If debtors prisons were still in fashion, many countries around the world would now be in jail. Poland, Rumania, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico—all recently have found themselves teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, unable to pay even the interest on the money they owe to Western governments and banks. And the list keeps growing longer. Over the last year nearly three dozen Third World and East European nations have fallen into arrears' on their foreign loans. Never before have so many countries come so close to default on so much debt.