Darien Revisited

How do you calculate the damage done by the global financial crisis (GFC)? In financial terms? In human misery? Mercifully, the GFC has been crisis-light on the misery index: no 1930s-style breadlines, no fresh layers of misery for the world’s poor. But in terms of undermining the effective power and status of a polity, there has been damage to certain nations almost as severe as any seen outside a world war…