Global financial crisis: Lehman's third act won't play in emerging markets

The global meltdown didn't happen. Demographics mean it's unwise to bet on one now

It was supposed to be a play in three acts. Wall Street banks and the U.S. economy took the first blow from the Lehman crisis. Next, the epicenter of trouble moved to Europe, causing a run on sovereign debt. The overhang of global borrowing was then going to culminate in a big emerging-market fiasco, caused perhaps by a disorderly unwinding of China’s post-Lehman credit bubble.

That denouement never materialized for an underappreciated reason: The forces that hastened Lehman’s demise have steadied emerging markets ever since.

A Longer View

Discussions about the origins of the pre-Lehman exuberance focus too much on