Global Liars’ Poker

Drawing on sociological, economic and ethnographic literature (Lewis, 1989; Ho, 2009; Callon and Latour, 2005; Piketty, 2014), this article traces the export of the ethos of the Wall Street trader to Argentina. Examines the structural networks that connect transnational financiers with Argentine state institutions, the performativity of promises and exchanges, and the consequent informational and financial dependence.

The article concludes that Argentine sovereignty has been subordinated to global financial markets, where lies Strategic strategies, performative advertisements and narrative control replace genuine political autonomy.

Wall Street as a culture of lies: from financial deception to operator morality

Wall Street operates under an ethos where strategic deception is a professional virtue, not an anomaly. Lewis (1989) documents that Salomon Brothers traders internalized lying, exaggeration, and selective omission as essential tools. Ho (2009) expands on this perspective, emphasizing that operators construct reality through perception management, legitimizing lies as a functional moral framework. This clashes with conventional ethics, echoing Matthew 6:24: “No one can serve God and money.”

Deception functions as both risk management and symbolic representation. Fligstei (2001) demonstrates that public hype consolidates authority and shapes market behavior. Trader narratives generate tangible effects on prices and flows, demonstrating that the manipulation of perception is as important as material transactions.

Callon and Latour’s (2005) concept of performativity explains why these lies are structural; Financial instruments and models not only reflect reality, but create it. In Latin America, actors like Caputo and Bessent have exported this culture, transforming state operations into performative exercises conditioned by market expectations.

Argentina as a laboratory: from Mauricio Macri to Javier Milei

Argentina illustrates how Wall Street culture infiltrates state institutions. The Caputo-Bausili-Quirno-Daza-Werning network, composed of financiers with transnational experience, integrated Wall Street practices into the Treasury and the Central Bank. Instruments such as swaps, complex bonds and reserve management tools ensured that policy decisions prioritized international perception over domestic needs.

Quantitative evidence reveals this dependence; Public debt tripled between 2015 and 2025, exchange rates were kept artificially stabilized to favor speculative flows, and reserves fluctuated according to market manipulation. Policymakers became executors of an externally defined logic, subordinated to a culture of deception, expectation management, and performative authority.

milei macri

The Bessent Plan: Promises, Swaps and Expectation Management

In October 2025, Scott Bessent’s ads exemplified the strategic power of performative finance. Aid promises, swaps and conditional support were leveraged to generate market reactions before any actual capital transfer. Bond prices rose sharply, reserves were artificially stabilized, and funds readjusted their positions based on the perception of a bailout. The architecture of the plan -conditioned swaps, media timing and explicit political conditioning- demonstrates that strategic lies function as instruments of control. Trump and his local advisers publicly linked aid to policy enforcement, creating a performative mechanism that governed both markets and domestic politics. Ho (2009) calls this “symbolic liquidation,” the creation of economic and political effects through narrative and perception, rather than material flows.

Informational-financial dependency. When the Argentine Treasury is listed in New York

The concept of “externalized sovereignty” captures Argentina’s structural dependence. Treasury operations, reserve management, and policy announcements are increasingly determined by algorithms, rating agencies, and market narratives. Callon and Latour (2005) highlight that performativity turns these actions into reality, markets behave as if expectations themselves constituted assets.

Rating agencies, technical discourse and media amplification act as instruments of power. Decisions that were previously considered sovereign – issuance of bonds, swaps or fiscal measures – now require validation by transnational actors. Bessent’s previous announcement exemplified this; Perceived stability and aid boosted capital flows and conditioned government behavior before any actual transactions occurred.

The nation in the hands of the market

Since 2015, Argentina has been subordinated to global financial markets. Wall Street rules without physical occupationusing the perception, narrative and performativity of financial instruments. Caputo and Bessent embody the ethics of the trader without a country; Their strategic lies, mediated through swaps, bonuses and announcements, determine policy and limit sovereignty.

Ethically and politically, this is brutal; national autonomy is replaced by perception dependence, governance is conditional on market approval, and the trader’s moral framework overrides traditional notions of state responsibility. Matthew 6:24 resonates harshly: Argentina serves money, not the nation or the citizens.

The Bessent Plan and subsequent operations exemplify a structural pattern, the country functioning as a laboratory of geofinancial capture. Sovereignty is externalized, decisions are performative and strategic lying is supreme. Wall Street rules, and the Argentine State, despite its formal authority, exists as an intermediary in a global game of deception and narrative, where truth is irrelevant and perception is power.

Selected References

• Callon, M. and Latour, B. (2005). The social construction of markets. In M. Callon (Ed.), Sociology of Markets (pp. 1-50). London: Routledge.
• Fligstein, N. (2001). The architecture of markets: An economic sociology of capitalist societies of the 21st century. Princeton University Press.
• Ho, K. (2009). Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street. Duke University Press.
• Lewis, M. (1989). Liar’s Poker: Rising from the rubble of Wall Street. W. W. Norton & Company.
• Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the 21st century. Harvard University Press. • Sautu, R. (2012). Economic sociology: markets and power strategies. 21st century.
• Tigani, P. (2024). Externalized sovereignty and financial dependence: the Argentine case. Buenos Aires: Academic Editions.

Director of the Esperanza Foundation and the consulting firm Hace.com.ar. Postgraduate professor at the University of Buenos Aires and private universities. He has a master’s degree in International Economic Policy, a doctorate in Political Science and is the author of six books.