Weren't they also doing a lot of slant drilling into Saddam's forex reserves, through repayment pressure on what I vaguely recall was a debt (Iraq to Kuwait) of some US$70 bn? Weren't the geopolitics of debt repayment somewhat to blame here?
Speaking of which, that's an eloquent column of yours, Brad, that graces my morning Business Day op-ed page here in Jo'burg. But you seem to lay the blame for Argentina's problems entirely on political populism with nary a word about Wall Street loan pushers or US Treasury Dep't policy. Given the ID tag line, it looks really self-serving, given that the debate here (even in the neolib Business Day) has gone a very long way to fingering the Fischer/Summer tag team. How'd you forget that factor?
Cheers, Patrick