With his traditional sense of humor, Lula dismissed the slight.

As a result, his countrymen excused his frequent bad behavior time and again.

And it looked the other way when French and German banks recklessly enabled the Greek government s profligacy.

Problems with Uzbekistan were overlooked until it fell out of favor with the US.

Under the leadership of Ben Bernanke and his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, the Fed condoned asset and credit bubbles, treating them as new sources of economic growth.

Let me remind you that in our country, over 112 Jordanian women were brutally murdered by their own families for honor in the past 10 years. Of course, our penal law happily condones this.

Policymakers in the industrial core looked the other way as rapidly growing East Asian countries acquired Western technologies and industrial capabilities through unorthodox policies such as subsidies, local content requirements, reverse engineering, and currency undervaluation.

For Argentineans, the diminutive Diego Maradona represented the revenge of the weak and the deprived. As a result, his countrymen excused his frequent bad behavior time and again.