Economic Turmoil (1945-1969)

Throughout the mid twentieth century, Argentina’s economy underwent a series of “stop-and-go” growth patterns. An overgrown state sector, an unstable government, and uneven foreign investing all contributed to the inability of Argentina’s economy to maintain any kind of significant growth for more than a few years at a time.
State owned and operated companies were overstaffed with under-qualified workers. These municipal businesses were ineffective, costly, and riddled with corruption. The companies slowly sank the Argentine economy into debt with their poor business practices. This caused the value of the peso to sink and inflation to flourish forcing economics ministers to make difficult decisions to ensure that consumers could still afford goods and services.

The only way to curb the rampant inflation was to devalue the peso every few years, an unpopular move by the economics minister that typically led to their removal by the President and the President’s removal by the electorate.
In times of prosperity, when the economy was experiencing a surge of growth, foreign investors sent money into Argentina, buying many of the local businesses.
Argentina Trade Chart

However, when the Argentine economy stalled, the foreign investors who, by 1968 owned over 40 vital companies, withdrew their much-needed money. Each of these factors alone would be enough to cripple an existing economy, but together, they proved to be the major obstacle facing Argentina’s economic success.