http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/08/25/inenglish/1408977028_808376.html
Opinion polls show that Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has improved her public image at home following her legal battle in the US courts with creditors demanding immediate payment.
The same surveys suggest that Argentineans are worried that the current levels of stagflation – an economic slump coupled with 31 percent inflation – will get worse after Argentina failed to meet its payment deadlines. According to the ratings agencies, the country went into default on July 30, after a US judge ruled that Argentina first had to repay speculative funds still owed their full amounts before it could repay other creditors who accepted hefty reductions in 2005 and 2010.
Fernández de Kirchner had wanted to pay the latter first, to prevent them from demanding full payment as the hedge funds (or “vultures,” as she terms them) had done – something that they would be entitled to do under the so-called RUFO clause.
The latest move by the Argentinean president came last Tuesday, when she sent Congress a bill offering the creditors holding restructured debt to be repaid in Argentina, rather than in the US or Europe. This would serve two purposes: it would circumvent the US ruling and it would also force Argentina’s political class to face the dilemma of “nation versus vultures” she has posed.
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