The essence of Africa's crises is fundamentally it's extreme poverty.

In Asia, a lot of successful economies that had been living on their own saving, decided to open up their financial markets to international capital in the early 1990s. So here were countries doing quite well, but they decided to borrow a bit more and do even better.

The longer you wait, the less fun. If you wait until the bitter end, the whole economy can be destroyed.

The runs started in Thailand after the IMF intervened in such a dramatic way. Then the IMF came to Indonesia.

The key to ending extreme poverty is to enable the poorest of the poor to get their foot on the ladder of development. The ladder of development hovers overhead, and the poorest of the poor are stuck beneath it. They lack the minimum amount of capital necessary to get a foothold, and therefore need a boost up to the first rung.

Roosevelt talked not only about Freedom from Fear, but also Freedom from Want.

It's not so unusual to run out of someone else's currency.