabilize a philosophy.
The Treasury’s “economic stabilization agreement” promises to swap dollars for Argentine pesos to keep Argentina’s economy alive long enough for its libertarian mascot, Javier Milei, to stop foaming at the peso’s grave.
Officials call it an “extraordinary intervention.”
Riggs calls it what it is: venture capital for authoritarianism.
The official justification? Argentina is “systemically important.”
Translation:
“My hedge-fund buddies have a lot of money tied up down there.”
Because the bailout isn’t really about Argentina — it’s about who bet wrong and wants their money back before the economy finishes imploding.
Ideology as an Investment Vehicle
Argentina’s new ruler, Milei — a man who campaigned with a chainsaw, screams about “parasites” (a.k.a. teachers), and once proposed eliminating the central bank — is the ideological twin of the current occupier of the White House.
He calls austerity “freedom.”
He calls deregulation “efficiency.”
He calls collapsing public services “creative destruction.”
And for once, the U.S. Treasury agrees.
We’re told that pouring billions into Milei’s economy is “supporting a key ally.” But what we’re really doing is subsidizing an experiment in Ayn Rand cosplay — a libertarian utopia so fragile it needs American socialism to survive.
(Themes anyone?)
It’s the first time in history that trickle-down economics has required an IV drip.
Hedge Funds Without Borders
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a former billionaire portfolio manager, says this deal will “enhance stability.”
He’s not wrong — for his old friends.
The mechanism is the Exchange Stabilization Fund2, an obscure Treasury piggy bank usually reserved for actual emergencies.
In 1995, it saved Mexico from collapse.
In 2025, it’s saving someone’s dinner party portfolio.
It’s a public-private masterpiece:
Private investors bought risky Argentine bonds.
The peso tanked.
They screamed “liquidity crisis.”
The Treasury stepped in, as the Federal Reserve of Billionaire Regret.
Think of it as The World Bank of Guys I Went to Yale With™.
No oversight. No repayment terms. No transparency.
Just an IOU wrapped in a flag.
Beef, Soy, and Hypocrisy
Meanwhile, back in the actual United States, farmers are watching this circus with the same expression you get when your neighbor buys a yacht with your mortgage payment.
The Preditor In Chief announced he might buy Argentine beef to “bring down prices” — a move so backwards it made economists choke on their calculators.
American cattle ranchers, already crushed by drought and parasites, don’t want imported meat; they want help.
U.S. soybean farmers, destroyed by his own trade war, now watch Argentina swoop into the Chinese market they lost.
So let’s recap:
He started a trade war that crippled U.S. agriculture.
He blocked aid to U.S. farmers.
Then he bailed out their foreign competitors.
Nothing says “America First” like wiring $20 billion abroad while your own farmers eat dust.
The Economics of Ego
Economist Paul Krugman — who still believes in math, bless his heart — pointed out that Argentina accounts for less than 0.5% of U.S. exports.
So why treat it like the keystone of civilization?
Because it’s not about trade.
It’s about tribe.
Milei is a Trumpist with better hair product — a chainsaw libertarian who calls climate change a hoax, worships Elon Musk, and refers to socialism as a “cancer.”
In other words, a perfect ideological twin for the man in the Oval Office.
One burns money for power; the other just burns it for fun.
So this bailout isn’t economic policy — it’s a geopolitical bromance.
A $20 billion show of affection from one chaos merchant to another.
The Colombia Contrast
On the same weekend that Washington rescued Milei’s sinking regime, the White House declared economic war on Colombia — a democratic ally with a leftist president.
Aid programs shut down.
Tariffs slapped on.
The leader, Gustavo Petro, was called a “drug kingpin” with a “fresh mouth toward America.” (Hmm… I guess we’re not talking about "Tic-Tacs.”)
That’s diplomacy, apparently, from the man who once sent love letters to Kim Jong-Un.
So the new rule of global engagement is clear:
“Be right-wing, get wired $20 billion.
Be progressive, get a missile up your fishing boat.”
This is foreign policy by tantrum.
Support for democracy is now conditional: it has to vote conservative, privatize fast, and compliment Handicap-47’s golf game.
