Will Argentina’s economy do the dead cat bounce?

In June, this column predicted that default was inevitable, whoever won the coming presidential election. The foreign currency debt dynamics that had led to the IMF’s $56 billion rescue package had become a mortal weakness. That rising debt meant that the IMF was to be the life support for an economy that would never be able to recover sufficient strength to return to the international capital markets. (Luckily for Christine Lagarde, her departure means that she will avoid mopping up after the fund’s largest ever bet collapses.