The government has faced a wave of protests
The latest board game to hit the shops in Argentina goes by the name of "Eternal Debt".
It invites players to pit their wits against the International Monetary Fund - something in which Argentina's present rulers appear to be failing.
Employing about 70 workers, the company makes a wide variety of board games.
Its owner, Raul Ruibal, would like to expand and export. But in the present climate, he says, borrowing money would be suicide.
"The market in Argentina is very weak. People are not spending because what they earn hardly covers what they need to eat," says Mr Ruibal.
"We were thinking of building a new single factory with a government credit. But the situation here is so difficult that we are frightened of getting a loan we cannot pay.
"Our objective at the moment is to stay afloat. Today, maintaining one's workers and paying their salaries is considered a success."
As in the game, debt is at the heart of Argentina's problems.
The government owes $132bn, and is still overspending. Argentina is almost bankrupt.
Devaluation fears
Other countries in similar situations have devalued their currency, but for many Argentines, that would be disastrous.
Martin Rapeport has a mortgage on his apartment, where he lives with his wife and 15-month-old baby, which like almost all mortgages in Argentina is set in
dollars.
But his salary as an auditor at the firm Price Waterhouse is in pesos.
At present, the mortgage swallows up 40% of his salary. If the peso gets devalued, it would become impossible to pay.
"I would have to sell the apartment the very next day," he says. He would almost certainly lose money because everyone else would be trying to sell at the same time.
Martin's boss at Price Waterhouse, Ricardo Silvagni, says such fears are widespead.
"People who are on payrolls these days worry about two things. One is devaluation - if they have debts in US dollars - and the other is losing their jobs," he says.
"If they lose their jobs, with the high unemployment we have in Argentina, they know that they will be unemployed for a long period of time and they will not able to pay for their loans either."
Cutting down
At the cattle market on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, farmers are also worried about a devaluation.
It was meat that made Argentina rich. But an epidemic of foot and mouth disease and the economic crisis have put many farmers into serious trouble.
Malcolm Rodman, a farmer and exporter, blames this on government overspending.
"I personally sold my flat in a rather posh side of the city, I cut down on my telephone bills, I gave back my credit cards.
"I am spending half of what I used to spend two or three years ago. But the government has to do exactly the same thing.
"The problem is the politicians have overspent. They have grossly overspent. I mean they thought they could borrow and borrow, because we have never honoured our commitments before, and they thought they were not going to honour them now. That's not the way the world works," he says.
No way out
The government is now trying to cut its costs.
It has been swapping its debt for bonds on which it will pay lower interest.
There have been repeated cuts in pensions and state salaries. But these in turn have provoked a wave of protests.
Eighty-one-year-old Alberto Bono blames corrupt politicians for the country's mess.
He says his $145 pension is not enough to live on.
He is frequently ill and, now that they are privatising the pensioners' health system, he says he cannot get treatment easily.
After four years of recession, Argentina's financial system looks close to collapse.
If that happens, the government says it will convert its currency to the dollar, rather than devalue.
But that in turn may make recovery harder.
Argentina appears to be caught in a downward spiral, with no easy way out.