It's worth reading Blonds in revolt by Greg Palast. More than one crisis is blighting the international system and the Bush administration's oily fingers seem to be everywhere you look.

Comparing the economies of Argentina and Venezuela is instructive. There is no policy advocated by the Washington consensus that Argentina has not followed. Why then is the Argentine economy a shambles and their standard of living an outrage? At what point will the economic rationalists stop behaving like public relations hacks and start speaking about the need to scrap the Washington consensus and start again?