Daily pressure on Castro will drive him to the psych ward or the grave. Plus, it also affects Chavez. A good two-fer.

And if Chavez insists on buying weapons from the Russians and the Chinese, we should remind him of President Monroe, most forcefully.

The dominoes keep falling.

We've been ignoring Latin America to our peril, since Reagan. Argentina and Brazil are headed by Socialists, and Argentina is playing hardball on its debts. Castro is, if anything, more popular there than he was a decade ago.

Argentina should disavow its debts.

Then no one will ever lend them another nickel and who would lend any shaky Third World nation a penny?

Argentina ran up the debt, they got the benefit of the money to prop up their corrupt social welfare state and if you and I have to pay when we run up debt so should they.

Bart:

Of course they will. There's no reason nations shouldn't declare bankruptcy, just like infdividuals.

Pretty much the entire regulatory edifice of the banking industry would take a different opinion. When an individual declares bankruptcy, the banks are out what $100,000? If Argentina declares bankruptcy, the banking system is out about $50 billion and that is not chopped liver. When banks lose a lot of money, they re-examine their credit decisions, as happened after the S & L crisis. That will happen in an Argentinian default and if Argentina defaults without penalty how long will it take Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and perhaps Italy and France to follow suit? I hope you understand what a banking system collapse would mean to post-industrial economies.

If we forgive Guinea-Bissau its debts, it's like $1.98 and not big money, so who cares? James Wolfensohn at the World Bank probably spends more in tips than it would cost. Big ticket economies are another matter.

Bart:

Of course they would--they never want to pay for their own bad decisions. Screw 'em--they're bankers.

If bankers lose, depositers lose and the insurance systems all over the world, like the FDIC, lose. As a depositer and a taxpayer, that option is not a good one.

FDIC doesn't guarantee Argentine loans.

It does guaranty the solvency of American bank deposits. If you put money in Citibank and they take a $10 billion hit on Argentine debt and have to close their doors, you get paid out of FDIC money. This would have a domino effect as nations like France where the national debt exceeds 100% of GDP would certainly opt for default, if default had no penalty. Then, you get into big money.

Don't think a massive collapse of world debt wouldn't cause a 'run on the banks' all over the world. How long would our economy withstand that?

They can write off those loans without closing their doors.

Hardly. Sure, they can write off Argentina's. But can they write off Brazil's, Mexico's, Italy's and France's too? Now we're talking trillions?

And how long would it take for demagogues all across the world to insist that they get their debts excused too? If the US could write off its 8 trillion or so of national debt, balancing the budget becomes a lot easier.

So do it.

And collapse the banking system?

If that's what it takes to liberate us from odious debt.

It must really then be possible to make your living off of subsistence agriculture in New Hampshire. Whoda thunk it?

Think the collapse of the banking system would end banking? It never has before. Banks were made to fail.