There are moments when experience helps to understand the future and others when it becomes a trap. Those who have seen the same attempt fail twenty times learn reasonably to distrust the twenty-first. The problem arises when that caution transforms into an inability to recognize that conditions have changed. The past teaches a lot, but it stops teaching when we turn it into a law of nature.
The exchange between Luis Caputo and Eduardo van der Kooy offers a good example. The columnist from Clarín described the minister as a “misguided prophet” and listed optimistic statements that he considers disproven or threatened by reality. Caputo responded with irony, recalling pessimistic forecasts about the dollar, inflation, activity, country risk, reserves, and the agreement with the IMF that also did not end up happening as many anticipated.
The discussion could be reduced to determining who made more accurate predictions. It would be entertaining but intellectually poor. What matters is not who predicted better, but what mental model we use to interpret an economy that is changing its operating rules.
For decades, Argentina accustomed its analysts to certain regularities. The deficit ended up being financed with issuance or debt. Monetary expansion pressured prices. Reserves were scarce. A currency correction once again fueled inflation. Public spending appeared as a response to every difficulty, and sooner or later, the imbalance reappeared.
It was reasonable to learn from that experience. What was dangerous was turning it into destiny.
Human action does not occur within a machine that eternally reproduces the same results. When incentives change, decisions change; when the decisions of millions of people change, the trajectory of an economy can also change. A projection built on past relationships loses explanatory power if the institutions that generated those relationships stop operating in the same way.
This helps to understand why fiscal balance is much more important than an accounting figure. If the Treasury stops needing permanent financing to cover expenses exceeding its income, the expectation about future issuance, debt, taxes, and monetary stability changes. Companies and families incorporate that information into their decisions. The effect does not only occur in a state spreadsheet. It modifies the horizon from which the private sector acts.
Here, a fundamental distinction between prediction and explanation arises. Predicting consists of projecting variables. Explaining requires identifying causal relationships. An analyst can accurately predict the dollar amount and not understand why it got there; they can also be wrong about a specific figure and correctly understand the process that is transforming the system.
Moreover, the economy contains a difficulty that no survey can eliminate. People learn, correct expectations, and react to new policies. A businessman who anticipates stability can invest. A saver can modify their portfolio. A family can go back to long-term debt. Expectations are not spectators of the economic process; they are part of it.
That is why it would also be a mistake to turn current results into a guarantee of future success. If criticizing automatic pessimism requires recognizing institutional changes, defending them requires exactly the same discipline. An economic program should be evaluated by sustained results, not by political fidelity. Inflation may continue to decrease or accelerate again; activity may consolidate or face obstacles.
But there is a difference between warning of risks and needing failure to occur to preserve a previous interpretation.
The intellectual challenge is to allow reality to correct our ideas before attempting to have our ideas correct reality. This applies to journalists, economists, and governments. No reputation should depend on having always been right, but on maintaining the ability to revise the diagnosis when facts change.
Perhaps that is why the episode between Caputo and Van der Kooy matters more than their exchange on social media suggests. Argentina does not need new prophets, optimists, or pessimists. It needs to learn to distinguish between an economy doomed to repeat its past and a society capable of changing the incentives that produced it. The future begins precisely when the past no longer seems inevitable to us.
