From Bloomberg

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will unveil a new pension fund plan at 4 p.m. New York time today, the country's social security administration said in a statement. Fernandez will nationalize the system, giving the government control of $29 billion in retirement accounts, La Nacion reported, citing government officials it didn't identify.

Fernandez has struggled to raise cash to cover growing financing needs as the global financial crisis drives down prices on the country's commodity exports and erodes demand for higher- yielding, developing-nation debt. The government's borrowing needs will climb to $11.2 billion next year from $6.6 billion in 2007, Credit Suisse Group said in an Oct. 8 report.

``The government is explicitly saying that it has problems meeting debt maturities and this is a last ditch measure to do so,'' said Javier Salvucci, an analyst with Buenos Aires-based Silver Cloud Advisors.

Yields on the government's 8.28 percent bonds due in 2033 surged 4.35 percentage points to 24.77 percent, the highest since the country issued the debt in a 2005 restructuring, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. The bond's price sank 7.91 cents to 29 cents on the dollar, leaving it just cents above the price on defaulted securities that investors held out of the 2005 renegotiation....

Why would we expect any different?  Economic incompetence is a hallmark of Argentina, especially from this duo who have run the country the past five years.