Roaring inflation: Argentine “double zero” peso bills are “legal tender”
An issue of Argentine 100 Pesos bills printed in Brazil and in circulation in Buenos Aires was discovered to be missing the “1” which left them with only the double 00.
The discovery was reported by Clarin and picked up by the rest of the media and allegedly the Argentine currency printing house was aware of the error but even so as soon as the crates with the bills arrived from Brazil, allowed their circulation.
The 100 Pesos bill is the highest denomination of Argentine paper money and with inflation running at an annualized ‘in the range of 25%’ it is not surprising the urgency to have the bills in the streets.
The error in the bills emerged from the fact they were wrongly clipped on one side, cutting off the centennial and leaving the zeroes.
Argentine authorities admitted the mistake but said the number of bills in circulation was “irrelevant”. Off the record they admitted the need for paper money since at mid year all dependent workers in Argentina are paid a mid year bonus equivalent to half a month’s salary.
Workers at the Argentine currency printing house have been in conflict for several weeks interrupting production of bills and thus forcing the Central bank to have them printed in Brazil.
The bills were also printed before the agreement of the Argentine government with the local Ciccone currency printing house which is also involved in a serious controversy because of alleged influence peddling from Vice President Amado Boudou to help the company operate in spite of being under administration.
According to the Argentine media Vicente Glorioso head of the Ministry of Economy and Finance and Currency printing house staff union the “quality of the Brazilian paper currency is questionable and they certainly did not go through the quality control filter”.
Although this was apparently a contained incident, the Argentine currency printing house in the past has been involved in several serious situations, probably the most notorious back in 1989/1990 when the collapse of the administration of Ricardo Alfonsin which forced anticipated elections and Carlos Menem taking office half a year earlier.
Those were times of hyper-inflation in Argentina and the union’s chapter at the currency printing house would turn on the “printing machine” a couple of hours a day repeating serial numeration, for their own profit.
The “partners in printing-currency crime” were discovered and sent to jail and the bills quietly eliminated although a couple of years later “twin bills” could still be found but more valuable than originally because of demand form for private collections.
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41 comments Feed
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- Having to rush to print money to make payments.
- Having to print currency outside of the country because of industrial action.
- Allowing bills with such an obvious quality issue to enter circulation.
- Allowing bills that look like cheap knock-offs to remain legal tender.
Now...in many countries just one of these would cause resignations and serious political repercussions.
Surely Argentina deserves better?
Just write the number ahead of the noughts when you go to pay for something
CFK should incorporate it into her “model”
Best thing to do is get rid of these and the other bills (of inferior quality) printed in Brazil. The government wants people in Argentina to think in Pesos (which is fine) but to ensure this happens people need to have complete and utter confidence in the currency. These kinds of actions will erode that confidence (you can imagine people thinking “why should I have confidence in the Peso if they can't even print the notes correctly”). This is fair enough I suppose, so, round up all these bills and then replace them with correctly printed notes.
The Argentine approch - “Hey it'll do - they're close enough”
What about the elderly, people who don't watch the news etc etc etc?
If somebody gave me a “00” valued note I'd simply refuse to accept it.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
El retrato del billete de $100 no es JAR. es SAN MARTIN!!!!!
pay attention!!!!!!
if indeed it was worth anything.
yea they defifntly fed up that photo caption, the 100 pesos note is indeed Julio Argentino Roca as it celebrates the conquest of the desert on the back.
@7 How right you are! .
@5 are you kididng me! They should never of gone into circulation, but the money is desperatly needed as the article says due to inflation
Also workers are not paid a bonus our salary is divded into 13 parts and we recieve 1/13th per month except in December and July when we get 1.5 x our normal monthly salary.
El del Billete es JAR. no SAN MARTIN
Please don't gloat so much, some of us, about 40% are NOT malvinistas!!!!
they should put them out of circulation. In shops, people wont accept them, neither do I.
Sometime soon they'll be adding zeros onto the ends of every bill. Austral anyone? Just like the last time they had hyper inflation except this time there will be not be the USA or IMF help. Need to teach them a lesson to behave and get with the program.
ouch
brr
You missed out “Knock knock”
Pork and Pasta for all who remain loyal.....viva KFC! (she got a great deal on pork and pasta for opening the factories)
Yup, history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme
What a deadly combination.
Given that nobody noticed all the cock-ups on the notr before circulation, who would notice that?
Ha, ha, ha to the power google!
Just which country did your ancestors come from?
The Falklanders colonised an uninhabited group of islands, whereas Argentina stole the land from the indigenous population and murdered them and destroyed their culture. And you want to do the same thing to the Falklanders, don't you, even though they have lived there longer than Argentina has existed?
Go back to Europe Xavierv and give the land back to the native inhabitants, of which there are just over half a million of them left. GO HOME TO SPAIN COLONISING INVADER!
Now the story so far.... No sane government in the world would allow inferior quality bank notes to remain in circulation. I mean how are the ordinary people meant to tell the 'official' bank notes from any 'forged' bank notes if the official ones look like cheap knock-offs anyway?
The only person calling South America backwards is you. The only problem Argentina has is itself.
You have enough natural resources to make you one of the richest countries in the world, the only thing that keeps you from taking your place in the world is you, the people. By allowing rampant corruption to run amok unchecked until it has become 'normal' business practice has ruined and continues to ruin Argentina. Even if you gained the Falklands tomorrow all your problems would continue and expand to the Falklands, as corrupt officials and politicians would rush to stuff their own bank accounts full of money, while the rest of you continue to live in poverty.
Argentinians don't like to face this one simple fact, and because of this you will never escape from this cycle of corruption and poverty. After all it's easier to blame 3,000 innocent and peaceful people than to face the truth about yourselves.
The peso notes - an any Argentine explain to me HOW did their Govt get the USDollars to pay the Brazilian printers if they were incorrect?
Or perhaps the Brazilians did it on purpose when they found they were only going to get some pesos and not proper money!
actually no they've been printing a full speed too hence the crazy inflation.
You have just proved the points I made on post 30.
Argentina's modus operandi - bury head in sand and blame someone else.
Pathetic.
And now your corrupt government can't even print bank notes of decent quality. Time is running out before Argentina implodes, but as usual you 'bury your heads in the sand, and blame someone else.'
Recall them all & overprint a “2” or even a “3” near the two zeroes.
That would be novel, a 300 peso note.
Xavierv,
You have NEVER owned the Falklands, we do.
You go back to your country in Europe,
You're implanted in lndian land.
You are incorrect in assuming I am a brit.....I am an American. My identity as a country is a mere 226 years old as of July 5th.
@29 Think on. And use English.
@31 You speak Spanish? You're Spanish. If you're not Spanish, why aren't you speaking a South American language?
@35 You've got it the wrong way around. First there was a “rich” neighbourhood and then the trash moved in nearby. They'd always been around, but they finally decided to steal someone else's property and back up their squatting with guns. Certainly true that you've dragged the area down to the sub-human level. You just need to get yourselves together and move north-east. About 2,500 miles. Can you swim? You may get the hang of it after a while. And if you can't? Do we care?
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