{"id":"asset_d5c05cbf84fa","source_id":"c124fd8b-5812-4cff-a0ae-56f8156bd735","origin":"dropbox","type":"text/markdown","category":"text","name":"01-asian-crisis-1997.md","path":"/01-asian-crisis-1997.md","size_bytes":3732,"title":"01 asian crisis 1997","description":"This document examines the 1997 Asian financial crisis and argues about whether the IMF's rescue response was appropriate. It presents the crisis mechanics—currency pegs, mismatched borrowing, capital flight—then analyzes whether the Fund's contractionary conditions (rate hikes, spending cuts, bank closures) were the right treatment, considering who bore the adjustment costs and what long-term consequences followed.","extracted_text":"# The Cure That Deepened the Disease: Asia, 1997\n\nIn July 1997 Thailand gave up defending the baht. Within months the contagion\nhad taken Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. Currencies lost\nhalf their value or more, stock markets fell by two thirds, and economies that\nhad been the standing proof of the development consensus contracted violently.\n\nThe causes were not mysterious. Asian corporates and banks had borrowed heavily\nin dollars while earning in local currency, on the strength of pegs their central\nbanks had promised to defend and could not. Short-term foreign capital had flowed\nin against long-term illiquid assets — property, infrastructure, industrial\novercapacity. When sentiment turned, the maturity mismatch and the currency\nmismatch detonated together. Every borrower needed dollars at once, and the only\nway to get them was to sell the local currency, which made the dollars dearer.\n\nWhat is worth arguing about is the response.\n\nThe IMF arrived with roughly $","attributes":{"dropbox_file_id":"id:1EL26tM-qg4AAAAAAAAACQ"},"usable_for":["research reference","content source","writing style reference","fact extraction"],"price_sats":{"card":0,"full":1100},"content_available":true,"available":true,"addedAt":1787789248258}