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>From Jim Lehere NewsHour:
"MARGARET WARNER: Walter Mead, let’s expand this out to the global economy. Is this kind of volatility that we’re seeing in Russia and other emerging markets all throughout this week, is this a fact of life now for this new global interwoven economy that we’ve got?
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD, Council on Foreign Relations: I think it is. In the world economy today, it is in some ways back to where it was in the 19th century, where you had a very integrated global financial market, and a currency union, and in those days, it was common that panics in foreign countries would spread around the world, the panic of 1857 in the U.S. was really set off by the Indian mutiny. And there was another major depression in the U.S. in the 1890’s that was triggered when Argentina defaulted on loans to some British banks. After World War II, the people trying to set up a new financial system tried to create a system where capital flows were controlled and currency rates were regulated. We’ve gradually dismantled that system for a mix of very good and very bad reasons, and the result is that we now have a world economy that’s much freer than it used to be, but that turns out to be, you know, free to crash and burn, as well as free to soar to the heights. "
-- http://www.users.uswest.net/~bautiste/index.htm