Economy

In some ways, it's been an economic canary-in-the coal mine for the U.S.

The Bush derivatives disaster, for example, was a more sophisticated, much larger variant of Argentina's ruinous "financial bicycle" collapse in '81.

$30 billion or so in dollar debts taken on, largely to finance the dollarizing and offshoring of peso assets (by both local elites and foreign fly-by-nighters) - with the country left holding the bag.

(they had another such experience with Trump's pal Macri in 2016-18 - hence their current problems)

The biggest difference, really, is that we have a Fed that can absorb bad debts and other "toxic" assets - and with an almost limitless capacity to do so.

And Argentina (like most countries) doesn't.

So for all its imperfections and opaqueness - whenever I hear right-wingers bitch about the Fed (and boy, do they love to!), I remind them about that.

A blessing most countries simply don't have - not by a mile.