Listening to all that money talking made me very nervous. After all, these people can funnel money into a
country's markets, then abruptly pull that money out--and create a boom-bust cycle of pretty spectacular
proportions. I don't think they can do it to the U.S.--in Greenspan I trust--but I am not 100% sure.

One thing that I am sure of is that the Asian leaders who have been fulminating against the evil machinations
of speculators have it wrong. What I saw in that room was not a predatory pack of speculative wolves: It
was an extremely dangerous flock of financial sheep."

In this analysis therefore, this was not as much a Zionist plot as a herd-like divestment or flight of investment
which realised extraordinary gain for foreign fund managers coupled with a realisation of extraordinary profit
from the resulting currency conversions by the so-called foreign currency speculators and left local investors
holding onto shares whose values had come way down to earth and local Malaysian Ringgit currency which
had greatly diminished in value compared to other foreign currencies such as the US Dollar, Japanese Yen
and the British Pound.

Even if a real conspiracy existed, it would not really matter too much one way or the other. Those who live
by the sword die by the sword. Malaysia had embraced an economic system which does not suffer fools
and crooks gladly and was made to pay the price for its government’s miscalculations and misdeeds. Will
Malaysians learn from this debacle and avoid repeating the mistakes of their present leaders? Only
Malaysians themselves will be able to answer this as they prepare for elections in less than 1½ year’s time
(or even earlier or not at all depending on Mahathir’s capacity to shock which cannot be underestimated).

It has become clear to all Malaysians that the government is intent on saving a handful of Mahathir and Daim
cronies at the expense of the rest of the country. How do they expect Malaysians to trust them any longer?

The bailout involving Mirzan Mahathir’s shipping empire has been the biggest and most controversial deal so
far. PETRONAS, which reports directly to Mahathir, announced on March 6, 1998 a complex deal under
which it will purchase the state-affiliated Malaysian International Shipping Corporation, which in turn will
purchase Mirzan's Hong Kong company, Pacific Basin Bulk Shipping, and part of his Kuala Lumpur-based
Konsortium Perkapalan, which does shipping and haulage.
 
 
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