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

To: Sam who wrote (7053)	10/11/1998 10:41:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Sam, <<if all of these governments were simply allowed to "reap what they have sowed", in the ripeness of time, these bad policies and corrupt governments would [presumably] be weeded out and changed.>> There is a long history of IMF bailouts of totally corrupt governments. Politics, I suspect, was originally at the core of this: many of the governments were strategically "necessary", or else there was reason to suspect that the governments that replaced them would not be cooperative. In the late 80's, when the IMF insisted against all reason on underwriting the Marcos pork barrel, we simply assumed that the motive was to keep "our friend" in power. With the Communist threat fading, whatever minimal logic there was behind this strategy has faded away completely. Personally, I think that hopelessly corrupt governments should simply be allowed to fail, and that assistance in these cases should be limited to humanitarian aid. Complicated call, though. What does one do if the emerging government is composed of Islamic fundamentalists, the dreaded left, or other groups thought by the west to be undesirable. Does one bite the bullet and let it happen, or support the old elites? Thinking out loud again. Becoming a bad habit. Steve