As readers know, assorted Crawfs went to a Turkish resort for a short holiday last year. The signs of feverish economic activity were there to be seen on the way from the airport – all sorts of buildings and other structures popping up in a madcap way.

Turkey is booming! Or is it?

I have not linked to the ever-gloomy Spengler for a while, but here he is with some unnerving graphs and accompanying analysis indicating that Turkey too has borrowed too much, too unwisely:

Erdogan has the weirdest economic views of any serving head of government. He justified the credit bubble on religious grounds, pledging repeatedly to cut the "real" interest rate (the cost of interest minus the inflation rate) to zero.

"We aim to cut the real interest rate in the long run, so people will increase their incomes through working, not through interest," he said last April. "Eventually we aim to equalize the interest rate and inflation rate."

Erdo