I never understood how the relatively small mis allocation of capital via "crony capitalism" was suppose to account for the entire Asian financial crisis.
The vast majority of 'Western' commentators have a hard time understanding name order in Asia, and who is related to whom, let alone who is good buddies, I suspect that many of the examples of "crony capitalism" were hand fed to to Western critics from various economists, government officials, bankers, etc. in Asian countries who saw this as a good time stop certain inefficient practices, like state funding of projects for EVERY relative (even the ones who sleep during board meeting) of the Vice Minister for Frozen Foods.
Or do you think that most Western commentators had some real insight into how Thailand, Malaysia, Korea and China work ?
Yeah, that's a rhetorical question ;-)
Anyway, some people will be running successful business, building brands, etc. and some will be whining. Maybe the Asian whiners can get together with our victimized sub-prime whiners and form a singing club.
Meanwhile, how about some new China resource plays ? Do you have part of that gold / rare earth company ?
Is anyone in China building giant mining equipment yet ? China builds the world's largest ship loading cranes for container ships, I expect they can learn to make dragline excavators.
By the way, I expect BRIC will become BriC, with Brazil and China (the more capitalist countries) doing better than the more socialist pair. |
