Paul Krugman
Don’t Cry For Argentina
OK, I guess I don’t quite see how Argentina’s default, of all examples, can be viewed as a cautionary tale for Greece.
Argentina suffered terribly from 1998 through 2001, as it tried to be orthodox and do the right thing. After it defaulted at the end of 2001, it went through a brief severe downturn, but soon began a rapid recovery that continued for a long time. Surely the Argentine example suggests that default is a great idea; the case against Greek default must be that this country is different (which, to be fair, is arguable).
I was really struck by the person who said that Argentina is no longer considered a serious country; shouldn’t that be a Serious country? And in Argentina, as elsewhere, being Serious was a disaster.
Esto es lo que opinó Paul Krugman,premio Nobel de Economía 2008, cuando supo que Jaime Abut, titular de una sociedad de Bolsa rosarina y vocal del consejo directivo de IDEA aseguró que “Defaultear no es gratuito. Hay que pagar las consecuencias, y hay que hacerlo por un largo tiempo. Argentina ya no es considerado un país serio”.El gráfico figura en el artículo que puede encontrarse en el blog de Paul Krugman:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/dont-cry-for-argentina/
