Amid the blizzard of speeches and declarations emerging from the Americas Conference on Latin America and the Caribbean, one theme emerged: The region has weathered the economic crisis better than most parts of the world and is poised for a robust recovery.

That's a dramatic reversal of past performance, when downturns in the world economy produced economic and political chaos throughout the region.

The collapse of commodity prices in the 1970s helped to usher in a decade of political upheaval across Central America. In Peru in the 1980s, hyperinflation destroyed the economy and nourished the growth of the Shining Path insurgency until well into the next decade.

Every regressive cycle that has undermined the world economy in the past would plunge the region into a tailspin that also affected South Florida. Reduced trade and tourism hurt the local economy; the influx of immigration raised demand for public services.

This time, the news is what did not happen. No big wave of hyperinflation, credit defaults, devaluations or capital flight, and no political instability growing out of the economic down cycle -- except, of course, for the political machinations of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.

As World Bank economist Augusto de la Torre told the conference last week, ``The region is coming out of the crisis without systemic damage and well-positioned for faster growth.''

Good news? You bet. Among other things, it suggests that the much-maligned ``Washington consensus'' -- the economic regimen that promoted anti-inflationary policies and balanced budgets as a way to grow the economy -- wasn't such a bad idea after all.

What economists call ``countercyclical policies'' helped some countries stave off the worst effects of the economic meltdown. In plain language, this instructs governments to save money when times are good in order to spend it when times are bad. All this stands in stark contrast to the dismal economic performance of the countries aligned with Venezuela in the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) bloc.

Mr. Chávez in particular has provided a good example of how to run an economy into the ground. Despite that country's oil bonanza, its economy is in bad shape. Venezuela recorded an inflation rate of 26.7 percent in August, Latin America's highest, and experts predict an even higher rate for 2010 as the president's wrongheaded policies promote capital flight and consumer shortages.

His friends are not much better off. A pre-conference report in The Miami Herald noted that the economies of Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Argentina were falling behind ``in part because their leftist populist leaders have scared away investors and unsettled consumers with policies that have included nationalizing companies or private assets.''

Latin America has a long way to go. There must be more public and private investment in infrastructure and education. Other parts of the developing world have done a far better job of making it easier and safer for private companies to invest in the local economy. Security remains an issue in some countries.

Overall, however, the record is pretty clear that a combination of sound economic policies and attention to social concerns promotes political wellbeing and democratic development. Populist policies can't match that.

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