The Americas: A State of Anarchy

To judge by the headlines, Latin America's two largest nations lurch from one political crisis to another; and to judge by their falling currency, both Brazil and Argentina are in an economic mess. The headlines are true and the financial crisis is real, but people long inured to trouble develop their own saving methods of endurance, apathy or escapism. Citizens of Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro went about their affairs with a benumbed kind of ordinariness last week. Argentines flocked to the horse races at Palermo Hippodrome; Brazilians poured into Maracana Stadium for a futebol match. While they...

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