Specter of Default Stalks Argentina

For Dominga Kanaza, it wasn’t the soaring inflation or the weeklong blackouts or even the fear that looting would spread from the outskirts of Buenos Aires that frayed her nerves. It was all of them combined. At one point, the shop owner refused to open the shutters protecting her corner grocery more than a few inches—just enough to sell soda to passersby on a sweltering summer day.

“It was scary,” says Kanaza as she yells out prices to customers. The looting broke out days earlier after police went on strike in the nearby province of Cordoba. The walkout left Cordoba to criminals, who spread mayhem all the way to Buenos Aires. Kanaza says it was like nothing she had seen since the rioting that followed the nation’s record $95 billion bond default in 2001.