Latin America: Stories Of The 1970s For 2009

摘要

Latin America has just Experienced six years of the high-est GDP growth it's had in more than 40 years. Because this mini-bonanza was continuing a year after the subprime meltdown began, some people believed that for the most part the Latin American nations' economic performance had become decoupled from the developed countries' economic ills. As recently as mid-September Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was saying: "People ask me about the crisis, and I answer, 'Go ask Bush. It is his crisis, not mine.'" Well, such comments are not being made anymore: The American disease has become a global pandemic. Given Latin Americas increasing integration into the global economy, it was unfounded to think that the U.S.' southern neighbors would be spared. These nations failed to acknowledge that in addition to their sounder fundamentals, the expansion they'd enjoyed since late 2002 had benefited from an unusual conjunction of positive external factors that had little to do with their domestic policies. Until a few months ago there was a buoyant demand for Latin Americas exports, exceptionally high prices in world markets for their commodities and easy credit available in international capital markets. Today the opposite is true.