Special Edition: Brazil and Argentina form a currency union

Latin America's giants have come together.

The Brazilian Real and the Argentinian Peso are to be joined together in a prospective currency union - or at least a “regional unit of account".

The prospect of one of the world's most consistent debt defaulters coming together with the often chaotic Brazilian economy has been greeted by some European economists as 'a terrible idea'.

But as Philip Pilkington argues, the upsides of controlling inflation make this a very different prospect to the growth-crushing Euro.

Meanwhile, Andrew Collingwood is just as interested in what this means for US hegemony over the region. Is the so-called Monroe Doctrine dead? Or will America retaliate, if this tiny seedling eventually sprouts? Whichever way this goes, it seems that getting off the US Dollar is becoming more feasible for emerging economies.

We've ripped up the week's agenda to focus on currency unions: considered dead ten years ago, are they making an unlikely comeback?