-----Original Message----- From: John Hermann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: John Hermann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Monday, 5 July 1999 7:40 PM Subject: How Asian meltdown was planned in USA >ERA EMAIL NETWORK > >Date: Mon, 05 Jul 1999 >From: Dion Giles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: How Asian meltdown was planned in USA > >The following article reprinted in the Sydney Morning Herald originally >appeared in the Los Angeles Times. It was scanned by Graham Holland, a >colleague in Sydney. > Dion Giles > Fremantle, Western Australia >-------------------------------- > >How America's crony capitalists ruined their rivals > >by Chalmers Johnson, >President of the Japan Policy Research Institute in San Diego. >(published in the Los Angeles Times) > >It was the crisis Asian economies had to have -- Uncle Sam said so. > > AFTER all the endless mouthing off in the pages of the English-language >business press about East Asia's "crony capitalism" the lack of >"transparency" in Asian stock exchanges, the "no pain, no gain" logic of >the International Monetary Fund and how the Asian economic challenge to >Anglo-American capitalism had fizzled, we now know that none of these >things had anything to do with the Asian -- now global -- economic crisis. > > Addressing what did cause the crisis is the main business of the leaders >of East Asia as they reflect on what has happened over the past two years. >If they ignore this question and pretend that the road is still open to >"globalisation" in the Pacific, they risk being repudiated by their own >people. > > Here's the new explanation as it is developing in seminar rooms from Seoul >to Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. > > With the end of the Cold War, the US decided it had to launch a rollback >operation in East Asia if it was to maintain its global hegemony. The >high-growth economies of East Asia had become the main challengers to >American power in the region, and it was time they were brought to heel. > > The campaign worked in two phases. First a major ideological barrage was >launched to soften up the Asians. The Americans mobilised famous >professors of economics from their universities, who never once faced a >"market force" in their lives, to preach the beauties of globalisation, in >this case >meaning American economic institutions. > > They include total laissez faire, destruction of unions and social safety >nets, staffing of regulatory agencies with retired financiers, indifference >to the pay differentials between chief executive officers and the ordinary >labour force, moving manufacturing to low-wage areas regardless of the >social costs, and totally unregulated flows of capital in and out of any >and all economies. > > Since the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in 1993, the Americans >have hammered home to the Asians that they needed to "open up" their >economies in these ways. > > Then came phase two.. Once the Asian economies had begun to "deregulate" >and were standing in the world marketplace more or less naked, the "hedge >funds" were let loose on them. These funds are actually huge >concentrations of capital owned by very wealthy Western white men, who >manipulate bewilderingly complex financial instruments called derivatives. > > They usually locate their offices in offshore tax havens such as the >Cayman islands and do everything in their Power to avoid regulators or tax >collectors in the so-called free-market democracies. > > The funds easily raped Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea and then turned >the shivering survivors over to the IMF, not to help the victims but to >ensure that no Western bank was stuck with non-performing loans in the >devastated countries. > > The IMF is also the US Government's chosen instrument for "reforming" >these countries to make them look more like New York. > > The Americans suspected that all this might cause some trouble. > > On March 4, 1998, Admiral Joseph Prueher, then commander in chief of >American military forces in East Asia and today the US ambassador-designate >to China, testified before Congress that the US military was on alert for >"early signs of instability" in East Asia, including "labour disputes." The >Indonesian armed forces, whom Prueher's special forces had been training >for years, got rid of Soeharto when it seemed necessary. The Indonesian >troops killed about 1200 shopkeepers and raped more than 150 Chinese women >doing so. > > Then it all got a bit out of hand. One of the biggest hedge funds proved >so greedy that the US had to organise a bailout, which brought the scheme >out into the open. David Mullins, a former deputy to the Federal Reserve >chairman, Alan Greenspan, had gone straight to work for the Long-Term >Capital Management fund after he left the Federal Reserve in 1994. Had >this not been the case, it's unlikely that the Federal Reserve Bank of New >York would have arranged a $US3.5 billion ($A5.25 billion) rescue for it. >The incestuous relationship between Washington and Wall Street -- what the >Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati calls the Wall >Street-Treasury complex made East Asia's crony capitalism look tame. > > The weakened economies of East Asia also could not continue to buy the >weapons the Pentagon wanted to sell them, and some began to have second >thoughts about paying to keep US Marines (aka the Hedge Fund Protective >Corps) in their countries. > > Globalisation was discredited as a crooked financier's scam. The Chinese >never looked so clever as they did in keeping out of the World Trade >Organisation, as did the Japanese when they more or less ignored the pleas >for "reform" from Washington. > > These issues came to a head in Kuala Lumpur last November when the US >trade representative, Charlene Barshefsky, accused Japan of offering $US30 >billion in aid to the stricken countries of East Asia as a way of buying >their votes against further measures to open markets. > > The Japanese foreign ministry responded that the US Government was >possessed by "an evil spirit", a phrase painfully close to the evil empire >epithet that President Reagan used against the Soviet Union. > > The Vice-President, AI Gore, then gave a speech in the Malaysian capital >denouncing its head of state for trying to protect his country from >international speculators and calling on the people of Malaysia to >overthrow him. After that, APEC no longer had a future worth speaking of. > > The Americans do not seem to understand that their message of free trade >and market economics is in serious disrepute. Wall Street itself now looks >like the ancestral home of crony capitalism. > >----ooOoo---- > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- This is the Neither public email list, open for the public and general discussion. To unsubscribe click here Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=unsubscribe To subscribe click here Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=subscribe For information on [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.neither.org/lists/public-list.htm For archives http://www.mail-archive.com/public-list@neither.org
