If you just read American newspapers, you might not know that financial markets around the world plunged over news that the government-owned Dubai World – upon which that emirate’s claim to economic (non-oil) leadership in the Middle East rests -- may be on the verge of collapse. I followed the Dubai story in The Financial Times, which headlined it on its web page from the early morning yesterday. Today, they have a three page spread. And what about the Washington Post? They have a short AP story on page A22. Is it a more important story than the tale of these poseurs who crashed a White House dinner, which is featured on page one? Just maybe. You have to remember that the Great Depression only became “great,” that is, global, when an obscure Austrian bank went under in 1931, and set off a massive financial explosion around Europe. Capitalism is an irrational system that is often full of unpleasant surprises. The collapse of Dubai World may turn out to be nothing. But it could also turn out be one of those unpleasant surprises.
John B. Judis is the author of The Politics of Our Time: Populism, Nationalism and Socialism and, with Ruy Teixeira, the forthcoming Where Have All the Democrats Gone?
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