Take Brazil and India, the globe's ninth and 12th biggest economies, according to the International Monetary Fund's latest estimates. While the developed world is expected to shrink by 2 per cent this year, the IMF reckons Brazil will grow by 2 per cent, and India by 5 per cent. Why? One answer is that they have stable banks, relatively closed economies, and large internal markets. This has insulated them from much of the global turmoil.

The contrast with East Asia is stark. Singapore's economy shrank at an annualised 17 per cent rate at the end of last year, South Korea by some 20 per cent. Yet this is not for lack of capital. Asian economies, after all, are global creditors. Their economies have shrunk instead because they are heavily oriented towards collapsing international trade. Meanwhile, their local markets are undeveloped and weak. Asia's challenge is how to best deploy its accumulated surpluses to boost domestic demand.

The biggest sufferer from falling capital flows, though, has been emerging Europe. The region alone accounted for almost 50 per cent of the emerging world's foreign capital demand in 2007. Worse, almost half of that was from western banks, which now have problems of their own. That alone suggests the region will struggle to attract the $117bn it needs this year. Much of the region had embraced globalisation with gusto. Now it is experiencing how fickle international capital flows can be. It is a cold welcome to the emerging debtors' club.