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11/05/2005:

"Argentines eye the US with suspicion"

The man at the bar is crooning enthusiastically if not exactly in tune.

His companion is hunched over that quintessential tango instrument, the bandoneon, squeezing out a song that tells of hope betrayed in a harsh, uncomprehending world.

Sitting next to me, Mario is intent on explaining how it is all George Bush's fault.

According to my friend, who has lived all his life in Buenos Aires, every time Argentina achieves stability and economic success, the Yankees have to spoil it all.

They cannot, he says, stand the competition.

This was what happened four years ago, when the Argentine economy collapsed.

The pesos Mario had saved, each of which was then worth $1, suddenly lost two-thirds of their value as the peso plummeted.

And since then the dreaded International Monetary Fund has been trying to impose its stranglehold on the Argentine economy and force Argentines to comply with its recipe of cheap exports, firms being sold off to foreign investors and even Argentine beef being banned from the United States on the grounds that most people in Argentina say are spurious.
bbc.co.uk

As the subjects of Jeffrey Sachs and his economic "shock therapy", Argentines' anger is more than understandable. This article mocks them for blaming the Yankees. Their analysis is correct.