A year after becoming president, Javier Milei has been praised inside and outside Argentina for reining in galloping inflation. But his economic policies have inflicted widespread hardship.

Milei's series of austerity measures has been brutal. Unemployment has climbed, economic activity has declined and poverty has surged. But now signs have emerged that Argentina’s bizarre and long mismanaged economy is starting to look a little more normal.

Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei laid out a bleak vision in his maiden speech a year ago amid an economic crisis. The crowd in front of Congress cheered his every word. A year later Milei has managed to pull off a gravity-defying feat: keeping that fervor burning and avoiding tipping the country into fiery protest even as he rolls out severe spending cuts that have crimped the economy and pushed up poverty.