Argentina's Central Bank hiked its benchmark interest rate to 60 percent - the highest in the world - but even that desperate measure failed to halt a sharp slide in the value of the peso, which plunged to a record low.

The peso closed at 39.2 to the US Dollar, a drop of 13 percent on Thursday.  That followed a seven percent drop the day before.  The Central Bank said that it was raising its benchmark interest rate by 15 percentage points to 60 percent in response to the deepening problems with the nation's currency.  The onerous borrowing cost will make already scarce credit even rarer, and coupled with 31 percent inflation is likely to shrink the Argentine economy.

The crisis followed conservative President Mauricio Macri's controversial decision to beg the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC to accelerate the release of the money to bolster its finances.  Going to the lender of last resort was supposed to restore the market's confidence in Argentina's finances amid high levels of government debt in dollars, which have become more expensive to pay off as the dollar strengthens.  It had the opposite effect, triggering concerns about the country's ability to pay its debts.

Macri is a pro-business free marketeer took office in 2015 promising to trim Argentina's fiscal deficit, reduce poverty and curb inflation.  But reducing regulations, slashing utility subsidies, and laying off workers didn't have the intended effect and triggered labor unrest.

His decision to beg the IMF is incredibly unpopular on the Argentine street, where bad memories linger of the IMF's role in the 2001 economic crisis - when one of every five Argentines went unemployed and millions fell into poverty.  Argentina had started to repair the damage of that era with the successful Leftist policies of President Nestor Kircher starting in 2003 and continuing with his wife Presidents Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner who left office in 2015 and was succeeded by Macri.  With the Kirchners' well-planned social investments, access to education and healthcare increased while extreme poverty decreased. 

On Monday, the Macri government will go to Washington to get further advice from the IMF to try to ease the new economic crisis.