The Week Argentina Locked Everyone's Money in the Bank

December 1, 2001. A Saturday, every bank in Argentina closed. A decree appears in the official register: from Monday, nobody may withdraw more than 250 pesos a week in cash from their own account. Nobody's money has been taken. It is simply on the other side of the glass. Within days the country has a name for it: the corralito, the little playpen. This is the story of how a ten-year-old law that fixed one peso to one dollar came apart in three weeks: why Argentines believed the peg in a way they had believed nothing for a generation, why a currency board cannot adjust, how billions left the banking system in the final days of November, why locking the cash inside the banks broke an economy that ran on cash, what the corralito taught millions of depositors about what a bank account actually is, the saucepans on the balconies, the helicopter on the roof of the Casa Rosada, five presidents in twelve days, the largest sovereign default in history, and the decree that settled savers at one rate and borrowers at another. Chapters 0:00 The decree 1:14 1991, one peso is one dollar 2:28 The cost of a currency board 3:10 The money starts to leave 3:57 The gate closes 4:23 A cash economy, locked out 5:24 What a bank account really is 6:15 December 19, state of siege 6:52 December 20, the helicopter 7:44 Five presidents in twelve days 8:20 One dollar forty 9:06 What came after Sources Ley 23.928 (Convertibility Law), March 27, 1991 Decreto 1570/2001 (the corralito decree), December 1, 2001 Ley 25.561 (Public Emergency Law, end of convertibility), January 6, 2002 Decreto 214/2002 (asymmetric pesification: deposits at 1.40, loans at 1.00), February 3, 2002 Corte Suprema de Justicia, "Smith" ruling, February 1, 2002 Corte Suprema de Justicia, "Bustos" ruling, October 26, 2004 INDEC, Encuesta Permanente de Hogares, poverty and indigence series, 2002 Paul Blustein, And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out): Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina, 2005 Michael Mussa, Argentina and the Fund: From Triumph to Tragedy, 2002 Paper Trail is a documentary channel about money, power and the decisions that changed economies. Every film follows one story and shows how it actually unfolded, told in hand-cut paper collage built from archival photographs, documents, banknotes and maps. Subscribe:    / @papertraileconomics   #EconomicHistory #Documentary