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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: don pagach who wrote (4180)	6/4/1998 10:18:00 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Don, Thanks for posting all of the articles you have found. "In emerging markets all over the world, the drama is repeated. Investors who chased high short-term interest rates with short-term loans in recent years are calling in their loans. In just about every case, the I.M.F. is urging a heroic defense of the currency through draconian interest rate increases, sometimes backed by bailouts, sometimes not." The truth is that no currency can be defended very long by interest rate boosts alone. These are just quick fixes. If there is no real underlying productive capacity, it will just lead to runaway inflation or depression, depending on whether the government prints enough money (and manages to get it into circulation) to allow the resultant exorbitant debts to be paid off or not. Personally, I am coming to agree with Jim Rogers and the folks on Capital Hill who want to shut down the IMF. It makes absolutely no sense to me to continue this charade. It is just another bailout of banks who didn't do their due diligence, speculators who bet wrong, and corrupt governments. I have a lot of respect for Bob Rubin, but I can't go along with him on this one. Mexico was one thing, but those guys were unimaginative angels compared to the Asians and Russians. Mahatir's ranting about currency speculators and foreign interests coming to "own" Asia is ridiculous. He wasn't complaining when the currency markets were allowing him to peg his currency to the dollar; they were the same "evil" speculators. This is absurd. All these guys thought that they could emulate Japan: create a few huge fortunes by exporting forever to the corrupt, fat West, while throwing a few extra bones to their toiling masses to keep them getting a little wealthier. They weren't building a real national economy, they were fortune builders. There is a difference. Karl [bleep], where are ya' when we really need ya'?

To: don pagach who wrote (4180)	6/4/1998 4:24:00 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 9980

Indonesia restructures debt. Some reaction to the plan from Reuters: biz.yahoo.com Check out especially the last comment, from a spokesman from TLKM: ''Actually the debt roll over doesn't have direct impact for Telkom because most of the loans obtained by the company were two-step loans,'' the official said. He said Telkom received foreign loans through the government and the state bore the burden on forex losses." Nice way to get a loan, eh? Yeah, really makes me want to approve another $40 billion for IMF. Hey, make it a $100 billion. There are soooo many people to help, so little time. Sorry, I know that there is going to be a lot of suffering in Indonesia, and the wrong people will suffer. But I just don't see the point in putting more money in a sieve. We just aren't doing anyone any real favors, we're just encouraging more corruption.

To: don pagach who wrote (4180)	6/5/1998 5:06:00 AM
From: Thomas Haegin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

A bit Off-topic on Russia: Don, thanks for the article by J.Sachs. I sincerely hope that the new Russian government will move forward more energetically than the former Chernomyrdin & Co., especially on tax collection and wages payments. They absolutely MUST do that in order to decrease dependency on foreign capital to fund their budget. I do think however defending the Ruble - with or without IMF questionable involvment - at this point is still a good move in order to install confidence, not the least among the Russian general public. A plunging Ruble would, among other things, undermine the whatever little credibility left for the reformers completely. Thomas