THE GOVERNMENT THEY DESERVE: “Having just elected its populist Peronist president Cristina Fernandez despite some of the most widespread evidence of government economic malfeasance ever presented to a western electorate, Argentina is now preparing for yet another debilitating economic crisis and meltdown of the kind that have kept the country trapped in a cycle of underdevelopment for most of the last 100 years. As the peso declines (losing 1/4 of its value against the shaky and weak kneed dollar since her first election in 2007 in the face of a commodity boom which under normal conditions should have seen the peso rise), the Argentine government set off a national economic mess by rejiggering rules on currency exchange to make it harder for Argentines to switch pesos for dollars. . . . Typically in Argentina as each failed “miracle” economic solution begins to unwind, governments resort to increasingly desperate and irrational methods to hide the erosion of their program as long as possible. Most Argentines, cynical about their governments to a degree that even birthers and truthers would have a hard time fathoming, do not think the Fernandez government is an exception to the rule.”