The Buenos Aires outlet of burger behemoth McDonald’s is preparing to accept one-year bonds in payment for food, as a cash crisis grips the Argentine economy tighter with the continued lack of conclusion to talks between the country and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The bonds, nicknamed patacones after a currency that became defunct 120 years ago, will be issued as part-payment of wages for the 150,000 state workers in Buenos Aires who earn more than US$740 a month.


Many workers are concerned that the recently minted bonds will prove worthless in a year’s time however, as the government risks a return of the 1980s hyperinflation that was only solved with the 1991 creation of a currency board linking every peso to the US dollar.


Printing an extra US$90bn cash for Buenos Aires cash machines only raises questions over the future of the currency board


McDonald’s has launched a special new meal deal called the “Patacombo”, consisting of two cheeseburgers, French fries and a drink.







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