Valuuttarahaston asiantuntijat povasivat omissa ennusteissaan velkasaneerauksen koituvan Argentiinalle katastrofiksi, mutta todellisuudessa maan talous palasi kasvu-uralle vain puolisen vuotta velkasaneerauksen jälkeen. Sen jälkeen Argentiinan talous onkin kasvanut noin neljäkymmentä prosenttia kiinteillä hinnoilla laskettuna. Voisi kuvitella, että Kansainvälinen valuuttarahasto olisi ottanut opikseen viimeistään Argentiinan velkasaneerauksen jälkeen — vaan ei. Nyt valuuttarahasto on tyrkyttämässä kerta toisensa jälkeen epäonnistunutta talouspoliittista keinovalikoimaansa euroalueen kriisimaille, ja vieläpä EU:n suosiollisella avustuksella. Ja jo tässä vaiheessa on selvää, että seuraukset tulevat tavalliseen tapaan olemaan kansalaisten hyvinvoinnin kannalta tuhoisat. -Kirjoittaja on kauppatieteiden tohtori ja Åbo Akademin taloustieteen tutkija

Läntistä demokratiaa levitetään nykyään myös Eurooppaan.

Suomeen viitataan rikkaana luotonantajana joita ilman pankit tekisivät tappiota. Muistappa se kun päättäjät alkavat leikkaamaan.

It’s been an unsettling weekend in China, with major riots in Hubei and Guangzhou. State media is also reporting a bomb blast outside municipal office buildings in Tianjin on Friday

Tällä kertaa mielenilmaus on kasvanut poikkeuksellisiin mittakaavoihin ja uutistoimisto Xinhuan mukaan mielenosoittajat ryhtyivät jo perjantaina pommittamaan valtion rakennuksia pulloilla ja tiiliskivillä. Viime yönä kymmenettuhannet mielenosoittajat kokoontuivat keskeiselle tieliittymälle ja sytyttivät silminnäkijöiden mukaan kymmeniä hälytysajoneuvoja palamaan.

What happens when Greece defaults. Here are a few things:

• Every bank in Greece will instantly go insolvent.
• The Greek government will nationalise every bank in Greece.
• The Greek government will forbid withdrawals from Greek banks.
• To prevent Greek depositors from rioting on the streets, Argentina-2002-style (when the Argentinian president had to flee by helicopter from the roof of the presidential palace to evade a mob of such depositors), the Greek government will declare a curfew, perhaps even general martial law. …

Spain isn’t on the point of revolution, any more than Ireland, or even Greece. But a situation in which the young feel excluded by existing political structures is not a sustainable one. Looking around Europe, it is hard to find countries in which you couldn’t see the similarities. To claim that we in the West should congratulate ourselves on an Arab Spring which looks to us as its example is just to misunderstand its nature and our response.

The protesters in the Arab squares are demonstrating against autocracy and corruption. The demonstrators in Spain are saying the same about their democratic structures.

We made a distastrous tactical error when we decided to choose the interests of the bankers over the people. Europe does not have to take that same route. We have not admitted that the system is flawed and in dire need of restructuring. And the result is that the world’s largest economy has an economic “recovery” with a laughable 9% unemployment rate and an economic strategy that is based on the same gimmicks that helped cause the crisis. Europe needs to recognize what the markets are telling these leaders that there is a structural flaw at work here. And it needs to be fixed.

The Saudi regime is under siege. To the west, its heaviest regional ally, the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, has been ousted. To its north, Syria and Jordan are gripped by a wave of protests which shows no sign of receding. On its southern border, unrest in Yemen and Oman rages on. And troops have been dispatched to Bahrain to salvage its influence over the tiny kingdom exerted through the Khalifa clan, and prevent the contagion from spreading to Saudi Arabia’s turbulent eastern provinces, the repository of both its biggest oil reserves and largest Shia population.

Hälytyssireeni soi ja Keratean kaupunginjohtaja pyytää kaupunkilaisia puolustautumaan. Valtion poliisi hyökkää.

You don’t hear much about the insolvent island any more – apart from occasions such as this weekend, when Icelandic voters were asked to repay the £3.5bn owing on collapsed bank Icesave, and replied with a firm “Nei”. Unnoticed it may be, but Reykjavik now serves as a very different kind of parable, of how to minimise the misery of financial collapse by ignoring economic orthodoxy. And in those other broke European economies – from Dublin to Athens to Lisbon – politicians and voters are starting to pay attention. After its three biggest banks – 85% of the country’s financial system – failed in the same week, Iceland did two remarkable things. First, it let the banks go under: foreign financiers who had lent to Reykjavik institutions at their own risk didn’t get a single krona back. Second, officials imposed capital controls, making it harder for hot-money merchants to pull their cash out of the country.

Jos johonkin on voinut eurooppalaisen rahakriisin aikana luottaa, niin se on ollut kaiken uutisoinnin paikkaansa pitämättömyys ja maamme hallituksen lausuntojen valheellisuus. Eurooppalaisen poliittisen koneiston tekemät laittomat päätökset on sen sijaan voinut etukäteen lukea maailman johtavien talouslehtien sivuilta. Hallitus jatkaa itsepintaisesti samalla linjalla kuin aiemminkin. Nyt meille lupaillaan, että Portugal on se vihon viimeinen pelastettava. Samaan aikaan kansainvälisestä mediasta voi lukea jo seuraavat kohteet takauksille: Espanja, Italia ja mahdollisesti Ranska.

“Generations believed we could do nothing,” she said, “and now, in a matter of weeks, we know that we can.” It is a new model for the Middle East, not only because the young people are taking the lead, but because their elders have started to listen and follow. “The youth, we were afraid of, but we have come to see the youth are moving the region,” said Mustafa Rawashdeh, a former headmaster at a school in Karak, Jordan, who was fired after trying to form a teachers’ union. “Young people saw the winds of change and drove us.” And then Colonel Qaddafi’s forces opened fire, followed by King Hamad’s crackdown. The young activists’ idealism has been challenged by the bitter reality of repression, leaving them dispirited but resolute.

Rageh Omaar of AlJazeera examines how the death of a street vendor led to a wave of uprisings across Arab world.