AND, the Hindenberg was landing at Lakehurst specifically to exchange her Hydrogen gas for Helium when the accident occurred.
In another vein, Porfi, i don't think the US is, or ever has, taken upon itself to fulfill an :altruistic" role in the International scenario of Finance.
They, and more recently, over the past 50 or so years following WWII, European nations have contributed toward financial assistance of "developing" nations through the IMF and World Bank. But we've been through that discussion many times before.
If you recall, immediately after the US$600 million commitment by the IMF, Hippo bought back the Spanish interest in the Electric sector for something like US$570 million. The IMF immediately abeyed the agreement and brought pressure against Hippo to get DR's act together financially. The DR then went on to authorize even more loans with other agencies and go deeper into debt. Now would that appear to you to be the actions of a responsible government??? Now you are attempting to place ALL the blame on the IMf for the self-imposed financial problems of the DR. At least, that is how I'm interpreting your statements. The IMF/World Bank MAY share some of the responsibility in the matter, but by no means can you place the TOTAL blame in their corner.
I'm not being an apologist for the world's lending organizations by any means, just trying to be fair in assessing the ROOT causes of the DR's financial problems without getting on a soap box to do so.
I believe that those lending agencies have every right to demand financial responsibility of a debtor nation, to demand that they show plausable solutions to effect repayment of monies loaned, to establish a reasonable repayment schedule and stick to it, or else to abrogate and default on the total, suffer the consequences and eat their crow like everyone else who have taken bankruptcy.
We both recognize that scenario is unacceptable for ANY nation to suffer. Mayhem would result. So, what is the solution??
Pointing fingers and placing blame on outside sources doesn't fill the bill regardless of the pressures of international economics. A nation either enters into the world market and adjusts it's economy to those forces, or remains isolated and faces the consequences of that action.
Let's face it, the world is driven by MONEY. If a nation wishes to be prosperous, it must participate in world trade with whatever materials it has to offer and at competitive prices. If it doesn't, it will forever remain a backwater nation and be dubbed "Third World" or "Emerging".
I still agree with you that the institutions of the IMF and World Bank have outlived their usefulness, but they're ALL the poorer nations have as a source of emergency funds until a reorganized, reoriented substitute is forthcoming.
Texas Bill