[LINK] "Argentine Businessmen Plot Government Overthrow, Fernandez Says"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Charlie Devereux reports on what sounds like an unhelpful conspiracy theory coming from the Argentine president.

Argentine businessmen, farmers and bankers are plotting the government’s downfall by hoarding crops, stockpiling cars and speculating on the peso, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said.

The government will investigate brokerages and banks operating in the blue chip currency market that threatens to destabilize the economy, Fernandez said in a speech at the presidential palace yesterday. The exchange rate for the peso on the blue chip market, where traders swap peso securities for dollar equivalents to skirt currency controls, has weakened 32 percent since a blocked payment to restructured bondholders caused Argentina to default for a second time in 13 years on July 30.

“The problem isn’t the economy or society, it’s located precisely in some economic sectors that want -- and I hope I’m wrong -- to overthrow the government and do it with foreign help,” Fernandez said.

Argentina was declared in contempt of court by U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa on Sept. 29 after refusing to abide by a ruling to pay in full a group of hedge funds led by billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp that held out from restructuring of the nation’s debt following a default in 2001.

Fernandez, who called Judge Griesa “senile” and his declaration “foolish,” has accused the litigants of orchestrating speculative attacks on the peso to pressure her into paying them an estimated $1.6 billion.

Fernandez, 61, said farmers are holding off from selling their soybean crops in the expectation that the government will have to devalue the peso. Carmakers are stockpiling cars even though there are people who want to buy them, she said.