Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Stitch who wrote (6088)	9/1/1998 9:20:00 PM
From: Bosco	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Dear Stitch - at the personal level, I feel for you [or, since our prez is in deep dodo, is this expression blacklisted <vbg>?] Kidding aside, certainly you were not in an enviable position. I agree with you that "asian values" is largely a myth. I mean, thanks to colonialism, this mythical beast, both the good and the bad sides, has been slain many times over. Incidentally, maybe it is yet another excuse, one can certainly understand, from the historical perspective, why there may be vestige of mistrust. Face it, many so-called westerners [I suppose 'westerners' too a generalization] didn't go to far away places for the good of the locals. Having said that, benefits - incidental they may be - are evident. However, as an amateur student of history, progress tends to be 2 steps forward and 1 step back. IMHO, the best one can hope for is to keep progress alive without regressing to some fundamentalistic intransigence! Yes, I concur with your insight that the best way to see a culture is to mingle with the locals at the basic level. Obviously, there are essential trace. For instance, political consciousness in HK probably is a new found identity. However, I'd also like to think the manifold within a single political entity. Your wife [and by that extension, you] probably have a different view of Malaysia than the Malays. Or, to use a drastic example, the ethnic chinese in Indonesia. I do not know how Maslow's theory figures in our discussion yet, but I certainly think it is a valid perspective. However, I don't know if there is a pure, unadulterated free market tenet [especially if you ask a keynesian <VBG>.] I mean, Nixon's price control was a disaster. Protectionism in varying degrees is aplenty in Europe as well as [dare I say] in the US :-O. So, the question, how free is free? Ultimately, I agree with you. The world is getting scarier as the tribal war drum is beating louder and louder. However, I suspect it is not restricted to the orient. I mean, face it, even in the US, it is a hot ticket. Beyond that, there are race, gender, class warfares. Special interests against special interests and egos against egos[wow, Hobbs should be proud <VBG>!] [darn, I am getting too work up, maybe I should catch a night time soap opera to restore myself with some P&G type western values <vbg>] best, Bosco

To: Stitch who wrote (6088)	9/1/1998 9:24:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 9980

Stitch, Good to hear that you're living in the real Asia. You'll learn more of Asia in a year of that than in a decade of the highrise ghetto. Of course the first and last lesson we learn is usually the extent of our own ignorance, but that's another story. I will be very curious to hear about the street-level response to the latest round of controls. I remember very well the controls that were instituted here during the late Marcos years. Those who watched the figures said the economy ground to a halt, but it really didn't. It just dove underground. There were days when you could change dollars in Binondo at over double the official rate. If you were changing enough, a very well mannered Chinese man would come to your house, with a police escort, to do the business. Corruption flourished, even more than it had before. The principal loser, of course, was government, which saw its tax revenues and dollar holdings drop precipitously. Marcos, of course, took the blame. I wonder how long Mahathir's tactic of pushing the blame off on the foreign devil will succeed? How effective do you expect the implementation of the controls to be? Steve

To: Stitch who wrote (6088)	9/1/1998 10:08:00 PM
From: Michael Sphar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Allow me to offer an alternative answer: <<The illustration I like to use is what does a Tibetan monk, a Shanghai taxi driver, an Orang Asli fisherman, and a Singapore banker have in common. Answer: Very very little. >> About the same as a New York banker, a Wyoming cowboy, a San Antonio Texan of Mexican heritage, a Berkeley hippie, a Silicon Valley based Asian-born Chinese engineer, and Wisconsin-based Green Bay Packer fan. Diversity ya gotta love or leave it.

To: Stitch who wrote (6088)	9/2/1998 11:35:00 AM
From: Worswick	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

Stitch good morning. Let me add something to the discussion of closed Asian markets and closed Asian systems. The paradigm you state, protected markets/currency controls, etc. layered with racial and cultural xenophobia.... has existed for decades already in Pakistan and India. As an "old India" hand I have watched these "protected" markets wilt as the rest of the world "progresses" to strength to strength. Inevitably, the such a closed society becomes prey to "special interests" ie. corrupt big businessmen who pound the drum of local enterprise means local jobs. Throw the bums out...foreigneers with their expertise pack and leave is the result... At the end where this leads is "special interests...both corrupt politicians and their corrupt cronies the businessmen" having a strangle hold on the society. You want to leave the coutnry you bribe someone for a passport; you want to take money with you... you buy it on the thriving black market. You want to start a business...import duties on used capital equipment, you buy in say Mexico and are all you can afford, cost you 200%. If anyone...anyone wants to know where currency controls and a more closed economic system in Asia leads look at India and Pakistan...then, cast your gaze on Burma. At that I don't think any country in Asia will go back to the Chinese example of 1947. My best to you all, * As a perhaps odd question will Sidby survive the current economic wrath and the problkems in Malaysia? Your considered opinion? Berrnie?