How badly with ASEAN be hit by the economic crisis?

We are better off now than ten years ago when we were hit by the Asian financial crisis. We have learned a lot. Just like what President Clinton said, we have reformed.

We have instituted mechanisms and monitoring systems. In fact, I think we have been extremely cautious. In some cases probably banks have even been more cautious than they should be because it is really cutting down the flow of money, the flow of resources in the market and in industry.

If anything I think that banks in Asia - on the whole - are less exposed to toxic assets. But we are trying to compensate for the shortfall of external funds and capital coming in due to the shortages in America and Western Europe. We are talking about trying to implement our own Chiang Mai initiative, a multilateralized fund to the tune of $80 billion.

Maybe we can expand that to use it to compensate for the resources that have dried up. And look into the Asian bond market more actively, more seriously because there are a lot of ... more.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.