The Argentine Great Depression was an economic depression in Argentina, which began in the third quarter of 1998 and lasted until the second quarter of 2002. It followed the fifteen years stagnation and a brief period of free-market reforms. The depression, which began after the Russian and Brazilian financial crises, caused widespread unemployment, riots, the fall of the government, a default on the country's foreign debt, the rise of alternative currencies and the end of the peso's fixed exchange rate to the US dollar. The economy shrank by 28 percent from 1998 to 2002. In terms of income, over 50 percent of Argentines lived below the official poverty line and 25 percent were indigent (their basic needs were unmet); seven out of ten Argentine children were poor at the depth of the crisis in 2002. By the first half of 2003, however, GDP growth had returned, surprising economists and the business media, and the economy grew by an average of 9% for five years. Argentina's GDP exceeded pre-crisis levels by 2005, and Argentine debt restructuring that year resulted in resumed payments on most of its defaulted bonds; a second debt restructuring in 2010 brought the percentage of bonds out of default to 93%, though holdout lawsuits led by vulture funds remained ongoing. Bondholders who participated in the restructuring have been paid punctually and have seen the value of their bonds rise. Argentina repaid its International Monetary Fund loans in full in 2006, but had a long dispute with the 7% of bond-holders left. In April 2016 Argentina came out of the default when the new government decided to repay the country's debt, paying the full amount to the vulture/hedge funds. Origins Argentina's many years of military dictatorship (alternating with weak, short-lived democratic governments) had already caused significant economic problems prior to the 2001 crisis, particularly during the self-styled National Reorganization Process in power from 1976 to 1983. A right-wing executive, José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, was appointed Economy Minister at the outset of the dictatorship, and a neoliberal economic platform centered around anti-labor, monetarist policies of financial liberalization was introduced. Budget deficits jumped to 15% of GDP as the country went into debt for the state takeover of over $15 billion in private debts as well as unfinished projects, higher defense spending, and the Falklands War. By the end of the military government in 1983, the foreign debt had ballooned