These days, Brazil is so confident about its economic standing that its leftist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, joked to an audience of Latin American businesspeople recently that he lectured President Bush on cleaning up the U.S. credit crisis (according to The Wall Street Journal). "Here's the problem, son," Mr. da Silva said he told Bush. "We've had 26 years without growing. And now that we're growing, you come along and complicate things? Settle your crisis!" White House officials said the two had discussed the economy but not exactly in those words…

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