Word: peso
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Argentines woke up one morning last week to find that, overnight, second-grade beef had shot up from 5 to 8 pesos a kilo, cigarettes from 1 peso to 1.50 for a pack of ten, cheap rum from 11 to 16 a bottle.* The rocketing prices were the result of a major overhaul of the nation's economy by the members of Argentina's Economic Council, known to Buenos Aires' harried financial community as Los Muchachos (The Boys). While observers both in Argentina and Washington thought the new measures might be sound in principle, Los Muchachos...
...less apparent but no less potent price-boosting force, especially on imported goods, was the new foreign-exchange schedule of the peso announced by Finance Minister Alfredo Gómez Morales. The most spectacular jump was in the free market rate, which went from 9 to 14.25 to the dollar. At the same time, many import restrictions were taken...
While the new exchange setup undoubtedly brought the peso's official value closer to its real worth (on the Montevideo free market it is traded at from 16½ to 17½ to the dollar), there was serious doubt in many businessmen's minds whether The Boys could achieve their overall aims. For one thing, critics pointed out, the painful rise in prices would bring on a new wave of wage increases, and accelerate Argentina's dizzying inflation. As for The Boys' hope of attracting new capital into the country, one economist summed up: "The trouble...
...peso is worth around six cents. Though the increases horrified local residents, dollar-bearing tourists still found it possible to regard beef at 25 cents a pound and rum at $1 a bottle with equanimity...
...Liberal majority in Congress, pledged to convene on the constitutional date of July 20, had bowed to a decree by Conservative President Ospina Pérez forbidding the meeting but granting the Congressmen's usual 600-peso monthly allowance. Some of the Liberals did meet-in the Hotel Granada Rose Room. Sneered El Sigh's columnist, Julio Abril: "They deliberated over a bottle of Vat 69, taking the matter not only with great calm but also with soda...