<p>Argentina is worth studying — not only for tango divas like Silvana Deluigi, but for pointers about how not to run a national economy and political system.</p>

This isnt going to be a column about American ignorance of geography and history, although there are many irresistibly amusing and/or ghastly examples:

A tired President Obama said in 2008 that he had campaigned in 57 states. He also asserted Hawaii is in Asia.

After the Chicago Tribune called him ignorant and an anarchist, industrialist Henry Ford successfully sued for libel in the 1920s but revealed during legal depositions that he thought the American Revolution was fought in 1812 and that Benedict Arnold was famous for being an author. The jury awarded Ford 6 cents in damages instead of the $1 million he demanded. (For more on this, see Bill Brysons marvelous One Summer: America, 1927.)

After Chechen-American radicals bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013, there was an outpouring of U.S. vitriol against the Czech Republic and Czechoslovakia. The latter ceased to exist in 1993 and the Czech Republic is 2,000 miles from Chechnya, which is a small southern Russian colony. The Czech ambassador had to issue an official statement highlighting this fact.

During ongoing furor over Russian interference in the Ukraine, a nationwide survey of 2,066 Americans asked them to locate the nearly Texas-size Eastern European nation on a world map. Only 16 percent got it right, but the real horror comes from seeing just how appallingly wrong many respondents were. A bunch think the Ukraine is in Alaska, Canada, Greenland or Africa. Eight survey participants confused it with Brazil. Five think it is within the borders of the lower 48 states. Unsurprisingly, our fellow citizens who think the Ukraine is somewhere other than on Russias western border are much more likely to favor U.S. intervention. Heck, Id be for intervention, too, if I thought the Russians were invading Australia or Argentina as believed by three of our fellow citizens who participated in the survey.

I set out to write a column about Argentinas loss to Germany in the World Cup, but then began wondering whether it would be necessary to explain where Argentina is and why anyone should care. A passion of mine, I could write a 20-page essay off the top of my head about this lovable mess of a nation at the bottom of South America but few readers would sit still for such a demonstration of my obsessive-compulsive fascination with Argentine wine, women and song. (Check out Silvana Deluigi on YouTube for a clue to my interest for example tinyurl.com/mks8moe)

Very briefly, Argentina is a huge contributor to its own problems. Being the offspring of Spain and Italy, it exemplifies many of its parents worst political and economic attributes. And yet it also clearly is the victim of predatory international lending practices, while the U.S. and other Western democracies largely sat on the sidelines and allowed a repressive dictatorship to conduct an internal Dirty War against political opponents in the 1980s.

Argentina is also worth studying to see how powerful countries can submerge into hard times. From being the seventh wealthiest nation a century ago, it now is about 26th and barely solvent. On top of disappointment about its now-dashed hopes for the World Cup, Argentinas currency is quivering on the edge of collapse. Its young, educated people are emigrating quick as crickets.

Writing in the Buenos Aires Herald, BAs venerable English-language newspaper to which I long subscribed, an economist this month blames his countrys decline on a sort of vampirish populism. Successive governments from every point on the political spectrum have placated voters with short-term, feel-good fixes instead of working on fundamental issues like fostering a high-quality education system, rational courts or investing in national assets that lay the groundwork for future wealth creation.

Missing from the market are cars, new construction, meat, motorcycles, medicine, flour, sugar, spare parts, etc., the Argentine observes. The only remaining thing to buy is a television set on which to watch the World Cup, on the official channel, of course. Circuses we have, too bad the bread disappeared!

The U.S. remains, thankfully, far from this level of dysfunction. But were not immune. All the imaginary money created in the past half dozen years to stave off a depression eventually will give us quite a case of indigestion. Theres no substitute for actual hard work when it comes to sustaining personal and national wealth.

Finally, back on the topic of national ignorance and self-deception, I commend to your attention the writings of international traveler extraordinaire Francis Tapon, including Defending American Ignorance at tinyurl.com/d6xhwtx

People who live in big countries can spend their whole lives there and not get bored. Its not that were more stupid or have a bad education system (although both of these may be true), but its primarily because learning about a big country is complex enough, Tapon writes.

Its true: Americans are ignorant about many things. However, Europeans are hardly much better and sometimes their provincialism makes them worse.

M.S.W.

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Matt Winters is editor of the Chinook Observer and Coast River Business Journal.