Argentina's crisis has been heating up for a long time. So long has the country been in crisis, indeed, that the question is no longer if it may boil over, but when.

The origins of Argentina's crisis date back to decisions taken in 1991, in the fight to contain the steep inflation that marked the death throes of the military junta. In that year, Domingo Cavallo, who already held the post of Secretary of the Treasury, took the highly symbolic decision to fix the value of the peso to the dollar through a fixed exchange rate. Moreover, he executed this decision in another highly symbolic way, by setting the rate of exchange at one peso for one dollar.

As symbolism, this was fine. The new ``hard'' peso marked the end of Argentina's inflationary era, a time when the country showed itself, time and again, as incapable of controlling either its budget, its currency, its inflation or its exchange rate. This was to be the beginning of a new era, one in which a responsible, modern Argentina opened itself in a disciplined way to the United States and the world. But, as the ancient Greeks taught, the gods destroy by granting us our wishes or fulfilling them too completely. Without any doubt, Argentina's currency reform of a decade ago forms the roots of today's crisis.

The reason is almost obvious: Argentina is not the United States, and the peso is not the dollar. Argentina is a little economy of the Southern hemisphere; the US is a large and diversified economy of the Northern hemisphere. Argentina exports cows and raw materials; America exports high tech and services. Argentina trades with Brazil, America with Japan. Argentina must struggle to attract capital; America sucks in capital from all over the world. For the two countries to have the same exchange rate is a crime against logic; it proved itself also a crime against Argentina.

Until 1999, everything seemed to prove Domingo Cavallo right. Argentina's growth was fast, its inflation disappeared fast, too. Then, the inevitable boomerang occurred: a bitter combination of shocks shattered Argentina's growth: Brazil devalued its currency, the Real, by around 50%; the cost of raw materials, prime Argentine exports, fell sharply. All this, while the dollar was appreciating briskly, reflecting the boom of America's Clinton years. That combination was lethal. De facto, since 1999, growth has been negligible and Argentina has endured a thorough crisis.

This current financial crisis, which now dominates everything in Argentina, is more recent and almost tangential. Under the influence of the recession, the budget deficit has ballooned and the creditors of Argentina's government have concluded that they would not get their money back.

In reality, the budgetary situation is not so bad: despite today's recession, Argentina's budget deficit, save for interest payments, is only about 1% of GDP. The national debt-GDP ratio is less than 60 %, which is the average within the European Union.

Signor Cavallo, who returned to the Treasury Department in order to save his baby, is right when he asserts that the budgetary problems are simply not as awful as many people believe. But Argentina's creditors, fearful of default, are demanding interest rates so high (around 50 % today) that there is no hope that the government can borrow at such rates. So default no longer seems a question of ``If'' but of ``When.''

This financial crisis will probably mark the end of the Cavallo experiment, which was promoted around the world. But the main crisis still ahead for Argentina is the economic one, which itself has lasted since 1999. Finding a route out of it will not be easy, for no escape seems obvious: Argentina's debt is now expressed in dollars and, as in Asia in 1997, a devaluation will increase the weight of the debt. Argentina now has just as good a chance to make things worse as to make them better. In economics (as in most other fields of human existence), it is better to beware of symbols.