Tunisia is fragile.There are other fragilities both farther east and farther west.
These trips are not, as The Australian claimed last week, "to better understand its strategic fragilities from the ground" – that's just lobby language.
As overseas ventures accelerate, they will help tilt Japan towards a trade deficit more often, leaving its financial system more vulnerable to the fragilities built up over decades.The risk is that Japan could become a "rentier" economy, says Martin Schulz of the Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo.
Then, booms ended in busts when bubbles of undue exuberance popped, exposing underlying economic fragilities.
Mr Greenspan's analysis of the fragilities within finance, and his specific proposals, echo today's policy consensus.
Given today's fragilities, there is a case for even looser monetary policy.
If other institutions replace banks in making loans, they could end up creating fragilities of their own.
Fiscal stimulus is a luxury few advanced economies, whose budget deficits average 6% of GDP, can afford; it is still an option in many developing economies, where deficits are a more manageable 2%.Most important, the fragilities that made emerging economies so susceptible to crisis in the past are now largely absent.
That is indeed what happened.From houses to money marketsWhen America's housing market turned, a chain reaction exposed fragilities in the financial system.
Rather than focus on the fragilities arising from growth, such as social unrest, corruption and scepticism over one-party rule, they dwelt instead on America's dependence on China, as a manufacturer and as a buyer of Treasury securities.
A recovery so broad-based and persistent is no fluke.Inevitably fragilities remain.