The Political ROI
This isn’t just about ideology. It’s about timing.
Milei’s popularity in Argentina has cratered — electricity bills up 300%, food inflation near 200%, public services gutted.
Midterm elections loom.
So Washington steps in with a lifeline disguised as liquidity.
The infusion buys time — long enough for Milei’s allies to avoid electoral humiliation.
In finance, this would be called “exit liquidity.”
In politics, it’s called “foreign influence.”
In satire, we call it “business as usual.”
The Felon doesn’t want democracy in Argentina.
He wants a franchise.
The Moral of the Grift
Every empire ends the same way:
Funding its friends abroad while its own citizens sell plasma to pay rent.
We once built schools and highways.
Now we build bailouts for ideological brand partners.
The current regime’s Treasury calls Argentina “systemically important.”
But here’s the truth: the system they’re protecting isn’t economic — it’s the international network of rich men who think the rules are for you.
When he says he’s “helping a great philosophy take over a great country,” understand what that means.
He’s not talking about Argentina.
He’s talking about validation.
He wants to prove that Milei’s deregulated fantasy can survive contact with reality — as long as the U.S. taxpayer foots the bill.
And when it collapses again — and it will — he’ll blame socialism.
Lessons for the Aspiring Imperial Entrepreneur
If you, dear reader, ever wish to fund your own foreign policy startup, take notes from the masters:
Call it stabilization. Everyone loves stability, even when you’re propping up chaos.
Use the Exchange Stabilization Fund. No oversight, no problem.
Say “systemically important” until journalists fall asleep.
Frame it as ideology, not profit. You’re not bailing out investors; you’re saving civilization.
When it fails, blame the left.
And remember: ideology is just capitalism with better lighting.
Final Diagnosis
This “bailout” is not economic policy.
It’s a campaign contribution written in foreign currency.
It’s one autocrat helping another prove that deregulation works — if you inject enough public cash.
It’s America paying for a libertarian experiment so the donors can walk away clean.
“America First”?
Try “America Last in Line for Its Own Money.”
As Riggs always says:
“When billionaires run out of markets, they buy countries.
When those fail, they send the bill to you.”
Business 101 — Business & Economics for the Bold and Brazen
Confused about how a handful of men can summon trillions out of thin air, call it policy, and still sleep at night? We cover it all — from the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” fire hose to the magic Trillion Dollar Coin to pay off the National Debt.
Riggs University — Where we turn monetary sorcery into educational entertainment.
High Profile, Low Cost
Help us keep documenting the high art of economic absurdity and the global exchange of corruption credits.
Daily Dispatches from the Free-market Apocalypse.
Smart, scathing, and occasionally tax-deductible (emotionally).
Why Suffer Alone?
Forward to anyone who believes “foreign aid” stops at the border.
Consult the Grifter’s Glossary
New entries this week (maybe):
Exchange Stabilization Fund, Ideological ROI, and Quantitative Easing for Clowns™.
👉 Grifter’s Glossary
The Terms Of Use…
For entertainment, education, and the preservation of your remaining sanity.
False Positive Labs does not advise or endorse sovereign bailouts, currency swaps, or public-private delusions, though we reserve the right to mock them extensively.
If symptoms of fiscal rage persist, consult your accountant.
Quantitative Easing (QE) — A Federal Reserve party trick that creates new money by buying government or corporate bonds, thereby flooding the financial system with liquidity and confidence it does not deserve. The goal is to “stimulate growth”; the result is to stimulate asset bubbles.
Think of it as the “trillion-dollar money hose” the Fed drags out whenever Wall Street accidentally sets itself on fire. When your 401(k) rallies while grocery prices double, that’s QE saying, “You’re welcome.”
Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) — A quiet little Treasury-run war chest created in 1934 to defend the dollar, later repurposed to defend whoever the Treasury secretary went to lunch with. Officially it manages foreign-exchange crises; unofficially it’s the government’s “no-questions-asked” international bailout account.
Past uses: rescuing Mexico (1995), propping up Asian markets (1997), and now, apparently, hedge-fund morale in Buenos Aires.