Of course, bad government policy can make matters worse, as we see in Argentina. What has probably happened in Britain is that mistaken courses have provoked a reaction that has led to their own reversal. When union power was threatening in the 1970s to make Britain the sick man of Europe, there was first the "International Monetary Fund" crisis and then the advent of Margaret Thatcher.

1. The main interest of the IMF, USA and the G7 is being able to collect the money that they loaned to us. I doubt that they are willing to put fresh money, maybe postponing maturities and interest payments if we are lucky.

2. Speed of the USA help to Turkey was not economically driven, but politically driven. Lots of muslim people leaves in Turkey and the USA needs to build some kind of support from the Arab world in its adventure to hunt Bin Laden. I strongly believe that if September 11 had not existed, Turkey would be in the same situation as Argentina. The only country that the USA is forced to support is Mexico as they share 3000 km of borders and a crisis in Mexico means millions of additional illegal immigrants.

3. I do not think the IMF is willing to provide full economic programs for two reasons: a)Previous experiences have proven pretty bad (combination of doubful advise from the IMF and disastrous implementation by our politicians) b)Read the postings in the forum and you will find plenty of people blaiming the IMF and USA for all our problems (corruption included).