[SamuraiProgrammer]

Originally posted by primitive:
World Bank:
Donations to the World Bank can hardly be considered Aid. I think Andrès will have a few chosen word to say on this. The World Bank together with some local politicians will have to take most/all of the blame for the wrecking of the Argentinean economy.
And, Norway and EU and the other OECD contries are equal partners with USA in the World Bank, so this is not USA bashing.

I beg to differ on this point. Granted, the Argentine government borrowed more money than they could make payments on, but whose fault is that? The bankers?

It looks to me as if the real problem is that the world bank didn't blush and forgive some or all of the debt when Argentina said "I won't make my payments."

Don't kid yourself. I know more about Argentine politics than you might think. I work in agricultural marketing and my company's actions are affected every day by the import and export totals of many countries (of which Argentina is one.) We watched these developments closely. It was reminiscent of a bad game of JUNTA (remember that one?)

I would point out that, at least in part, the collapse of Argentina's currency involved a change in goverment policy that prevented the sellers of grain (a MAJOR export item) from getting fair value for their commodities once the currency exchange rate started to slide. The exporters were put into a position that made it their best interest to NOT sell their grain. This caused a chain reaction that destroyed any hope of generating enough money to make the payments to to world bank.