Argentina's continued position around the G20 table is bringing the whole institution into disrepute.
While left-liberal economists like Paul Krugman are happy to excuse away the intrinsically protectionist and damaging economic policies of the Kirchner government, the media and the public are now waking up to the debt crisis caused by Argentina and the further erosion of prosperity in the Latin American country.
Recently, Krugman has used his New York Times blog to pontificate over Brazil's oft-mentioned role as a key emerging market. Krugman wends along the path to absurdity by ignoring the recent spate of nationalizations, capital flight and attacks on the free press in Argentina and tries to make the case that the country is in better shape than Brazil. Not only is this not true, but it's a potemkin village argument, as despite Brazil's many strengths, its debt levels, real growth rate and unemployment reflect that it is not the be-all and end-all of Latin American economies. Meanwhile Cristina Kirchner and her cronies are creating a new debt crisis for young Argentines to bear the burden of while international legislators and bureaucrats have been remiss in addressing these facts.
For the sake of the country's future, Kirchner and Krugman's regressive economics must be debunked publicly. After Argentina's default in 2001, the largest in history, they have continued to ignore calls for remuneration towards their creditors and to the markets they so brazenly turned their noses up at.
Doing the math on this leads experts to believe that up until 2010, Argentina had racked up liabilities worth over $157bn. Imagine the public spending holes that could plug or the tax cuts that would buy to stimulate American and European economies.
Perhaps if you're as interested as I am in the phenomenon of why Argentina is allowed to continue its charade as a member of the G20, you'd like to come along and ask the belligerent Argentinian Ambassador about this yourself. She'll be speaking at the London School of Economics on 17 of May, discussing UK-Argentina relations. Funnily enough, the London School of Economics has one Paul Krugman listed as a 'centenary professor' of the institution. Once again the LSE, most recently noted as being used as a conduit for Muammar and Saif Gaddafi, finds itself at the heart of disrepute. But that's a matter for another day.
I suggest that unless the Argentinian Ambassador wants to see Britain leading the calls for her country being embarrassingly booted out of the G20, she should offer some sincere apologies for her recent saber-rattling over the Falklands. If not, suddenly the real international players may rightly round on Argentina and start demanding their money back.