<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4207.2601" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I want to briefly acknowledge that the conspiracy theory I tentatively advanced about Argentina's meltdown was not only wrong but eaxctly wrong. Since the fall of the currency board, Argentina has moved further away from dollarization and the prospects have dimmed noticeably for Washington-inspired regional economic schemes. What's more, Mercosur has been given a boost, at least according to today's Financial Times. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The weight of the evidence has then shifted decisively away from my conjecture that the Bush administration was abandoning Argentina in the hope that its collapse would force dollarization. Michael Pollak's hypothesis - that the IMF walked away because everyone knew there was no saving Argentina - seems to be right.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Seth</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>