that was when Argentina went wrong, missing a crucial opportunity while the economy was going gangbusters to reduce its vulnerability to crisis.
constant borrowing was causing its debt load to increase, from 29 percent of gross domestic product in 1993 to 41 percent of GDP in 1998.

"If you get the money so easily as we did, it's very tough to tell the politicians, 'Don't spend more, be more prudent,' because the money was there, and they knew it,"

a vicious circle emerged: The slump caused tax revenue to fall, which widened the budget deficit, which aroused concern about the government's ability to service its debt, which caused markets to drop, which deepened the recession, and so onArgentina Didn't Fall on Its Own (washingtonpost.com): "'Argentina obviously stands as much as Enron' in showing that 'things have been done and said by our industry which were realized at the time to be wrong, to be self-serving.' "