I can. Basically, the country collapsed at first. Political instability. Companies closed. Unemployment went up... Crime raised. Big money left the country. Ca

I can. Basically, the country collapsed at first. Political instability. Companies closed. Unemployment went up... Crime raised. Big money left the country. Capital controls were imposed, but as it's predictable in this kind of situations, people with the right connections, banks and big investors, got the news before the controls were imposed. Banks closed for a few days, then, people could only extract a certain amount per week from ATMs (just enough to live). Sending money outside the country had to be authorized (and generally rejected)... Of course, they said that this would only be for a few weeks or months... (a lie) Then, they devaluated the Peso (ARS). from 1 ARS = 1 USD, to 1.4 ARS = 1 USD. Every bank account in USD was converted to ARS, with the new valuation. For a few months, they let the ARS to float freely, and it devaluated heavily. So, people who had a few months before USD deposited in their bank accounts, now had ARS that were quickly loosing its value. And they couldn't get it out of their accounts, so it was terrible for them to see their life savings evaporating, without being able to do anything. Some reports indicate that suicides, hearth attacks and strokes peaked at the time. A lot of companies, who had acquired credits (in USD) from foreign institutions during the previous years, were no longer able to pay them back, and had to close, letting lots of people unemployed. One interesting thing that appeared (from a social-experiment perspective) was the following: In some cases, the workers joined and formed cooperatives, took control of the facilities, and continued working without the approval of the former owners, distributing equally the gains of their production (it didn't matter what was the position, either manager or janitor, everybody earned the same), as a means to keep their jobs, increase morale and reduce costs. They kept paying their providers, so, from outside, those factories kept working as always. Some may argue that even better, because they were more motivated... The exchange rate reached 4 ARS = USD, and of course, inflation went up. Having the same salaries, but with prices going up quickly, a lot of people (especially the most vulnerable sectors of society) were no longer able to survive. So, reverting to the most basic form of exchange, some people started what was called "Club del Trueque" (barter clubs). People made food, pasties, handicrafts, and exchanged them with other people. Eventually, those clubs grew up, and they started using pseudo-currencies, only valid inside their own clubs, to make trading easier. Of course, the government deemed that activity illegal, because they could not collect taxes... That worked for a time (several months, the most critical), but eventually, fake pseudo-currencies started to appear. It was always suspected that the government was behind the printing of those fake papers as a means of ending that... but anyway, it ended up eroding the trust in the members of those clubs. But every Crisis can also be an opportunity: As people was not able to extract their money from their bank accounts, (and believe it or not, most real state operations here are done in cash... big piles of cash), the real state market went down. And If you happened to have money (in foreign currencies) saved in a strong box, suddenly, your money had more value. I have friends who bought their first apartment back then. Others took credit in pesos at the beginning of the crisis (before indexation), and after a few years, the can say that they bought their house for 1/5 of their current value. (because the indexation they had was much much lower than inflation). At a country level, it was a reboot. Which can be bad, and it can also be good. Having most of the indebted companies closed, new stronger companies had space to flourish. Given that now Argentina was a "NO-NO" place to invest for foreign companies, local companies had more chance to grow and expand. During the previouse years, most factories were not able to compete with Asian competitors, because of their cheaper prices. But having devaluated, and imposing imports restrictions (to avoid loosing foreign currency), factories had a new chance to increase regain the local market, with cheaper labor costs. And being defaulted and bankrupted, the country was able to renegotiate most of the debts, reducing heavily the external debt. All of this, worked for a few years. GDP Growth was high (>8). Unemployment descended. Social stability started to come back. Capital controls were relaxed. Central Bank's currency reserves went up year after year. But eventually, that fast growth ended up being poison in the long term. As new industries started to work, it turns out that we didn't have the infrastructure to support them (and what's worse, we didn't make plans and started to invest with time). Power shortages came back (something that became uncommon since the privatizations). Roads were collapsed. And our cargo train lines were almost destroyed. But the real deadly bullet came with oil. As petrol prices started to go up, transport became expensive (this is a big country, mainly connected by roads). And with our new energy requirements, (to fuel our power plants) we passed from being a net oil exporter to beign a net oil importer... And with oil imports, currency reserves started to go down again. So, here starts the story again: heavier import controls, it's harder to send money out of the country, very hard again to buy foreign currencies... but at least, this time around, it's not a financial crisis. Banks are not at risk, and people and local companies are not indebted in foreign currencies. So, it's bothersome, but not nearly as bad this time around as it was in 2001. There's simply no comparison. But of course, Argentina is not comparable with Greece. Argentina is MUCH larger (8th, vs 97th), bigger population, and lots of natural resources (gas, oil, mining, agriculture, fishing, uranium). So, if forced, Argentina can survive totally on its own. But sadly, I don't think Greece can do the same. Phew!. that was a large post...