The Plutocrats will retreat behind their walled cities and ultra green properties while the rest of the world lives in squalor, crime, perpetual shortages, and pollution. And they'll keep control of the masses with their drones.
I'll take Argentina over that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_economic_crisis_(1999%E2%80%932002)#Immediate_effects
Eduardo Duhalde finally managed to stabilise the situation to a certain extent, and called for elections. On 25 May 2003 Néstor Kirchner took office as the new president. Kirchner kept Duhalde's Minister of Economy, Roberto Lavagna, in his post. Lavagna, a respected economist with centrist views, showed a considerable aptitude at managing the crisis, with the help of heterodox measures.
The economic outlook was completely different from that of the 1990s; the devalued peso made Argentine exports cheap and competitive abroad, while discouraging imports. In addition, the high price of soy in the international market produced an injection of massive amounts of foreign currency (with China becoming a major buyer of Argentina's soy products).
I'll take their huge trade surplus, thank you very much.
As a result of the administration's productive model and controlling measures (selling reserve dollars in the public market), the peso slowly revalued, reaching a 3-to-1 rate to the dollar. Agricultural exports grew and tourism returned.
The huge trade surplus ultimately caused such an inflow of dollars that the government was forced to begin intervening to keep the peso from revaluing further, which would ruin the tax collection scheme (largely based on import taxes and royalties) and discourage further reindustrialisation. The central bank started buying dollars in the local market and stocking them as reserves.
I like how their wages are also slightly outpacing inflation - unlike ours.
Argentina has managed to return to growth with surprising strength; the GDP jumped 8.8% in 2003, 9.0% in 2004, 9.2% in 2005, 8.5% in 2006 and 8.7% in 2007. Though average wages have increased 17% annually since 2002 (jumping 25% in the year to May 2008),[50] consumer prices have partly accompanied this surge; though not comparable to the levels of former crises, the inflation rate was 12.5% in 2005, 10% in 2006 and is believed by private economists to have approached 15% in 2007 and to exceed 20% during 2008[citation needed](even if the Ministry of Economy refuses to acknowledge inflation greater than 10%). This has prompted the government to increase tariffs for exporters and to pressure retailers into one price truce after another in a bid to stabilize prices, so far with little effect.
And also I like how the workers took over.
During the economic collapse, many business owners and foreign investors drew all of their money out of the Argentine economy and sent it overseas. As a result, many small and medium enterprises closed due to lack of capital, thereby exacerbating unemployment. Many workers at these enterprises, faced with a sudden loss of employment and no source of income, decided to reopen businesses on their own, without the presence of the owners and their capital, as self-managed cooperatives.[51][52]
Worker managed cooperative businesses range from ceramics factory Zanon (FaSinPat), to the four-star Hotel Bauen, to suit factory Brukman, to printing press Chilavert, and many others. In some cases, former owners sent police to remove workers out of these workplaces; this was sometimes successful but in other cases workers defended occupied workplaces against the state, the police, and the bosses.[51][53]
Argentina is not a paradise but I'd rather have the above than what we have now... much less the hell that we're headed for.
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