Urgent Need: An Economic Bailout

"Poland is like a company that is no longer capable of selling its stock on the free market," complains a senior banker in Düsseldorf. "The problem goes beyond the banks. Poland is in default already." More discreet financiers might find that view extreme, but none would deny the gravity of Poland's economic and financial crisis.

Warsaw's growing foreign debt, which already stands at $27 billion, is sending increasingly nervous tremors through the international financial community.

This year alone, the Poles must pay back $7.5 billion worth of loans to the West.

That is a heavy burden for a country whose hard currency reserves...

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