LA Times, Feb. 18, 2003
The Good Life Is No More for Argentina
The nation rode high on a free-market system, backed by the IMF and tied
to the dollar. Then the global economy spun it into disaster.
By Héctor Tobar, Times Staff Writer
SAN ISIDRO, Argentina -- More than any other developing nation in the
1990s, Argentina embraced the free market and the global economy.
For top officials at the International Monetary Fund and economic gurus
of the American right, Argentina was a star pupil. It sold off most
government enterprises and loosened banking restrictions and controls on
foreign investment. The IMF backed the strategy with billions of dollars
in loans.
For a few years, people lived better than ever. Many Argentines believed
that their country, already the most prosperous in Latin America, was
finally graduating into the First World.
Then, in December 2001, the bottom fell out, causing a run on the banks
that wiped out billions of dollars in deposits.
Nearly six months later, on a May morning that happened to be her 59th
birthday, Norma Albino stepped into her bank branch in this Buenos Aires
suburb of cobblestone streets, famous for its affluence and the tall
spires of its 100-year-old church. She asked — for the third or fourth
time since December — for her family's money. When the teller told her
that he couldn't help her, she blurted out: "I'm going to kill myself."
As horrified bank employees looked on, she poured a bottle of rubbing
alcohol over her head and snapped at a cigarette lighter.
Albino became, at that instant, a symbol of the rage and hurt smoldering
inside millions of Argentines. Rushed to a hospital, she survived with
third-degree burns. Months later, she has found that the best therapy is
simply to forget.
"The politicians robbed us," she said. "But I don't care anymore. I try
not to think about it."
Argentina's official unemployment rate stands at 22%, about the same as
in the United States during the Great Depression. Poverty afflicts 53%
of Argentines, triple the rate of just five years ago.
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