| Headline: New beginning looks elusive Source: Euromoney Date: January 2002 Author: Felix Salmon Argentine
Admittedly, that decisive economic leadership had not exactly been forthcoming from Cavallo or De la Rúa. The latter had become little more than a figurehead and the former seemed hell-bent on destroying Argentina’s financial infrastructure in his attempts to avoid default and devaluation. Never mind that both had already occurred, more or less, by the time the government finally collapsed. The default really came as early as November, when the Argentine government took some $55 billion in sovereign bonds held by local banks and other domestic institutions and swapped them for lower-yielding loans. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||