From Milton Friedman to Elon Musk and Bukele, who are Milei's favorite characters that appear in PakaPaka's libertarian cartoons?

Two weeks ago, PakaPaka announced a revamp of its programming, including series from the Dragon Ball universe and promising a revamped "Zamba." In the same video, the channel previewed the arrival of the Tuttle Twins , a cartoon series originating from a libertarian powerhouse in the United States ideologically aligned with Javier Milei's government.

Milton Friedman , Friedrich Hayek , and Ludwig von Mises —three intellectuals revered by Milei—are engaging guides who explain topics such as inflation and subsidies, and launch into diatribes against state regulation of the economy. There are also cameos by contemporary figures such as Elon Musk and Nayib Bukele, and even a chapter dedicated to defaming Karl Marx.

The regular cast includes Ethan and Emily, the Tuttle twins, and their grandmother Gabby, a Cuban who immigrated to the United States. She, seated in a wheelchair and always clutching a soda, is the captain of the journeys through time and space, introduces the guests, and, with a strong liberal-libertarian bent, helps solve the problems facing her grandchildren.

The cartoons, produced by a company with Mormon roots and strong connections to evangelicals, are inspired by a literary saga originating from a libertarian think tank: the Libertas Institute in Utah. Chapter by chapter, they develop the ideology of their creators, an intellectual universe similar to Milei's.

The protagonists turn to the American economist in episode 6 of the first season. He helps them explain inflation .

The problem arises when the Tuttle twins visit a fairground and discover that the tickets they exchange for prizes are becoming less and less valuable.

The series is quick to point the finger at the culprit: Karinne, the owner's red-haired niece and the siblings' antagonist. To win a student election , the young woman sets up the machine and makes her own tickets. "Remember, a vote for me is a vote for prosperity and more free tickets," she shouts as she hands out mountains of the metaphorical money .

Inflation with Milton Friedman pic.twitter.com/L1NAC7b69b

— Tuttle Twins TV (@TuttleTwinsTv) May 23, 2025

Friedman traces the roots of inflation back to Ancient Rome, when authorities discovered that by mixing gold with other metals, they could easily multiply the amount of coins in circulation. "That seems like cheating," says one of the students. "Governments do it all the time," the economist notes.

After going to Rome, they embark on one last journey to learn what hyperinflation is. The ship heads to 2008. But it doesn't land in Buenos Aires, but in Zimbabwe, a country with which Argentina has competed in the inflation rankings in recent years .

📈 Inflation hurts a nation. #tuttletwins pic.twitter.com/4KptKLO0u5

— Tuttle Twins TV (@TuttleTwinsTv) February 21, 2024

Another detail. Inflation is portrayed as a pink, multi-tentacled monster that raises prices and burrows into people's pockets. It's almost invisible. To uncover the phantom, you have to put on special glasses. You have to "see" it.

"That one saw it" was the phrase Milei used a few weeks ago to surrender to Adam Smith. He said it after midnight, when Fat Dan asked him to make a ranking or tier list of economists. He placed him in the highest category: "Superior Eminence."

Smith is one of the first guest economists on Tuttle Twins. "He's an economist who wrote a book about an invisible hand," says Grandma in the third chapter. "It's a metaphor for free trade," Smith clarifies.

The episode revolves around another concept: the division of labor. During a visit to a modern pencil factory, the Scottish economist demonstrates the distribution of roles on an assembly line, with inputs arriving—through free trade—from different parts of the world. "Everything happens spontaneously, because people exchange what they need," Smith swears animatedly.

Milei prefers to stick to the original example of the pin factory to talk about another of the Scotsman's ideas: increasing returns. A metaphor that excites him. "If I end up with a good outcome, I'll probably win the Nobel Prize in Economics alongside Reidel. That's part of a different story, because the conflict between the pin factory and the invisible hand would disappear," he said in June 2024.

"Surely, if you were to ask any economist at a public or private university in Argentina who Mises is, they'd think he was the number 9 on the Dutch national football team," Milei joked when talking about Ludwig von Mises.

Episode 8 of the second season portrays him as an old man who feeds the pigeons in Central Park. He is the one who explains to the Tuttle twins what an allowance is.

"A subsidy is money the government takes from taxpayers to give to a company or industry that politicians want to support. This benefits those who receive the money but creates a disordered market instead of a fair one," explains Von Mises.

