If Javier Milei, the front-runner in the campaign for the presidency, wins the election scheduled for later this year, the country’s own currency could be abolished and replaced with the US dollar.
Anecdotal stories abound of people keeping money buried in the garden, hidden in the walls or even secreted in heating systems - occasionally with disastrous consequences if there is an unexpected cold snap and the cash isn’t retrieved before it goes up in smoke.
During that time, uncontrolled price rises eroded the value of wages and made a mockery of savings, to the point where people lost faith in their own currency.
And yet the public’s hunger for dollars continues, while everyone from taxi drivers to restaurateurs happily accepts the greenback as payment for goods and services.
But showing the eternal Brazilian ability to bend the rules, they gave themselves some wiggle-room, allowing the real’s value to fluctuate, within limits, against the dollar.
And it might be easier to achieve than the idea recently mooted by the Argentine and Brazilian presidents - a common currency for the two countries, possibly to be called the “sur” or even the “gaucho”.