And that's what keeps Wikipedia afloat.

And it's only a few months since governments injected enormous sums of money to try and keep the whole system afloat.

The Spanish government announces additional fiscal cuts and structural reforms. Bolstered by funds from the European Stability Mechanism, Spain remains financially afloat for several months.

Portugal has had to ask for assistance from the EFSF and the International Monetary Fund. Irish banks reportedly need an additional 24 billion to stay afloat.

After all, economic growth remains China s best hope to keep the regime afloat, and it is the main criterion for officials promotion through the ranks. So the last thing that officials at any level want to do is jeopardize international trade.

The Lega Nord, led by the charismatic Umberto Bossi, holds the decisive votes in Parliament to keep the Berlusconi government afloat. It uses this power to blackmail the government into introducing measures which discriminate between citizens of Italy s north and south.

True enough, interest rates were falling, though not as fast as the fall in expected profit on new investment. So, even in the so called boom years, most Western economies were kept afloat not by new investment, but by asset bubbles based on increasingly unsustainable leverage.

Unfortunately, it is difficult for existing NGOs to take up the cause of popularizing global economic policy coordination. Unlike hunger or land mines, the cause of rectifying global trade imbalances will not touch the public enough to attract the donations that are necessary to keep NGOs afloat.

Egypt s government needs to secure consistent foreign financing to keep the country afloat, providing leverage for international opposition to Morsi s efforts to impose an agenda that runs contrary to Egyptians fundamental rights. Egypt can thrive only on the basis of honest adherence to a democratic process.

With fiscal austerity all the rage, they have given up ensuring that people can buy and industries can produce. Central banks have been handed the job of keeping economies afloat, but most of the money that they print remains stuck in the banking system, unable to arrest stagnating consumption and falling investment.

To be sure, the cost to many governments of rescuing their banks and keeping their economies afloat in the face of business collapse damaged or destroyed their creditworthiness. But it is increasingly recognized that public sector austerity at a time of weak private sector spending guarantees years of stagnation, if not further collapse.

If nothing works, it will be time to sprinkle the country with what Milton Friedman called helicopter money that is, put purchasing power directly into people s pockets, by giving every household a spending voucher with an expiration date. This would at least keep the economy afloat pending the development of the longer term investment program.

In response, China s central bank is lowering interest rates to spur domestic investment, and the resulting depreciation of the renminbi s exchange rate has helped to keep exports afloat. But China s import figures for the first half of this year have virtually flat lined, suggesting that Chinese firms are not investing in new equipment and thus that China s economy may hit the doldrums soon.