Getting Back to Normal

A sign that the economic alarm bells in Mexico are quieting*: the nation will not extend the credit lines of $30 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank and $47 billion from the IMF, although a lower credit line from the IMF will remain in place. When the credit line was announced last year, there was some chatter that this was a bad decision by Carstens and a possible sign of a future meltdown (Rogelio Ramírez de la O compared it to Salinas' policies before the 1994 catastrophe), but in retrospect such worries appear to have been unfounded.

*Though not before many of us are left with permanent hearing loss.