Is Eastern Europe Going Down the Tubes?

Today’s lead story in The New York Times was titled, “A Rising Dollar Lifts U.S. But Adds to Crisis Abroad.” The article describes how the worldwide financial recession has led to more investment in the United States instead of less.

This is deeply ironic. The financial crisis started in the United States and spread to other countries, yet our currency seems to be benefiting from the situation.

One area described as particularly hard hit is Eastern Europe, though the article notes that, “The flow of private capital to the emerging market has dried up,” and it includes Africa as well.

In fact, the situation in Eastern Europe could be so bad that the ability of the area’s nations to even finance bailouts could completely evaporate.

And even though a similar experience occured in Asia during the 1990s, at that time the world economy was growing so there was demand for Asian exports and that could speed a recovery.

One is flabbergasted by the range of problems fostered by the current economic situation. This occurence is described as a third wave of the economic crisis, but how many more waves are there to come? And how far are we from total collapse?

I think we need to proactively attack each new wave of calamity immediately and not allow it to fester. The International Monetary Fund should receive assitance from first world countries as a direct means of maintaining investment in Eastern Europe and Africa.

Otherwise, Eastern Europe could go down the tubes for a very long time.