David Roche Says Easy Credit Fueled the Financial Crisis in Eastern Europe - WSJ.com

As a rule, middle-class societies newly liberated from dictatorship generally go on a credit binge that ends in tears. It's like giving a released prisoner a limitless credit card -- a spending spree is sure to ensue. That's what happened in Asia and Latin America in the past, and what more recently happened in the former "Eastern Bloc" nations of Europe.

Unlike past examples, however, the credit binge in Eastern Europe has been in foreign currencies, with Western European banks or their subsidiaries extending most of the foreign.....