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I was half-joking of course. I agree on the powers of innovation but there's just so much going against Argentina.

Sure just need a couple decades of intensive education and training, borrow another $50 billion to construct large scale operations, change the official work week to 6 days/80 hours and eliminate all public holidays. Argentina you've got this!

Indeed. I've said this before but Argentina has a serious liquidity problem the next few years and they need outside help to make it to the other side.

Sounds like that old joke from the Soviet Union days "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"

Geez louise, how does anything get done with all the holidays there??

Ha! I wondered about that. Thanks Wally.

Interesting that they claim 24 months from ground breaking to completion, I wonder how many times they've actually pulled this off

Well it's only been used once before, and they have to be careful because it's not easy to replenish. I read somewhere that post-Mexico, the US Congress voted to place serious restrictions on its future use which then exacerbated the Asian crisis in 1997, because the US was unable to intervene...

https://www.npr.org/2025/11/14/nx-s1-5609382/argentina-loan-bessent-treasury-bailout Title is a bit misleading as it mostly discusses the 1995 bailout of Mexico before transitioning to Argentina near the end, but it's a good overview of the ESF.

https://buenosairesherald.com/economics/argentine-economists-believe-the-us-treasury-has-already-sold-its-pesos US stabilized the peso (for now at least) and made a bit of money in the process, that is a win/win.

This is just classic. Most currency traders I've met are unemotional and aware of the risks in a trade and how to mitigate them. But it's still pretty funny :)

Not in Argentina but across Latin America. Argentina by itself is not that big a deal and it's very far from the US. It's the region they care about. I think it's very possible, maybe even likely that Bessent's former colleagues knew what the US was planning to do in Argentina and placed...

I don't know about "wrong" but I'd say that's a pretty glass-half-empty view of things. Kind of funny that two people could watch the same video and come away with such different viewpoints :)

That is a good video, I was bracing myself for one of those whacko conspiracy theories but I thought he got the overall story right. I'm not a big fan of Obama's but I disagree with Bessent's criticism that he missed the LatAm opportunity. Obama took office with the GFC in full swing and all...

Ah I see, my apologies, and I do recall a couple of times having to fiddle with it until it locked properly. NYC bikes have the same issue though.

I think we're from the same generation and would disagree that there was any sleight of hand. With all due respect I think you misunderstood or misinterpreted what the US committed to and how swap programs work. It was very clear to me what they were trying to accomplish and they stood behind...

Sorry to hear that. I found it worked really well once my friend set me up on the app. You do have to return it to a station though, that's how the system works and it's no different in the US.

I don't see it that way. The US offered support and it was enough to calm financial markets until the election, that's how it's supposed to work. Also the US Treasury Secretary is Scott Bessent.

I don't think it was a bait and switch. The US committed swap lines in case they were needed, they didn't say $20 billion was coming in the mail tomorrow. The election went their way so at least for now the US can move on. Which is good because frankly there are far more important issues to...

It was similar with the last US election. Media and consultants kept telling us that Harris was going to win in a landslide because only sub-humans supported Trump. What surprised even the consultants though was that a lot of voters in the middle didn't actually support Trump (or couldn't...