How serious is Argentinas economic crisis?
After four years of recession unemployment is running at 18%, putting close to 15m (half of whom were in the country’s large middle class five years ago) on or below the poverty line. Another 2,000 join their numbers every day, living on less than £2.76 daily. Recent policies intended to prop up the faltering economy such as rationing cash withdrawals to £660 a month (so people do not take their savings out of the country) have provoked widespread anger; at least 27 people died in recent riots. The government was recently forced to give 200,000kg of food aid to its most needy citizens. How did the country get into this mess? At the root of the crisis is a recession triggered by years of public overspending and heavy borrowing that has left Argentina on the brink of defaulting on its $132bn (£91bn) public debt (which is one seventh of the total debt held by all developing countries). Fixing its currency to the dollar at a rate of one to one since the early 1990s also meant the governmen
