Paying only the interest on the loan is not enough to avoid Argentina entering into default -- a move that relegates it to a club of debt deadbeats that includes Iraq and Zimbabwe. -- from the NY Times, showing extreme callousness to one of the largest victims of globalization to date. Argentina has repeatedly swallowed the painful medicine prescribed by the World Bank, the IMF, and the US government (pretending for the moment that there is some difference between the three), only to find itself in its worst economic crisis yet. And the supposedly liberal "newspaper of record" chides it for being a "debt deadbeat," and not on the editorial page, either. And I wonder why Iraq might have defaulted. Could it be that the world's most powerful country has bombed, blockaded and threatened it for twelve years running?

As was the case I discussed on Monday about Bush's "serving during the Vietnam war", the nasty little sentence I quoted above ended the Times' article. Were these sentences perhaps tacked on by editors? Who suffers if Argentina pays off the debt? Millions of Argentines. Who suffers if they don't? Huge transnational banks. Whose side is the Times on? Reread the quote above.