When government pays for things it shouldn't:

featuring Ludwig von Mises pic.twitter.com/YNXYeGiqNf

— Tuttle Twins TV (@TuttleTwinsTv) January 28, 2025

Similar words, spoken by Milei , left industrialists numb last September.

In the series, the reproach falls on the grandmother. "They should be ashamed. They use a lot of things that are subsidized," she says indignantly. Von Mises concludes: "And in many cases, like the banking industry, subsidies keep corrupt and irresponsible industries afloat. Companies remain bankrupt instead of having to improve."

The South African tycoon who owns Tesla and SpaceX makes a cameo in the Bitcoin episode. He's seen riding in a Tesla attached to a SpaceX rocket.

There, just before takeoff, are the memecoin mascots Shiba and Dogecoin , which he promoted on his X account and whose collapse left him at the center of controversy . At the time of the episode's broadcast, Musk did not hold the position of Department of Government Efficiency, which he has now left, although he was a staunch supporter of Donald Trump.

This episode also features Satoshi Nakamoto , the alleged creator of Bitcoin, with his face always hidden and complaining about the "corruption and manipulation" of governments.

Nayib Bukele also makes a brief appearance in Season 3, Chapter 6. He is identified by his classic backward-facing cap and the Salvadoran presidential sash, in another episode dedicated to cryptocurrencies.

Bukele, who shares a mutual admiration with Milei and is a visitor to the Casa Rosada, is a staunch defender of Bitcoin. It's freely available in his country, and the Salvadoran Central Bank regularly purchases the cryptocurrency as one of its assets.

However, the producers chose an animated Bitcoin as their protagonist, who spreads concepts through songs. "When money is controlled, money is corrupted," goes one chorus.

They go to the Austrian to look for him at the University of Chicago, where he's teaching some students, including Friedman. "Not now, Milton," he pauses his student's questions before greeting the grandmother and the twins.

The problem raised by the chapter arises when a new supervisor arrives at the Tuttle twins' school. She, Hayek is told, encourages reading books in exchange for cookies. "Reading: good. Required: bad," the meddling Friedman is heard saying.

"When a few people are in charge and they make decisions that impact everyone, that's called central planning . Even though those people may have good intentions, their decisions can end up causing harm," Hayek instructs the siblings.

Instead, he proposes "policies that allow individuals to take care of their own needs" and make informed decisions in the marketplace.

It's the heart of his bestseller, The Road to Serfdom . In Milei's words: "When a fatally arrogant politician intervened in a market because he believed there was a market failure, the emerging result was that it functioned worse. And in that situation, it unleashed more violence on the part of the politician and led to a greater degree of intervention."

Hayek and Rothbard are the authors with whom Milei—according to himself—introduced himself as a liberal-libertarian. "When I started reading it, I found it quite difficult, but over time I began to assimilate it," he recalled to another "higher eminence."

Just as the redheaded Karinne is the antagonist of the Tuttle twins, the pantheon of economists revered by Milei has its counterpart: Karl Marx . "Evil genius" and "sinister," according to Milei's classification system. "Socialist fanatic and terrible father, whose ideas led to the deaths of millions ," according to the series' writers.

Throughout the episode, he's portrayed as a thief. He copies his grandmother's technology (" Our technology," he emphasizes), makes two cardboard children to keep him company because he doesn't have any of his own, and, toward the end, attempts to steal the time machine from the protagonists.

🔴With Tuttle Twins in Paka Paka, children will learn that Karl Marx was a lazy, stingy boy who had no talent.

✅Management by Javier Milei🦁 pic.twitter.com/yRvCYor9Ly

— Reddington (@RayReddingtton) May 23, 2025

Its present-day consequences are reflected in Greece , a country that has drawn parallels with Argentina in recent decades. There, they claim, "many students chose not to graduate and made a career out of getting free stuff paid for by taxpayers."

There's another case mentioned in the episode about Marx: the German Democratic Republic. Among the people jumping over the Berlin Wall and running toward the western side (the one of Ludwig Erhard's economic miracle, another one admired by Milei), we see the Tuttle brothers and their grandmother.

They're stranded and threatened by Eastern military forces. Their time machine is broken. Until the kids say, "Socialism is forcing everyone to pay for a good or service, whether they use it or not. While the intention may be good, it removes the incentive to work hard. We should let people keep what they earn and voluntarily share what they produce," they repeat.

The machine is repaired and they escape from socialism.