Louis wrote that Peron >paid off Argentina's foreign debt <
Goodness! if a country isn't in debt to the US and other hard-currency
bankers, what leverage does the poor old IMF have?
Speaking of leverage, here's a quote from Krugman, in which he's describing
someone else's viewpoint:
"In effect, by opening to trade a country gave hostages to financial
markets, hostages that ensured its own credibility and therefore acted as a
protection against crisis."
Subtracting from his economy of prose but making it clear what this is about:
"In effect, by opening to [international] trade a country gave hostages to
financial markets, hostages that ensured its own credibility [to financial
institutions and markets] and therefore acted as a protection against
[foreign exchange] crisis."
(from Paul Krugman, "Crises: the Price of Globalization?," available at
http://www.kc.frb.org/publicat/sympos/2000/krugman.pdf WARNING: this paper
isn't readable to the masses).
Note that PK is arguing that globalization of finance encourages
foreign-exchange crises. This is something along the lines of what Fred &
Karlos argued in their COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, for other financial markets.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
