Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I DEMOCRACY AND GLOBALIZATION
- 1 Elé Belé: The Subversion of Democracy
- 2 The Retreat of Global Democracy
- 3 Child Labour and International Labour Standards
- 4 International Labour Standards: A View from the Tropics
- 5 Labour vs. Labour: The Politics of Business Outsourcing
- 6 The Politics of Economics
- 7 Groucho Marx and Global Currency Flows
- 8 From Cowries to the Euro: Towards a One-Currency World
- 9 The WTO and North–South Bargains
- 10 Globalization and the Politics of International Finance: The Stiglitz Verdict
- PART II INDIA AND THE WORLD
- PART III SOCIAL NORMS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
- PART IV PERSONS
- PART V ON THE ROAD, AROUND THE WORLD
- Index
7 - Groucho Marx and Global Currency Flows
from PART I - DEMOCRACY AND GLOBALIZATION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I DEMOCRACY AND GLOBALIZATION
- 1 Elé Belé: The Subversion of Democracy
- 2 The Retreat of Global Democracy
- 3 Child Labour and International Labour Standards
- 4 International Labour Standards: A View from the Tropics
- 5 Labour vs. Labour: The Politics of Business Outsourcing
- 6 The Politics of Economics
- 7 Groucho Marx and Global Currency Flows
- 8 From Cowries to the Euro: Towards a One-Currency World
- 9 The WTO and North–South Bargains
- 10 Globalization and the Politics of International Finance: The Stiglitz Verdict
- PART II INDIA AND THE WORLD
- PART III SOCIAL NORMS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
- PART IV PERSONS
- PART V ON THE ROAD, AROUND THE WORLD
- Index
Summary
The 1997 IMF-led loan package of $55 billion for South Korea was the biggest financial rescue effort to date. When, a few months before that, Thailand's financial crisis spread to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, it was nothing but a distant tragedy to much of the industrialized world. Then, suddenly, the contagion jumped the boundaries of South East Asia, touching Brazil, Japan, and, in a very big way, South Korea. The crisis was marked by stock market crashes, currency depreciations, runs on banks, and the actual collapse of several banks—including Hokkaido Takushoku, one of Japan's largest.
In the mayhem, no one really understands what happened, what started the forest fire in South East Asia—there is an actual forest fire in the region, to add to the confusion—and how to douse it without bringing the economies to a halt. As is usual, pundits are cropping up by the day. They claim to have known all along that this was coming. They tell us that these Asian economies had ‘weak fundamentals’, a safe thing to say since no one knows what that means; their exchange rates were overvalued; their monetary policy was wrong.
Nothing can be further from the truth. On 1 March 1997, The Economist, while pointing to several cracks in the Asian economies, noted that ‘on most structural issues, these economies have got a large number of big things absolutely right: high savings, prudent monetary and fiscal policies, openness to trade’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Retreat of Democracy and Other Itinerant Essays on Globalization, Economics, and India , pp. 46 - 48Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2010