Seems to me if I remember, that the contract on the bonds, signed under New York State Law, stated that all parties must be paid equally, meaning that you couldn't choose to pay some bondholders and not others. Cristina refuses to pay the vulture funds - I think even if she "had enough" she still wouldn't pay them out of spite. Leave aside the question of the validity of the vulture funds specifically and think of this money as money that was owed when the original contract for the bonds was created and agreed to by Argentina. I'll get to the morality of the vulture funds in a moment.
If I owe money to someone and agree to pay the principal back plus interest, I've made a moral and legal obligation to pay that money back at the terms specified. Many times I feel a stronger moral obligation than I do legal when confronted with a problem in paying back debt - and I have had such in my life. I have been in a situation where it was a very close decision as to whether to put food in the mouth of my family or pay a debtor. I have never not paid back a debt, no matter how hard it was, or how long it took, no matter how painful it was to clear it up. And my family never went hungry. I always managed to make it work.
How? Austerity measures. Extra work. Anything it took.
If I'm trying, doing everything I can to make it work, did I get upset when a debtor gave me a hard time when I couldn't meet my payments and defaulted? Sure. Did I stamp my feet and tell the debtor to piss of then, I'm not going to pay because I don't like the fact that you want your money? Did I get pissed off when some other bank bought my mortgage from the bank I was dealing with when trying to renegotiate a payment plan with the first bank and then refuse to accept a different payment schedule? Damn right I did, but I didn't walk away from my house and tell them to f**k off, as much as I wanted to.
The thing is, Argentina doesn't really act in a moral and legal manner in many things, and everyone knows it. Argentina borrowed that money, taking the money of investors and promising to pay it back. There were a wide range of investors who risked their money on Argentina's promise. Argentina then proceeded to spend money on things that were unsustainable, that produced no new wealth, that were expenses without income. A lot of that money was lost to corruption.
The policies of the Argentine governments have been pretty piss-poor. In my opinion, they brought the collapse on themselves by irresponsible behavior and are asking the investors to pay for their mistake. The only reason 93% of the investors agreed to take the revaluation was not because they are nice people and wish Argentina all the best - it is because, pretty much like the very citizens of Argentina themselves, the Argentine government really left no choice if they had any reasonable prospect of getting any money back at all.
Now, as for the "vulture" funds and taking food from babies' mouths. I can understand how some people may feel that these guys are rat bastards. I personally don't like the idea of what they've done, but I also don't think they're all evil as some do. I don't even think they should be banned or regulated out of existence or anything like that. What they did was within the law that everyone agreed to when the contracts were signed. I honestly don't know the specifics of this and if I'm wrong, someone point it out, but I have to assume that Elliot bought the shares either before Argentina actually defaulted when it was a great possibility, maybe at or around the price that the settlers settled for, or sometime shortly afterward at a higher price than Argentina was offering, or some mix of this. People didn't know exactly what would happen and Elliot was securing those who wanted to get out that they would at least get something and he would assume the risk. He spent a lot of money to assume that risk.
Even if Elliot is the robber baron most think - Argentina owed that money to someone anyway. They contracted for it. It may be unfortunate to Argentina that someone bought the debt and refused to settle, but it isn't an excuse not to pay it, except for an entity who has no or low honor and morals, in my opinion.
Argentina borrowed the money, squandered it, then did the typical Porteño shrug, offered a giggle and said "ups" (say it with a Castellano accent). And like a taxi driver swapping out a good 100 peso note for a false one (most here should know that scam), demand the evil foreign investors cover the cost.
To me, in this situation, they are like the beggar on the street who gets mad at you because you don't give him any coins, but you've given him coins before, he swore he was getting something to eat with the money, and you see him shooting up heroin in the alley one day and you decided you weren't going to do it any more.
Who is it really who is taking money from Argentine babies' mouths and filling their own greedy pockets?
