Word: asianized
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...thing, the region's entrepreneurs are not what they used to be. By and large, Asian institutions that looked on paper like modern corporations were really overgrown family firms, whose growth depended on the personal wealth of their owners and their ability to leverage that wealth through bank loans. Well, it will be a long time before Asian banks are able or willing to provide the kind of funding they used to--and, in any case, the entrepreneurs, their fortunes slashed by the crisis, cannot provide the necessary collateral...
Bizarrely, the Japan syndrome seems to have spread to Asia's other giant. China never caught the Asian flu, because foreign-exchange regulations--though they fostered inefficiency and corruption--prevented hot money from leaving and deterred it from coming in the first place. Instead, the problem is, believe it or not, excessive thrift. Incredibly for a developing country, China is experiencing pronounced deflation. In the end, China, like Japan, may be forced to roll the printing presses--a move that would not be possible without a devaluation of the renminbi, which would make the lives of the country's neighbors...
Adversity is supposed to come with a silver lining. Has Asia's crisis laid the foundation for sounder economic growth in the future? The answer is a definite maybe. The crisis has curbed some of the worst abuses of crony capitalism, and it has tempered the dangerous belief that "Asian values" somehow made the region's economies bulletproof. The crisis has also probably done some good by softening free-market fundamentalism: countries are less likely to be pressured into throwing their capital markets open to the world before their financial markets are ready, and Washington is less likely to view...
...escape the feeling that a dangerous complacency is setting in. When Mexico started to recover from its 1995 "tequila" crisis, policymakers and investors alike acted as if it had been a one-time event, never to be repeated. But it turned out to be a dress rehearsal for the Asian crisis a year later. Because the world didn't end this time around, everyone is starting to believe that the situation is under control--even though proposals for international reform have been watered down to homeopathic levels. Could investors and countries really be foolish enough to make the same mistakes...
...recovery. And Asia could collapse again on its own, perhaps misreading this year's higher stock prices as a sign of economic health when the buoyant markets really are just the result of bargain hunting by a lot of speculators. Already there is evidence that Thailand, the first Asian domino to fall two years ago, is ready to declare victory and backpedal on key promised banking and other reforms. If the speculators lose faith, they will take their profits and run, and emerging markets will sink again...