Once a byword for financial busts, Latin America has so far escaped this credit crunch unscathed. But for how much longer?
WHEN Latin Americans get together with bankers on American soil it has usually been to seek succour for their sickly economies. Yet at the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Miami this week, the relative health of the participants was reversed. Thousands of empty flats in gleaming new skyscrapers clustering around Miami's downtown hotels bear witness to the severity of the housing-market bust in South Florida. Distracted by their own losses, the investment bankers were in subdued mood or stayed away. The Latin Americans, for their part, were preening themselves over the vigour of their own economies. They hope they have “decoupled” from their giant neighbour to the north.
WHEN Latin Americans get together with bankers on American soil it has usually been to seek succour for their sickly economies. Yet at the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Miami this week, the relative health of the participants was reversed. Thousands of empty flats in gleaming new skyscrapers clustering around Miami's downtown hotels bear witness to the severity of the housing-market bust in South Florida. Distracted by their own losses, the investment bankers were in subdued mood or stayed away. The Latin Americans, for their part, were preening themselves over the vigour of their own economies. They hope they have “decoupled” from their giant neighbour to the north.
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