What happens with the Ks and the dollar is just a week continuation of harder times. This country has had inflation since 1940s, and believe it or not, apart from convertibilidad (1989-2001), the K years were the lower inflation in 60 years. So the going to the dollar thing is something with huge history behind, and yes, it is a fascination. Back in the 60s, contracts, properties, etc were made in pesos. The dollar thing began then and suddenly properties and all obeyed to dollar. In Brazil or Mexico, properties are in pesos, here in dollars, people save in dollars buy dollars, etc, so yes, given the weekeness of the peso and the continuous inflation for 60 years, we can talk of dollar fascination. Dont forget that there are almost 50% of the country that think and talk of pesos.
40% is the lowest in 60 years? You might be able to say the Nestor Kirchner Years, maybe even CFK's early years, but not the K Years.
Fascination, in English, is not probably the right word to use. Fascination usually denotes a fixation, something that is hard to move attention away from. In an over-used sense it could mean something less, but cats have a fascination with a ball of string, people can be fascinated by something that is happening in front of them, etc.
People want to have an immediate savings vehicle, even if the savings term is measured in weeks rather than months or a year or two (or more, obviously). One savings vehicle here is to buy property, or "bricks", which holds money better than pesos over any kind of long term measurement. But it takes a lot of money to buy decent property, which is why it's worth something. The lower the value of your currency, the longer it takes to save.
Rather than saving for years to have enough pesos to buy property (which can be a significantly moving target with inflation), they want something that is more easily convertible in the short term to house their savings. It's so obvious that anyone, from the poorest to at least the lower middle class, would want something they can use to keep the amount of time required to invest in something more long term as low as possible. And I sell dollars at a decent rate to poor and lower middle class people at times, when they ask for it - I know it happens, you can't tell me "poor" people don't care about dollars.
Therefore, I don't think fascination really fits for the general populace and their relation to currency, as Ben states. A want of most living beings is to live well. It is a desire that comes after basic needs are met. We don't have a fascination with this, it is a desire or a want. Some people define the end in different ways. Some are more worried about having fun, some are more worried about accumulating money and luxuries. Both are ends to fulfilling that person's wants.
People will use the vehicle that is the easiest to bring them the most stability for their savings. One of the easiest ways (not necessarily best) to save is simply to stockpile money. It is simply better to stockpile money that holds a value rather than something that loses value. The Dollar is a widely-accepted international currency and it makes sense to fall to that when the local currency doesn't hold value by quantum levels of difference.
Another desire that most people have is for stability. Pricing real estate in dollars instead of a local, fluctuating currency is sensible because it gives everyone a standard frame of reference. Stability.
But it's not a fascination - it is the free market trying to break out under extreme bending. It's human nature, which this (and most) governments tend to ignore as irrelevant. Thus cries for "patriotism" when the government is trying to force the people into things that are against their nature.
The thing about the blue dollar rate is that it's embarrassing to the government. It's a smack in the face every day at how much money (remember, ostensibly the Argentine people's money, not theirs) the government is spending, when it has little to spend, trying to keep the official rate low for various reasons (including maintaining and paying lower interest rates on bonds). Everyone (except someone with little or no understanding of things economic), including the government, knows that the blue dollar rate is a much closer reflection of reality. It is a sign waving in everyone's face saying "the value of the Peso is worse and worse every day no matter what your government says."
Getting rid of that particular "sign", which is what the government is doing, is not going to fool very many people who are not already fooled.
The fascination of the Dollar, I believe, belongs to Cristina and her government. She can't get her attention off of it for one minute because for those who understand, it helps to bare some of her prevarications (to put the situation slightly milder). She is worried about keeping going long enough to completely pass the buck to someone else. She is fascinated by controlling the Dollar's value within her country's sphere of influence, even though it is not her currency to control. She and her government have not only robbed the people through inflation and devaluation of their hard work in pesos, but has robbed them of the value of the dollar within the country (making it hard to get out as well, so not much option for the majority of people), and again their hard work turned into savings loses value thanks to her government.
As usual, she puts her problems onto others. She's the one fascinated with the Dollar, the people of Argentina are just looking for a break and can't get it.
