100 dollars per week is what the banks allow to withdraw in cash, to each person or to each company (imagine the problems of those who need cash for small daily expenditures like postage, tolls, meals, bus and train rides,etc.etc. ).

Aside from the cash, 5% of the people are entitled to issue checks, which will not be accepted in stores, or, if accepted, will produce delays of several days. Credit cards are widely accepted but even less people can afford them. Debit cards are mandatory, and 50% of people do use them. The other 50% survive in the informal economy in which barter is a fast growing system which alleviates the most terrible situations.

But this next week, without banks, anything is possible.

It is important to see that this disaster is not caused by a dramatic impoverishment of the whole country, but the main reason is the absolutely illegal drainage of the money which had to be secured in the Central Bank and all the banks !. We have been robbed, that's it. The PESO was convertible to the dollar, and the dollars are gone, so the PESO has lost its value.

For example, a recent hidden camera showed blatantly how a drain operation was done: the client goes to the bank and asks for a way to convert his pesos to dollars and deposit them in Brazil. The manager then proposes 1) Take his Pesos and convert them to dollar bills, 2) open an account in Brazil for the client and deposit the dollars on that account (there was no control on international transfers), 3) On the guarantee of those dollars, grant the client a loan in Pesos which is deposited at the same bank. In case of a devaluation, the client would "sacrifice" a part of those dollars to cancel the loan in Pesos. As soon as the client said that he was willing to transfer 30,000 dollars, the manager hurried up him because "I'm here for much larger transactions, Sir".

These operations were much more succesful than expected, because the dollar raised 230% because of the desperation of the thieves at the government, corporations and banks, and late stupids who formed 200 meter lines at the exchange houses to buy 200 dollars. The 20 largest companies in Argentina, including local and foreign, have "liquified" their billionaire local debts with only 30% of the capital. And now they want to leave, because business in Argentina are "no longer profitable".

How would one keep calm ?

Peter T., McGrath, anybody who may have visited Argentina could answer the question: is this a poor country ? Are its inhabitants unable to work for a living ? How comes that we deserve this chaos ?

I wish we don't win the World Cup. If we do, everybody will forget this mess and celebrate. I'd rather wish we loose for an unfair, evil penalty. Then we will have a revolution here.

Un abrazo - Andrés