IN THE early months of 2002 Argentines were gripped by rage, fear and a deep sense of loss. They had suffered years of austerity and slump and finally the corralito, in which the government halted a run on the banks by barring savers from withdrawing their money. None of this could save “convertibility”, as Argentines called an arrangement under which the peso had been pegged at par to the dollar since 1991. As four presidents came and went in a week over Christmas 2001, Argentina devalued and defaulted on $82bn of bonds, the largest sovereign default in history. Incomes plunged, unemployment soared and the poverty rate rose to 56% in a country that a century before had been one of the ten richest in the world.
These events seared the Argentine soul. Many blame the IMF for them. That is why the decision by Mauricio Macri, Argentina’s president since 2015, to counter a run on the peso this month by seeking a standby loan from the IMF, though economically sensible, is...Continue reading
from Americas https://ift.tt/2IsE3oa
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment