Martínez de Hoz, José Alfredo

   Finance minister in Argentina during the first junta (1976–1981). A descendant of the landowning oligarchy and a leading figure in the banking industry, Martínez de Hoz reversed the economic policy of his Peronist predecessors, setting the economy on a free-market course. Like the Chicago Boys in Chile, he lowered protective barriers and opened the economy to outside competition. Implementing the new policy involved repressing organized labor, the traditional Peronist political base. Unions were intervened (placed under military control), and many of their leaders and members, labeled subversive, were disappeared. Martínez de Hoz kept the peso overvalued, ushering in a period of plata dulce (sweet money), when affluent Argentines went abroad for vacation or shopping. Many local companies, however, unable to compete with foreign imports, went bankrupt.