S. American leaders blame financial crisis on US irresponsibility

Four of South America’s leaders meeting in the Amazon accused the United States on Tuesday of "irresponsibility" in its handling of a financial crisis that has dried up credit markets and threatens economies around the world.

Brazil’s Lula da Silva said that rich nations are responsible for the global financial crisis, and called on the US Congress to pass a solution quickly. Emerging markets, including Brazil, are better prepared to weather the crisis than the US, he said. “We did our homework and they didn't”' Lula said. “Those that spent the last three decades telling us what to do didn't do what they had to do. The crisis is very serious and so profound that we don't know how big it is”.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned the crisis could slow economic growth across Latinamerica and predicted that US economic power is in dramatic decline."This crash of capitalism and of neo-liberalism will be worse than that of 1929," Chavez told reporters at the Manaus city meeting. “No country can say it won't be affected''.

Oil prices should stabilize between 80 and 95 US dollars a barrel said Chavez who added that the credit crisis in the US will likely make it more difficult to obtain financing in Latinamerica.

The crisis has already started to hurt lending in Brazil, revealed Altamir Lopes, head of the economic research department for Brazil's central bank said last week. External funding for corporate loans dropped in the first two weeks of September compared with a month earlier, he added. "The world will never be the same after this crisis. A new world has to emerge, and it's a multi-polar world," he said. "We are decoupling from the wagon of death".

Many Latin American countries depend heavily on exports of commodities, such as oil, soy, copper and bananas, and falling prices combined with tighter credit are raising fears of a sharp slowdown. With world money markets in trouble, policymakers are hoping the US Congress will quickly revive and approve a 700 billion US dollars rescue package that would allow the US Treasury to buy up bad debt from struggling banks. But Bolivian President Evo Morales, who is a close ally of Venezuela's Chavez and has nationalized the natural gas industry as part of his socialist reforms, criticized the US plan as a bail-out for the rich.

"In Bolivia, we nationalized for the people to have money, while the United States wants to nationalize debt and a crisis of the wealthy," Morales said.

Ecuador’s Rafael Correa fresh from Sunday’s overwhelming victory in the constitutional referendum said speculation and the Wall Street casino economy were to blame for the current global crisis and vindicated his government’s growing role in the country’s economy.