Subprime loans like investments in the Third World?

I reacted to some of the comments to this post on Paul Krugman's blog by posting my comment.  It's #21.  I point out there that increased inequality of income and wealth is likely contributing to our economic malaise by constraining consumption, a point that is more germane to this earlier Krugman post, Third World America.  PK briefly discusses there a recent paper by others that shows how petrodollars pumped into the economies of developing countries led to the financial crises of those nations in the 1980s.  The paper suggests that a trillion foreign dollars have recently been invested in a "developing economy" within the USA--undersecured housing loans that are sure to generate major losses, raising the question whether the resolution of this will also involve a financial crisis.  Several comments to that post are insightful. 

Update on Saturday, February 9, 2008 at 12:06PM by Skeptic

Here is a more detailed discussion, with pictures, of the Reinhart and Rogoff paper cited by Paul Krugman.  The question raised is whether our current banking crisis will be associated with a prolonged economic slump, as were these banking crises:  Spain (1977), Norway (1987), Sweden and Finland (1991), and Japan (1992).  Reinhart and Rogoff are serious economists affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research.