Argentina's bailout

The World
The World
On Tuesday, Kirchner announced what she framed as a reasonable move in times of economic crisis: Argentina would take over its pension program to ensure its citizens could have a proper retirement. Financial markets and many Argentines didn't see the sudden move quite that way. Over the next few days the country's bonds lost 20% of their total value and the stock market dropped considerably. This economist says that while the official justification was to protect the people's retirement money, the real reason is that over half of the $29 billion dollars in the funds is made up of Argentine national funds and if the government took over its own bonds, it wouldn't really have to pay them any more. Wall Street investors are also skeptical�does this mean the Argentine national bank is about to fault?, they've wondered. This economist says there's no real available sources of financing in Argentina so that's why the government made this move. Many Argentines are more cynical than panicky, namely because there's a history of economic mismanagement in Argentina. Most Argentines know they won't be able to retirement on their pension, whether it's private or public.
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