Three years after the collapse of Argentina's economy under IMF and World Bank recipes for development, the South American country's budding recovery is stunning international observers.

Photo credit: Argentinian mate - Eduardo Cesario

Defying the IMF's prescriptions, president Kirchner and his economic advisers have told creditors to get in line and wait, while building the economy from the bottom up. An excellent article in the New York Times relates the story.(Use Bugmenot to get beyond the registration barrage).

The looting of Argentina by international finance and the subsequent disintegration of its economy in December 2001 is but one example of what has been official policy of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for decades:

Indebt developing nations by granting humongous loans for projects that benefit foreign contractors rather than the local economy, collect repayments and when the entirely predictable financial trouble occur, put on the squeeze to "open the country to a market economy". Lower the wages, eliminate any social subsidies, open basic services to multinational competition and give away raw materials at fire sale prices.

John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community has blown the whistle on this practice.