MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentina’s Eternal Debt Problem
By Carmen Reinhart (*) Argentina recently emerged from nearly 15 years of the most litigious sovereign default in modern times, if not ever. Now it has the opportunity to reenter the global financial system and build a more stable and prosperous future. It is a chance that the country must be careful not to squander. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesRottingroadkill.
May 31st, 2016 - 08:59 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Tick tock.
Macri will not be able to make ANY lasting changes to the prepubescent (in finance terms) Argentina unless he wins a second term.
Jun 01st, 2016 - 10:40 am - Link - Report abuse 0And that, is a hell of a hurdle. I wish him luck.
Yep,
Jun 01st, 2016 - 11:50 am - Link - Report abuse 0Good luck,
who says we don't support them...
Thanks britton,I also wish well for the uk,but MALVINAS ARGENTINAS!
Jun 01st, 2016 - 12:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0#1 chronic
Jun 01st, 2016 - 03:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Clearly unable to get a clue about the meaning of the above story, our chronically sad commentator has just gifted MP readers with one of the finest pearls of wisdom his intellect has been able to create.
He showed all of us that you can always improve with perseverance.
@4. Yeah. Why don't you try? Living miles away from your “home” country. Enjoying the benefits of a British-created society. Perfect candidate for being declared an “enemy of the people” and learn, first-hand, about deportation. What fairy tale did you tell the Canadian authorities?
Jun 01st, 2016 - 03:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0#6 conqueror
Jun 01st, 2016 - 07:56 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Give it a rest, conqueror. After all, how many of those who freely express their opinion about Argentina actually live there? Did you check where the author of the story above lives?
On the other hand, you should recognize that all your petty attempts and that of the club here to drive me away haven't worked. However, your usual way of swarming any new poster with contempt and ridicule have discouraged many valuable writers from posting here.
Not me. I'm having too much fun challenging 19th-century ideas I see so often around here.
So, there's nothing to conquer, and certainly you haven't conquered anything, my dear.
Sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
Even Reekie has previously acknowledged that the Argentine government has a historical repeated fondness for taking on massive amounts of unsustainable debt, a point the author tried to make. And if you read the papers in Argentistan you can see the evidence that many of the provinces are indeed (1) essentially bankrupt, (2) under siege by syndicates expecting increasingly lavish benefits, and (3) trying to borrow money on the international market at high interest rates from lenders who don't realise that their regions lack the competitive-production ability to repay such loans and who have forgotten how badly this is all going to end ....again.
Jun 02nd, 2016 - 03:04 am - Link - Report abuse 0Argentina has traditionally borrowed and had recurrent payment crisis, with little to show for it.
Jun 02nd, 2016 - 06:07 am - Link - Report abuse 0Borrowing it's not bad in itself if it increases the capacity and efficiency of a given country.
On the other hand, if the borrowing is done, as in Argentina, to fuel speculation, sweet deals for both domestic and foreign corporations as well as politicians, then we find the country in deep debt and nothing to account for it.
@9 “ Argentina has traditionally borrowed and had recurrent payment crisis.....”
Jun 02nd, 2016 - 01:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0What you really meant to say was “an unavoidable series of predictably inevitable defaults.”
It's OK to say “default” on this forum.
#10 Marti
Jun 04th, 2016 - 08:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I will never shy away from calling a spade a spade. Argentina did have several defaults; however, those extreme situations are just a part of what I termed “payment crisis,” occasions in which the country avoided default just by borrowing some more.
In any event, no semantics will change the fact that foreign money never gave Argentina a boost, because the money has traditionally been shared among politicians, financial institutions, domestic and foreign corporations, with little money actually entering the country.
And don't get me started on the decision by the military government and Central Bank president Domingo Cavallo in 1982 to nationalize the 14-billion dollar debt of hundreds of private companies, which brought the Argentina's total debt at the time to 40 billion dollars.
Judge Jorge Ballesteros' legal action, whose files are now archived in a basement of the Congress building, attempted to find out how Argentina's debt went from $8 billion in 1975 to $45 billion in 1983.
In his conclusions, Ballesteros noted that “The Nation's foreign debt was grossly increased from 1976 by economic measures that placed the country on its knees and benefited corporations and private deals - domestic and foreign - to the detriment of state enterprises.”
@11 What you are telling us once again is what I have been explaining repeatedly: that Argentina cannot govern itself. Certainly not in the area of handling money. That no matter what form of government is selected, you now recognise that it will maliciously divert borrowed monies. Those defaults that arrive with amazing frequency, and whatever additional payment crises you may find under the bed, only reinforce this observation.
Jun 05th, 2016 - 12:28 am - Link - Report abuse 0Why do you think anybody and everybody changes the worthless argento bills into US$ and then hides them from every form of government that Argentistan has contrived? Argentos have something like US$50 billion in US currency hidden away out of sight -- something unimaginable in any other sudaca backwater. Why? Because...... none of the governments here can be trusted. And we observe that you don't keep your money in ARS, either. Clever.
Reekie, tell us about the argie provinces that ran out of money as a result of the CFK regime and are now trying to take on massive amounts of new high-interest taking debt from foreign bond sales. And tell us how that will all end up.
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