When Mauricio Macri became president of Argentina in December 2015, he inherited "an economy on the brink of crisis, ravaged by one of the world's highest inflation rates", says Benedict Mander in the Financial Times. So the central bank hiked interest rates, even as the government ramped up public spending, financed by foreign investors who are willing buyers of the country's high-yielding debt.
The result is that both the fiscal deficit and the current account deficit have soared to an unsustainable 10%. Hence all eyes are now on mid-term elections in October: investors are betting that the government will perform well, giving Macri scope for reforms to "cure Argentina's economic ills".
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