This year's World Economic Forum unanimously concluded that freedom is risky and has to be outlawed . Paul Krugman of MIT suggested a freeze on all bank deposits to shore up shaky governments in South America. Brazil is at risk not only from foreign lenders, but from anyone who can take money out of the country. Of course, the weekend conference at Davos was just another junket for bureaucrats and political poseurs, no more significant than a wreath-laying ceremony at Dunkirk. At the moment, G-7 mandarins are talking about freezing bank accounts and stepping up surveillance.
Confiscation is obviously next.
Brazil is a comic sideshow, compared to Russia and Japan. No matter who does what to whom, claiming Super 301 privilege among thieves, the trade surplus piling up in Toyko has nowhere to go but higher into the stratosphere. The tidal wave of U.S.-European multinational mergers is like a feeding frenzy on the cheap, stripping cash from a shrinking industrial pie before the lights go out. There's no way to turn 'em back on again. IMF rescue missions are an excuse to dicker.