In Argentina, they’re calling it “The Cordoba Effect” – Police are walking off the job on strike, and mobs are running wild, looting stores and businesses.  At least five people are dead and hundreds are injured as violence infects 19 of Argentina’s 23 provinces.

Here’s how it looked in Concordia, where one person was killed in the melee.  

How it started:  Last week in the city of Cordoba, cops went on strike and people beaten down by years of a lackluster economy formed and attacked supermarkets and storefronts, as well as beat people in the streets.  The regional governor had no choice but to double the officers’ pay to get them back on the job to restore order.

But that planted a seed in the thoughts of police throughout the country.  Like the general populace cops have been struggling for years in a lackluster economy.  They’re earning base salaries of about A$1,000 per month.  With consumer prices rising at more than 25 percent a year, the idea of going on strike for raises of 50 to 100 percent doesn’t seem like a rash act.

Most Buenos Aires officers agreed to a raise that brought entry-level salaries up to 8,570 pesos, or A$1500.  The deal comes just in time for Tuesday’s 30th anniversary of the swearing-in of President Raul Alfonsin, which makes the end of Argentina's 1976 – 1983 dictatorship.  But outside the capital, thousands of homes and stores have been robbed in what the Fernandez government’s cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich calls “treason” designed to create chaos on the day Argentina should be celebrating three decades of democracy.