Across the world, countries are grappling with rising inflation on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global insecurity created by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In Australia, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 6.1 per cent over the past year, sparking real concern and forcing the Reserve Bank to push interests rates up faster than they have for nearly 30 years.
Meanwhile, in Argentina inflation is expected to hit 95 per cent by the end of 2022, leading demonstrators to march through the streets of Buenos Aires holding a mock funeral for the "death" of wages.
As the inflation rate rises, the buying power of money — referred to as real wages — plummets.
Argentina's national statistics institute puts the country's average monthly minimum wage at about $487 and the cost of basic groceries for a family of four at nearly $1,193.
Argentina and Australia were comparable countries at the turn of the 20th century, Mariano Kulish, a professor of macro-economics at the University of Sydney's School of Economics, told the ABC.
"Argentina was, in fact, very successful for a long time. It was one of the top economies in the world," Dr Kulish said.
But government corruption and mismanagement led to a steep economic decline, worsened by a succession of military juntas and a prolonged period of state terrorism throughout the mid-1970s and early 1980s.
'Renting here is hell'
Melanie Bairo has lived her entire life in Bueno Aires.
The 28-year-old art authenticator describes herself as middle class, and like many in Argentina she has spent her life adapting to the mercurial economy.
She said salaries did not maintain their value, and that little was being done to alleviate the strain, particularly for renters.
"A lot of people are trying to move to remote jobs with foreign companies because that's pretty much the only way to make your money last," Ms Bairo said.
"It's cheap to live here if you have an American salary — but if you have an Argentine salary, you're absolutely screwed."
A sizeable portion of the capital city's population are now in an increasingly precarious position.
According to a 2018 report from the Housing Institute of Buenos Aires, 35 per cent of residents were renters.
Just getting into an apartment in the city was difficult, as landlords wanted proof of stable income from potential renters, Ms Bairo said.
That was nearly impossible for a lot of people as they worked freelance or "under the table" to avoid paying mounting taxes, she said.
Meanwhile, property owners were trying to make more money by renting to foreigners.
Ms Bairo said she had non-Argentine friends who had been asked to pay rents comparable to places like New York.
While the government has been working to fix price-gouging in the rental market, they are yet to come up with a solution.
Ms Bairo recalled a phrase learned from one of her Australian clients to sum up her frustrations with the government: "They couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery."
'We don't have stable enough regimes'
According to Dr Kulish, who previously worked with the RBA, there is a key difference between Australia and Argentina.
In Australia, an abundance of technical staff in the government has given it a stable framework to develop and implement new policy — something Argentina lacks.
In Argentina, the government always seemed to be working from scratch whenever new problems arose, which Dr Kulish said was a key challenge.
Previous administrations funnelled resources to focus on fixing particular economic issues — like inflation — leaving the government scrambling when other problems arose.
"You need trained staff and a lot of human capital to be able to implement [a new idea] successfully. But then from the public's perspective, it looks as if every recipe fails in Argentina," Dr Kulish said.
"It doesn't work in Argentina because we don't have stable enough regimes or institutions for some of the policies to bear their fruits."
Familiar breaking points
In 1989, hyperinflation in Argentina peaked at 5,000 per cent.
In a 1991 bid to stabilise the economy, the Argentinian government devised a plan to pin the value of the peso at an equal exchange rate to the US dollar.
The economy shrank in response and the ensuing recession led to a crisis in 2001, after citizens were unable to withdraw their money from banks.
The memory of the violent protests and shattered economy that followed haunts Argentina today.
Though he does not believe things are as bad as they were in 1989, Dr Kulish said there was mounting cause for concern.
Argentina's inflation rate is expected to hit 95 per cent by the end of the year, at which point, he said, the entire economy would start to fall apart.
"This is even worse in countries that have experienced very high inflation in the past because there are a lot of mechanisms that people use to protect themselves from inflation — like running to the US dollar — that in Argentina, people are very fast to respond to," Dr Kulish said.
Argentina's lingering attachment to the USD, viewed largely as a stable currency traded at both official and informal rates, has complicated matters further.
The parallel markets tend to drive the conversion rate higher as Argentines abandon the peso, in turn feeding into the runaway inflation.
"It's like a hot potato where someone's got to hold the money," Dr Kulish said.
"You would want to get rid of money, but the only way you can do that is by giving it to someone else."
Those that have bank accounts, or the very wealthy in Argentina who can keep their money offshore in the US or Uruguay, benefit from the chaos of the exchange rates and the stability of the USD.
For the country's poor, however, who are paid in pesos, the collapse of real wages means their monthly salary is worth less and less as the buying power of each peso plummets.
Dr Kulish said he would not be surprised if things "blow up", but it was difficult to tell when exactly that could happen.
No faith in politics
Despite its history of economic turmoil, the promise that Argentina would do well in the future has been powerful enough to drive continuous international investment and aid from the International Monetary Fund.
That optimism could benefit the economy again, but Dr Kulish was not sure if it would help long-term.
"I think Argentina will be better off if no-one ever lends anything else to them and they have to live within their means," he said.
For now, Argentines adapting to the challenges of inflation are having to make difficult choices between the present and the future.
"My computer is eight years old and it's my main working tool. I should be saving for a new computer," Ms Bairo said.
"It's a priority, but I have to look after my mum. I have pets. It's not something I can afford to do because it's so expensive."
Though the government continues to look for a way out of the cycle of runaway inflation, Ms Bairo does not have much faith in politics.
"It's like a relationship — you have to create trust, and it's not happening," she said.
