Almost 20 years ago, as the Soviet Union tottered, I chatted with Boris Yeltsin and came to two odd conclusions: he liked to drink vodka in the mornings and had lost all his faith in communism. I never learned whether alcohol, contrary to what usually happens, cleared his mind, but it may have. He was more brilliant in his cups than sober. At that time, his main fear was that the KGB might kill him by paralyzing his heart with some special waves emitted by a secret weapon. I insisted on talking about perestroika and he went on about his fear of being assassinated. Perhaps it was understandable.

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The Current Discussion: Will the U.S. financial crisis lead to an erosion of U.S. influence comparable to the Iraq war?

Naturally, the U.S. financial crisis will decrease the relative moral and material weight of American leadership. The irresponsibility of large banking institutions, the probably criminal behavior of very important companies in the stock market, and the continued negligence of the government show that today in the U.S. unscrupulous behavior in the economic arena is not an isolated phenomenon.

This is serious, given that the U.S. is not only the most important nation in the planet, it is, as well, a sort of role model to the rest of the world. With what moral authority can the U.S. government fight against international corruption, defend transparency and preach the virtues of globalization after this shameful spectacle? There is no doubt but that this crisis will severely affect America's ability to influence the rest of the world.

The Current Discussion: The U.S. will lift travel restrictions on Cuba, but leave the larger trade embargo in place. Is that a smart move? Does it go far enough? Too far?

President Obama has done well by eliminating the restrictions on Cuban-Americans' travel to the island and on the remittances they can send. It is an intelligent political gesture that indicates that Washington would look with interest on a response from the Cuban government that contained some measure of aperture.

Those restrictions had been imposed upon the Cuban dictatorship in 2004 after the repressive spasm of spring 2003, when 75 peaceful dissidents were imprisoned and sentenced to long terms (up to 28 years) for crimes such as lending forbidden books, writing accounts about the Cuban reality in foreign newspapers, and requesting a referendum to ascertain the political preferences of society.

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The United States' economy will regain the world's confidence when its government (first Bush, now Obama) stops behaving like a banana republic.

When it behaves responsibly in fiscal affairs. When it ceases to print currency without a parallel increase in production. When it no longer interferes in the market with arbitrary rescue operations to bail out companies, like General Motors, that are condemned to disappear because of the rejection of consumers, the pigheadedness of labor unions, and the insensitive stupidity of management.

In sum, when it follows the prescriptions of the Washington Consensus that the technicians at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund used to recommend to Third World nations that had undergone financial crises. The worst kind of hypocrisy is to preach one thing and do something completely different.

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