[edko]

I would add to your excellent answer an anecdote about the tricks of a previous government (with mostly the same people as the current one) to hide inflation: the Secretary of Interior Commerce (a complete thug) forced McDonalds to freeze the price of the BigMac, so that Argentina would look good on the BigMac Index. The prices of all other burgers were more or less free to increase.

[notch656a]

So can you actually go in and buy the BigMac? Wouldn't price controls cause inventory of BigMac to disappear? Or does McDonalds happily sell them at a loss?

[edko]

This was more than 10 years ago. If I recall correctly, they sold the BigMac but did not advertise it (not sure if they even displayed it on the menu).