1.   Although most Western economists deplore exchange controls as authoritarian and prone to abuse, some believe that they may be the lesser of evils right now.

2.   As for China, it has evaded the crisis, and what saved it from catastrophe may in part have been its unwillingness to listen to Western economists.

3.   Asians, bolstered by some big-name Western economists, blamed the IMF for worsening the crisis by forcing big spending cuts to trim deficits.

4.   A political mafia of close cronies continues to suck out cash from the state monopolies, Western economists assert.

5.   But Western economists assert that this is one of the most inopportune times to be moving China toward the trade group.

6.   But Western economists believe that Goskomstat made a technical error in carrying out its calculations.

7.   But Western economists were more cautious.

8.   Even as Russia struggles to form a new coalition government, some prominent Western economists are considering measures that would have been dismissed as extremist a few weeks ago.

9.   For much of this century, most Western economists studying the patterns of growth came down on the side of the rich.

10.   In fact, Jordan has earned high marks from Western economists for its policies and performance under these conditions.