Thank you, Steve. And an afterword...
About Asia
by Barton Biggs
I freely admit to being a fan of Asia since I first went there in the early 1980s. For a long time the "Tigers" were stock-market tigers too. But I should have known better when the books started coming out glorifying "Asia Rising" and "The Asian Way". Although I knew Thailand was in trouble, particularly after going there in January, and cut back on Asia twice this year, I never imagined the currency contagion would spread as it did.
In retrospect, the mortal sin of Asian leaders and businessmen was hubris and remains hubris, and my mistake was in missing it. Almost always when I met an Asian leader, I saw immense arrogance, but I missed its significance because I was overwhelmed in the presence of a "great man." Always they lectured: No one was interested in an American point of view because they disdained the West and its "open society." There was basically no respect for foreign investors and no understanding of free markets. Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, perhaps the greatest, was the worst in this regards, although Mahathir Mohamad, another great man with feet of clay, is a close second.
The businessmen were almost as bad. Asian companies seldom delivered the advertised earnings per share growth, and public shareholders were often ignored, diluted, and cheated to benefit insiders. Asian companies were often family dominated and poorly managed by remote patriarchs.
It will be interesting to see if this changes now. |
