External Debt Museum

The Museo de la Deuda Externa occupies a few basement rooms inside the economics faculty of UBA, the Universisdad de Buenos Aires. The museum tells the story of Argentina's foreign debt, from its miniscule beginnings, through it's growth in the 1970s under the military dictatorship and to its crushing peak prior to the 2001 default. There are a lot of clever exhibits like the one above where a metal guard used by banks to protect themselves against angry savers who's accounts had been frozen is wrapped around a TV showing former president Fernando De La Rua's speech declaring martial law--the incident that sparked the cacerolazo, riots and sacking of supermarkets that lead to his resignation, the devaluation and the default on their foreign debt. The photos below illustrate with statuettes of San Cayetano, the patron saint of work, the growth of unemployment during the supposedly go-go years of the 1990s.

It's telling that Clarin, Buenos Aires' mass-market daily newspaper will run stories on page 1 of the business section analyzing Argentina's sovereign debt risk and credit default swap spreads. Until two weeks ago such knowledge of the workings of credit and derivatives markets by the general population in the US and Europe would have been unthinkable.

The museum is located on Uriburu 763 and is open Monday to Friday 3:30-8pm and Saturdays 11am-8pm.