A street market in a Buenos Aires working-class neighborhood bustles with desperate Argentines who have taken to hawking their belongings to make ends meet as the economy sputters.

The market in Villa Fiorito -- the birthplace of football great Diego Maradona -- has gotten ever busier with an explosion in the number of so-called "blanket sellers" peddling household objects, items collected from the trash or goods bought with loans and displayed on blankets spread out on the pavement.

As Maradona looks on from several murals in the city that hails him as a rags-to-riches hero, locals spread out used toys and frayed backpacks, ice cube trays, thermos flasks without lids, well-paged magazines, worn clothes, even blister packs of pills.

As the smell of barbecue fires and grilling meat mix w

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