[Uncle Bill]

The title should be: Bush administration sucks another $10 billion from American taxpayers via the IMF for helpless and pitiful Brazil

How do you like this compassion so far?

[dennisw]

Brazil is only the first. Economies are imploding in so many Latino nations. I never fell for the BS that free-markets down there were a cure all and going to make them better places.

They are all backsliding now back into the muck.

[WyldKard]

Praising Brazil as a model economy on a troubled continent, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said the United States would support Brazil's efforts to obtain an estimated $10 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

HA! Some model economy! If they are such a "model economy" how come they need a 10 billion dollar bailout? How come the IMF never gives US a bailout?

Geeze...I think it's time to just cut off ties to the rest of the world for a while and see how well they get along without us...

[Moonman62]

Where's Bono?

[Deuce]

Brazil's currency has been battered in recent weeks because companies...have had to buy large amounts of dollars to honor external commitments...The IMF loan... would enable Brazil to pay down debt and bolster its sagging currency.

Every poster above seems to miss the significance of what is going on...even though the article explains it all. The reaqson why we continually send money to hopelessly bankrupt LDCs, is crystal clear:

It is corporate welfare from you and me to the financial elite (Citigroup, JPMorgan, South American bureacrats, et al).

Since at least the early 1980s South America has not been able to pay it's external debts. The situation just gets worse. They now owe 3 times as much as they did then. They will NEVER be able to pay back. The crisis occurs because they can't even pay the interest. When they balk about debt service, the U.S. government/financial elite convince them to keep playing the game. (So Citigroup doesn't have to admit it's been hopelessly insolvent based on any reasonable accounting for over 20 years). You and I are taxed so Citigroup gets paid with a little left over for the LDC governmental/banking elite to stash money in Swiss bank accounts, etc. The citizens of both countries pay the price.

It's a sting operation, pure and simple. As long as people remain as much in the dark as the above posts appear to indicate, it will just keep on happening.

[fogarty]

$10 billion here, another $10 billion there. Pretty soon you're talking real money.
BTW so you all know, the taxpayer money that Bush is so generous with could have been used to fund the veterans disability pay which Bush opposed.

[RightWhale]

Brazil is the flagship South American economy. Are they in trouble? Say it ain't so.