The South American Economic Crisis is the economic disturbances which have developed in 2002 in the South American countries of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.
The Argentinian economy was suffering from sustained deficit spending and an extremely high debt overhang, and one of its attempted reforms included fixing its exchange rates to the US dollar. When Brazil, as its largest neighbor and trading partner, devalued its own currency in 1999, the Argentinian peg to the US dollar prevented it from matching ever part of that devaluation, leaving its tradeable goods to be less competitive with Brazilian exports.
Along with a trade imbalance and balance of payment problem, its need for credit to finance its budget deficits made Argentina's economy vulnerable to economic crisis and instability. In 1999 the economy of Argentina shrank by 3.4%, the same happened in the following years with GDP declining 0.8% in 2000, some 4.4% in 2001 and 10.9% in 2002. One year before, in Brazil, low water level in hydroelectric plants combined with a lack of long-term investment in energy security forced the country to do an energy rationing program which negativelly affected the national economy.
Famous quotes containing the words south american, south, american, economic and/or crisis:
“Indeed, I believe that in the future, when we shall have seized again, as we will seize if we are true to ourselves, our own fair part of commerce upon the sea, and when we shall have again our appropriate share of South American trade, that these railroads from St. Louis, touching deep harbors on the gulf, and communicating there with lines of steamships, shall touch the ports of South America and bring their tribute to you.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“My course is a firm assertion and maintenance of the rights of the colored people of the South according to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, coupled with a readiness to recognize all Southern people, without regard to past political conduct, who will now go with me heartily and in good faith in support of these principles.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“It isn’t the oceans which cut us off from the world—it’s the American way of looking at things.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“If in the earlier part of the century, middle-class children suffered from overattentive mothers, from being “mother’s only accomplishment,” today’s children may suffer from an underestimation of their needs. Our idea of what a child needs in each case reflects what parents need. The child’s needs are thus a cultural football in an economic and marital game.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“... what’s been building since the 1980’s is a new kind of social Darwinism that blames poverty and crime and the crisis of our youth on a breakdown of the family. That’s what will last after this flurry on family values.”
—Stephanie Coontz (b. 1944)