ARTICLE: Sell-Offs Hurting Emerging Markets, By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post, October 18, 2008; Page D01

One good thing with all this financial contagion is the deflating of all those theories that claim the East will rise on top of the West's--or more specifically, America's--financial collapse. It just doesn't work that way in a connected world.

Once in, you depend on everyone else.

Otherwise, mercantiism would work.