<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1 http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content='"MSHTML 4.71.1712.3"' name=GENERATOR> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>If you want to get pissed off, check out the new issue of The New Republic which has a few things about the crisis. </DIV> <DIV><A href="http://www.thenewrepublic.com/"><FONT color=#000000 face="" size=3>http://www.thenewrepublic.com/</A></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#000000 face="" size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>Charles Lane's TRB is a joke. "The free flow of global capital is to blame for all of this only in the sense that a lot of investors made stupid decisions to put their money into questionable businesses in these patently flawed economies. Why did so many miscalculate so badly--or so greedily? Not because of any inherent problem with the free market. Rather, the problem was that the government of the United States and the multilateral financial institutions that it largely controls made the political decision to promote, then bail out, even highly risky foreign investments in these countries. The free market says that, if you buy a huge stake in a company that fails, tough luck. But Washington and the IMF repeatedly sent a different signal: when a big emerging economy--say, Mexico--goes bust, we'll step in with the cash to make sure all the foreign investors get paid. " Nice logic. Sounds like the conservatives' critique.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The longer piece by Dani Rodrik is interesting and contains interesting contradictions and holes<FONT size=3>: "The problem with global capitalism is that it doesn't, and can't, really exist. The world is still a collection of national economies. Unless the United States adjusts policy to account for that, expect more crises like the current one. " Um, what about multinational corporations?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>I haven't read the exchange on delfation.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3>Peter</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>