1 Pundits who want to sound judicious are fond of warning against generalizing. Each count
ry is different, they say, and no one story fits all of Asia. This is, of course, silly: all of these economies plunged into economic crisis within a few months of each other, so they must have had so mething in common.
2 In fact, the logic of catastrophe was pretty much the same in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea. (Japan is a very different story. ) In each case investors -- mainly, but not entirely, foreign banks who had made short-term loans -- all tried to pull their money out at the same time. The result was a combined banking and currency crisis: a banking crisis because no bank can convert all its assets into cash on short notice; a currency crisis because panicked investors were trying not only to convert long-term assets into cash, but to convert baht or rupiah into dollars. In the face of the stampede, governments had no good options. If they let their currencies plunge, inflation would soar and companies that had borrowed in dollars would go bankrupt; if they tried to support their currencies by pushing up interest rates, the same firms would probably go bust from the combination of debt burden and recession. In practice, countries split the difference and paid a heavy price regardless.
3 Was the crisis a punishment for bad economic management？ Like most cliches, the catchphrase "crony capitalism"has prospered because it gets at something real excessively cozy relationships between government and business really did lead to a lot of bad investments. The still primitive financial structure of Asian business also made the economies peculiarly vulnerable to loss of confidence. But the punishment was surely disproportionate to the crime, and many investments that look foolish in retrospect seemed sensible at the time.
4 Given that there were no good policy options, was the policy response mainly on the right track？ There was frantic blame-shifting when everything in Asia seemed to be going wrong; now there is a race to claim credit when some things have started to go right. The International Monetary Fund points to Korea's recovery -- and more generally to the fact that the sky didn't fall after all -- as proof that its policy recommendations were right. Never mind that other IMF clients have done far worse, and that the economy of Malaysia -- which refused IMF help, and horrified respectable opinion by imposing capital controls -- also seems to be on the mend: Malaysia's Prime Minister, by contrast, claims full credit for any good news -- even though neighboring economies also seem to have bottomed out.
5 The truth is that an observer without any ax to grind would probably conclude that none of the policies adopted either on or in defiance of the IMF's advice made much difference either way. Budget policies, interest rate policies, banking reform. -- whatever countries tried, just about all the capital that could flee, did. And when there was no more money to run, the natural recuperative powers of the economies finally began to prevail. At best, the money doctors who purported to offer cures provided a helpful bedside manner; at worst, they were like medieval physicians who prescribed bleeding as a remedy for all ills.
6 Will the patients stage a full recovery？ It depends on exactly what you mean by "full". South Korea's industrial production is already above its pre-crisis level; but in the spring of 1997 anyone who had predicted zero growth in Korean industry over the next two years would have been regarded as a reckless doomsayer. So if by recovery you mean not just a return to growth, but one that brings the region's performance back to something like what people used to regard as the Asian norm, they have a long way to go.
According to the passage, which of the following is NOT the writer's opin
A．Countries paid a heavy price for whichever measure taken.
B．Countries all found themselves in an economic dilemma.
C．Withdrawal of foreign capital resulted in the crisis.
D．Most governments chose one of the two options.
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