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Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner attends a meeting with her Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez (not pictured) to sign agreements between Venezuela and Argentina, at the Argentine Embassy in Brasilia July 31, 2012.
Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner attends a meeting with her Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez (not pictured) to sign agreements between Venezuela and Argentina, at the Argentine Embassy in Brasilia July 31, 2012.
(Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

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If Argentina can’t fight hedge fund buzzards, can Greece?

While you were wondering what a Greek sovereign default might look like, an Argentinian one has been brewing in a New York court room. A U.S. District Court judge yesterday ordered that Argentina fully repay $1.3-billion to a group of hedge fund creditors which refused to accept debt restructurings that included savage haircuts. In so doing, the judge tossed a judicial grenade into the precarious matchstick palace that is Argentina’s public finances and sent the country’s bond yields soaring even above the level of Greece.