Investors see the IMF as a policeman who controls good fiscal and monetary policies. When a crisis hits, emergency credit lines from the IMF are what makes emerging market investors more comfortable.

Brazil is the star of the market. It's a significantly improved credit over the last few years and people are talking about it becoming investment grade sooner rather than later.

Those ratings have come from fundamental improvements in monetary and fiscal policy. Deficit spending has declined considerably in emerging-market countries.

Argentina says an agreement with the fund is not indispensable because they want to be able to keep on spending to boost the recovery, but they know they'll end up negotiating an accord because they need it.

The advantage of a permanent emergency for the executive is that even trivial things can routinely be accomplished by the crisis presidency. If everything is an emergency, all power is emergency power.

Though the urge to hurry was beginning to beat through my brain, I knew that was the one thing I couldn't do. Not of I wanted to save lives.