THERE’S A LESSON HERE: The Dumbest Investment in the World Was Better Than Owning Safe Treasurys: Argentina’s century bond defaulted but ended up a winner, an important lesson for investors.

Investors who bought Argentina’s 100-year dollar bond were laughed at in 2017 for their naiveté in buying such a long bond from a serial defaulter. Sure enough, the country failed to pay after just three years.

But investors who stuck with the country are having the last laugh. The bonds they were given in the default, plus the fat coupons on the original century bond, are now worth more than the original investment. Not just that: They are worth far more than if the dollars had been invested in “safe” U.S. Treasurys.

The turnaround in the Argentina bonds was due to President Javier Milei taking a chain saw to the bloated Argentine state, while managing to maintain his popularity.

People always said that such deep cuts were politically impossible. But the impossibility was due to ruling-class satraps protecting their rice bowls, not to what the actual voters actually wanted.