It’s hard to believe now, but in the early 1980s, Argentina was perhaps the most promising and talked-about emerging market. Coming off the trauma of its Dirty War and military dictatorship, and its disastrous invasion of the Falkland Islands, democracy finally took root in 1983. Endowed with abundant natural resources, endless tracts of fertile land, and half-decent infrastructure, the then-167-year-old country projected upside to the investor community.