Argentina Can’t Escape Its Economic Curse
The 1890 Barings Crisis was the biggest sovereign debt meltdown of the century—and history just keeps repeating itself.
The Water Palace in Buenos Aires.
Photographer: Sarah Pabst/BloombergWhen it was commissioned in the 1870s, the Renaissance-style building chosen to house a water treatment plant in Buenos Aires was meant to project Argentina’s emergence on the world stage.
By the time it finally opened two decades later, the Palace of Running Water was a symbol of spent ambition. With its imported European terracotta tiles and stained glass windows, the waterworks illustrated the excesses that had wrecked the Argentine economy and almost brought down the global financial system.