Oh! Canada?

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Perhaps the events of the past couple of years have just been too novel
to assimilate.

It strikes me that any one of the three big institutional crises would,
in 'ordinary times', qualify as a historical event. For those with short
memories, I am referring to the Bush/Gore deadlock, 9-11 and Enron. No
conspiracy theory could possibly do justice to the cumulative
momentousness of the three crises. Perhaps it would be an exaggeration to
say that not even apocalypticism could grasp the portent of the present
conjuncture.

These are times in which the collapse of the Argentine government and
economy are taken in stride. And yet we don't seem to notice that such
equanimity is itself profoundly alarming. The consensus on Argentina is
that the markets have already discounted the collapse. Very
funny. This implies that they have already discounted the role of the IMF
in the collapse. Very funny. As we know, Wall Street is just crammed full
of Seattle anti-globalization protestors and disciples of Joe
Stiglitz. Right, Doug?

More likely the contagion model that has been discounted by Wall Street is
analogous to O'Neill's paperback Schumpeterianism with regard to
Enron. The geniuses of capitalism are at work sorting out the winners
and losers. But it's the auditors, stupid. In Argentina's case, it isn't
just Menem or de la Rua. It took two to tango. As Arthur Andersen was to
Enron; the IMF was to Argentina. Argentina has thus NOT been discounted by
the financial markets. The other shoe hasn't dropped yet.

Tom Walker