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Argentina

A saying popular for a number of decades now argues that Mexico is doubly cursed - being both so far away from God and so close to the United States. Argentina certainly farter from the United States, but the current (and recent past) state of both its polity and its economy suggest that it too is farther away from God than its people might like and that geographic distance is certainly no guarantee that a nation may not be too much under the sway of the United States. For despite substantial economic and cultural resources, the 20th-century and now twenty-first-century history of Argentina is that of a country that has seen more than its share of economic problems, political extremism, and hardships for its people.

The country is still fundamentally affected by years of Peronism - rule by the party of Juan Peron - and the system of corruption and patronage that he established. The long-term consequences of both of these have been a country that is mired in debt, has experienced terrible inflation, and in which the citizenry do not respect or trust the government - even in times when the Peronists have been thrown out of power, such as when Fernando De la R·a, a conservative but essentially centrist candidate, won the presidency in 1999. Like those that came before him, he mismanaged the nation's money:

De la R·a's economic strategy was to administer the economy he inherited according to IMF austerity guidelines. According to the IMF, when Argentina brought its government expenditures under control (i.e. reduced already dangerously low social expenditures) and reduced its fiscal deficit to zero, foreign capital would flow back into the country.

As any student of introductory macroeconomics could predict, such fiscal austerity policies-worsened Argentina's two-year recession. Argentina was thus caught in a downward spiral of falling growth and government income, larger deficits, more austerity, and so on (www.zmag.org).

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Argentina. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 12:50, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1688262.html