Scott Kidder

By local standards Jason got bilked when he rented an apartment for a week for $500 from Apartments BA, a leading developer that has in the past decade purchased, ­largely through foreign investors, roughly half a billion dollars in properties, in cash. There is no credit in Buenos ­Aires, no loans, no mortgages. Every transaction is in cash. This is because banks here have no money to lend because they have no capital because no one in his right mind keeps much money in the bank since the government defaulted on its public debt during the 2001 financial crisis, robbing its citizens of some $93 billion. Since the latest financial crisis, short-term rentals have gone down, while month-to-month rentals are up 15 to 20 percent.