While most Argentines are glad to see the back of Cristina Kirchner, who has presided over years of economic decline, those weren’t tears of joy they were shedding Thursday morning. The new government’s sharp devaluation of the peso may have formalized the “dolár blue” black market rate, but it also lopped tens of billions of dollars off of gross domestic product. The move caps off a stunning decline in per capita terms.
A little more than a century ago, Argentines were some of the wealthiest people on the planet by that measure, exceeding most modern European countries. As of now, the figure lies somewhere between $9,000 and $10,000 per capita. That makes Argentina worse off than neighboring and traditionally poorer Brazil, but also Gabon, Mexico and Turkey, according to World Bank data. And Argentina’s people are now a quarter poorer than those of the ex-Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, which is far from “greatest country in the world.”
Jagshemash!