Show Originally Aired: 8/7/2002 CALL 1 800-423-TALK
Contagion in Latin America
The Bovespa stock market in Sao Paulo, Brazil (AP) Email to friend
Something is wrong in Latin America. Currencies are tanking with astonishing speed, and the people are taking to the streets. At the root: what's called "financial contagion." Argentina led the way, defaulting on national debt and devaluing the currency in a collapse so profound that hungry mobs recently fought over a spilled truckload of live cattle.
Uruguay, Paraguay and, here's the big one, Brazil are worried, and that's got the Bush administration on alert, reversing philosophical course on whether or not to bailout these economies.
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil is in Latin America this week, putting a finger to the pulses, figuring out how triage should work amidst so many bleeding patients. Saving Latin America and covering our own assets down South.
