This shouldn't reach the levels of 2002 by any standards simply because the situation is different -- in 2001/2002 the whole Argentine economy used US dollars and the Central Bank had run out of US dollars. Now the problem is that the government is financing its debt with credit, and since the US interest rates rose, credit became more expensive, and investors turned back to the USA instead of buying Argentine bonds. It's far from ideal, but it is not caothic -- yesterday the Central Bank sold new bonds and they were oversubscribed, and the peso seems to have stabilised. Besides, over 80% of bank loans these days are in pesos or in UVAs (an inflation-based index), whereas in the 1990s 100% of the loans were in dollars.

As discussed in another thread, the peso is (still) overvalued. With the USD at 18 pesos, having dinner at an average restaurant in Buenos Aires was the same in euros than having dinner at an average restaurant in Rome, and that is ridiculous. And the cost of living was also quite expensive in international standards -- a 2L bottle of mineral water is 26 pesos at the supermarket, around 1 dollar now, but almost 1.50 dollars a few months ago.

There are cambio guys but there is no "blue" rate anymore, so going illegal doesn't have many perks. According to El Cronista, the spread between the official rate and the paralelo is less than 5%.