Don't worry about it. Zimbabwe's in free fall. There may be some other flyspeck country with something similar (if less severe). No one else. Any country (typically, industrialized country, or major developing country such as India or China) which relies on imported petroleum (pretty much all of 'em) will see a major turnaround in 2009, because crude has dropped almost 70 per cent of its peak price. There will be noticeable drops in all commodities, other than the panic-money precious metals and such -- and those will not hold their value. By the election campaign of 2012, Obama will be taking credit for the boom that is going on at that time, the US gov't current deficit will be much smaller, tax revenues will be up (with or without a continuation of the Bush tax cuts), and the first of the postwar boom babies will be 65 in 2011, and not worried too much about their Social Security. *
thanks again Clemenza, from less than a year ago:
The Coming Oil Crash: Why Oil Prices Will Drop
Portfolio | January 2008 | John Cassidy
Posted on 12/31/2007 11:57:38 AM EST by Clemenza
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1946360/posts
Global demand for oil to plummet
Financial Times | December 9 2008 | Javier Blas, Krishna Guha
Posted on 12/09/2008 6:40:06 PM PST by Lorianne
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2145915/posts
> Global oil demand will collapse next year and commodities will not return to the highs they reached this summer in the foreseeable future, two authoritative reports said on Tuesday as they forecast a long and painful worldwide recession.