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

To: shadowman who wrote (7045)	10/9/1998 9:03:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Dennis, I agree with both you and Stitch. There has been huge progress in urban areas, but raising living standards in rural areas will be a huge and necessary step in generating a new wave of aggregate demand. I don't think it is necessary or desirable to "redistribute income", though. For one thing, it would be impossible to do it in any way that would not provoke civil war. My observation in rural areas of the Philippines and Indonesia is that the economic dominance of traditional (frequently almost feudal) elites is rooted in their control of the political and legal apparatus. Local elites need to be forced to obey the law. When this happens you will see a very fast emergence of real democracy, and economic redistribution will follow very quickly. To use the ancient analogy, they need to level the field, not shuffle the players around. Steve

To: shadowman who wrote (7045)	10/10/1998 8:04:00 AM
From: Stitch	Respond to of 9980

Dennis; <<I appreciate your comments, and you make a couple of good points. >> This is a very kind remark considering how badly I botched the edit on the post you refer to but I take it you managed to get the gist. I did cherry pick location examples but I think you would be surprised to visit even lesser known locations. I have been in several villages where life is noticeably more modern, and folks are noticeably better off in the time that I have been traveling in Asia. The fact is that there had been a huge growth in the so-called middle class in Asia. The very sad thing about the recession is that this will undoubtedly set back that trend. We will see hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, fall below world poverty guidelines IMO. <<So to point out that this could be a contributing factor and the powers that be seem to be short term beneficiaries of this situation and blind to the potential long term repercussions, seems reasonable to me>> I do not think there is anyone walking on the face of this earth that will benefit when this all said and done. And I do not think any reasonable thinking person believes that there is. Best, Stitch