Untrustworthy governments can use the crisis as a smokescreen for destructive, self-serving policies that wouldn't normally fly.

News yesterday that Argentina decided to nationalize its private pensions struck me as nuts and troubling.

Leave it to Planet Money friend Simon Johnson (our economic house caller) to explain exactly why this is nuts and troubling.

Short version: untrustworthy governments can use the crisis as a smokescreen for destructive, self-serving policies that wouldn't normally fly.