Latin America's finance ministers are running more orthodox economic policies than their Asian counterparts. Only six of the 11 Asian countries have real interest rates, as measured by our crude calculations of subtracting short-term interest rates from inflation. In Latin America only Argentina and Venezuela, both special cases, have negative interest rates. Argentina's negative rates are the highest of any economy in the two areas. 

Such deeply negative rates point to economic problems ahead: already inflation is beginning to pick up. It is quite possible that Argentina will revert to hyper-inflation. In the late 1980s money was literally losing its value by the minute. 

China's first quarter growth is hugely impressive. The economy has now been growing at 9%-plus annual rates for over two years. Venezuela's strong growth has yet to take the economy back to the size it reached at the end of the 1990s before the recession of 2001 and 2002. 

Brazil's extravagantly high real interest rates have done little to squash inflation. Pressure on the central bank to try another policy is likely to grow.