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Pending legislation could put the very livelihoods of the Argentine people at considerable risk.

A U.S. court ordered the freeze of U.S. assets owned by Argentine pension funds Oct. 29, on the heels of an announcement by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner that her administration intends to nationalize the Argentine pension fund system. The court order represents yet another roadblock for Argentina’s government as it scrambles to adjust to the slowing global economy and its own financial shortcomings.

The U.S.-spawned financial crisis has not been good news for Argentina. With high export taxes making up a large portion of government revenues, the fall of commodity prices is hitting the South American country right in the pocketbook. Argentina’s finances were already strained by rising obligations across the board.

With an increasingly heavy hand, the government has been taking larger and larger bites out of the domestic economy in an attempt to stay fiscally solvent. With high subsidies on consumer goods, pending nationalizations of the country’s two airlines (currently owned by a Spanish company) and rising debt payments, Argentina is highly unprepared to handle reduced income. The country is already isolated from the open international credit markets because of its 2002 debt default, and the tightening global capital markets only exacerbate this.