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To: Richnorth who wrote (5389)	1/8/1998 1:45:00 AM
From: Abner Hosmer	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 116741

Well, well, well, Richnorth, I think it can safely be said that noone who holds S.Korean debt wants to see them default. I'd bet that holds especially true for Japan. I think you really ascribe the US more power and influence than it has in reality. I'm still curious as to how the "perpetrators" engineered this crisis. Was it Greenspan? Did he "perpetrate" this mess by strategically adding and removing reserves from the Federal Reserve banking system? Did Rubin orchestrate an attack on the Asian currnecies, dumping his massive reserves of won, ringitt, and baht onto the market? C'mon, get real !! If Clinton and his boys wanted to wreck East Asia, they'd close our markets to them and put a moratorium on US investment in East Asia. If you want real-world examples of this, see Iraq, Iran, Cuba and until lately, Vietnam The obvious agenda has long been, and continues to be, free markets and free trade. To encourage those who want to move in that direction, and starve-out the rest, namely all of those assholes in the world who want to rule their populations with an iron fist. Economic freedom is equivalent to personal freedom, you can't have one without the other. You forget that its largely because of the US that South Korea simply exists. If our agenda were to stifle economic growth and prosperity, we need only have encouraged the North to overrun them a long time ago and the problem would solve itself. Ditto for the Soviets and Western Europe. The idea that you cannot have proserity yourself without looting somebody else is an insanity that does not originate in the US, thank you very much. Like many in the West, our leaders may be financially corrupt but they are not insane. And maybe my feathers do get ruffled. I am still aquainted with people who fought in such long forgotten places as Chosin. You will forgive me if I gag when I read about the American Agenda of Ruin. Unfortunately, there are still US soldiers patrolling the DMZ in Korea. Take a look at life North of the border there, you might gain a different perspective on US influence. Tom

To: Richnorth who wrote (5389)	1/8/1998 7:23:00 AM
From: Dwight Taylor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116741

A read of John Kenneth Galbraith will discuss how the boom and bust cycle is an inevitable outcome when currencies are freely traded and not pegged to gold. This Asian bubble is predictable because of this.

To: Richnorth who wrote (5389)	1/9/1998 1:36:00 AM
From: Pete Young	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116741

Rightly or wrongly, I am inclined to believe that the mess in South East Asia was something that was allowed to happen. Such is the nature of geopolitics. This part of your post I agree with Richnorth. Reading Z magazine this month, I saw an article that stated something I've thought true for years about Asia, namely that the Asian miracle was created on the backs of American working folks, in order to keep Asia non-communist. (so nice to see "your" ideas in print). "The Asian Crisis" By James Petras Z Magazine Jan 1998 p10 A framework for understaind the rise and demise of Asian capitalism requires a look at the larger historical context and the role of imperial politics. The "Asian Tigers" grew in the context of the cold and hot wars in Asia between 1945-1990. Washington sought to showcase the advantages of capitalism over communism (just like the USSR's support of Cuba--Pete) and thus opened its markets to Asian imports. The Asian Tigers also benefited from the ten-year U.S.-Indochina war via military contracts and trade concessions. With the end of communism, the Asian Tigers were seen in Washington as competitors, increasingly independent of U.S. tutelage, hence the need to re-subordinate them. The Asian Tigers grew in a period of global expansion. Their strategy was based initially on state directed capitalism: savagely exploiting the labor force via state repression while the central bank and state development agencies channeled investment fundes into private companies. The state protected its monopolies from external competition. In recent years, however, the neo-liberal virus infected Asian capitalists and politicians as they sought to expand investments in the international finanical markets and to capture overseas funds for large-scale and costly real estate, financial, and insurance mega-projects. The result was the deregulation of the economy and the growth of a massive speculative economy. This "new economy" first displaced the productive encomy as the site for investment and later undermined it when the financial bubble burst. In summary, the "Asian Miracle" emerged as a product of a particular conjuncture of teh capitalist/communist conflict. The "miracle" was aproduct of heavy state intervention in the economy, defining capital investments and priorities in the productive shere over the paper economy. With the rise of inter-capitalist competion and the penetration of neo-liberal ideology, the Asian ruling classes increasingly deregulated their economies to capture foreign financial flows and stimulated investment into the speculative high profit centers (real estate, stocks, etc.) The liberalization process increase their economic vunerability to outside speculators as the state lost control over the key economic levers. The deregulation of the internal economy led to a massive shift in finacial resouces to the speculative economy. The transfer of industrial earnings to stock and real estate speculation led to the growth of bad debts. The result was the predictable over-accumulation of speculative assets divorced from the performance of the real (productive) economy. This predictably led to the financial crash and the collapse of stock prices. From the viewpoint of U.S. financial and investor interests, the collapse of the Asian competitors is not a bad outcome. Asian money is fleeing to the "safe harbor" of the U.S. this is lowering the cost of borrowing money in the U.S. and keeping inflation in check. Secondly, the Asian countries depending on the IMF will have to follow its prescriptions of privatization, cuts in state budegets, and an end to basic subsidies---all which will favor U.S. investors. Wall Street can buy Asian productive assets cheaply, and enter the Asian markets freely. More important, the IMF entry means the return of U.S. hegemony and the decline of Asian capitalism as an independent and competitive economic pole. Thirdly, the financial crises and the stablilization policies will have a deflationary impact causing bankruptcies and lowering the competitive capcities of Asian producers in overseas markets. Of course, the collapse of Asian capitalism does have some danger for the U.S. The "domino theory" in which the collapse of South Korea provokes a crisis in Japan which in turn negatively affects the U.S. is a possiblility. But that possiblity becomes a reality only if the Japanese capitalists withdraw their investments from U.S. Treasury notes and dump their products in the U.S. market. First because Japanese bondholders are not likely to sell strong dollar dominated notes to reinvest them in a weak yen. Secondly, the U.S. will likely tighten its import quotas to limit Japanese exports which threaten to increase Washington's growing trade deficit. Despite the rhetoric of "globalization", the Asian collapse demonstrates the continued division and conflict between national capitalism and states and the continuing power exercized by imperial countries over the NICS. While it's too simplistic to argue that a group of financial speculators like George Soros engineered the crisis, it is closer to the truth to say that the beneficial consequences for certain U.S. investors reveals the differential consequences of neo-liberal polices and deregulation. Washington and Wall Street's promotion of "free-market" policies and the penetration of this doctrine amoung Asian heads of state and bankers led to the fateful consequences: the collapse of Asian stock markets, massive devaluation, economic depression, widespread and large-scale bankrupticies, plunging living standards, and growing unemployment. As Asia declines, the U.S. and to a lesser degree, the European Union gain competitive positions. As the financial arbiters of Asia's future, the U.S. and European bankers via the IMF return to dictate Asian economic policy just as in the "old days" of neocolonial rule. The multipolar world economy is reduced to two---with one unchallenged "economic superpower". Snip.... But, Asia, I think, has only played our game as long as it was allowed to win. Once winning is forclosed, as others have said, maybe Asians will want to join another game---like China's game. Like Petras said above, the "Asian miracle" was a product of Washington trying to keep Asia out of the "world communist" game during the Cold War. I think, in general, capitalism works basically by buying people, groups, and nations off. No payoff==changed game. Pete