"The value in savings accounts dropped in half and neither merchants nor consumers knew how to react because they had never been through something like it before?"

This is how an American business executive described living through Mexico's devaluation of the peso exactly 38 years ago on September 1, 1976.

Looking back, it was so obvious.

Mexico had a mounting debt, destructive policies, and a woefully unsustainable fixed exchange rate with the US dollar. All the writing was on the wall.

But most people ignored the warning signs and kept their money in pesos.

Mexican President Luis Echevarria even went out on the radio to reassure people that the currency was safe.