For Ordinary Argentines, Shopping Is More Interesting Than Debt Crisis
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Clark's restaurant at lunch time is filled from one richly paneled wall to the other with diamond-bedecked women and men sipping select wines -- hardly the scene to expect in a country that has teetered on the brink of default for the past six months.</br></br>"Our customers come here to be seen," says the silver-haired maitre d'. "The foreign debt doesn't matter to them."</br></br>The maitre d' may be overstating the case, but his fellow countrymen do seem singularly uninterested in the international flap over how Argentina is going to pay its $45 billion foreign debt. Up north, bankers and U.S. officials are tearing their hair over failed International Monetary Fund agreements and overdue interest charges. But down here, concern over the country's financial follies runs a poor second to everyday events in this elegant capital.</br></br>Argentina just doesn't look like a place in hock for billions of dollars. Women window-shop along the broad avenues, wrapped in furs to ward off the South American winter. The stores are stuffed with fine leather goods, designer fashions, glistening silver. Aerobics centers have waiting lists.</br></br>In an exclusive leather shop on Florida Street, a young man is buying two wallets -- very chic, very expensive. His explanation for all the high living in the midst of a huge debt crisis? "I don't feel the foreign debt, I feel 600% (annual) inflation," he says, slapping several million-peso notes on the counter. "Our money is worth less every day, so why not spend now? Things will only be more expensive tomorrow."