Meltdown Asia's Boom Bust and Beyond Author:Mark L. Clifford, Pete Engardio, Pete Engardio From two prize-winning writers, a penetrating look at Asia's financial crisis--why it happened and whether it has the force to derail America's remarkable boom On July 2, 1997, Thailand made a decision to devalue the baht. At first, the move seemed merely another in the ceaseless cat and mouse game between bankers and speculators in exotic cur... more »rencies. Yet the event would trigger a financial earthquake to shake a continent. In just over a year, the once wondrous Asian economy would lie in ruins. Today, the after-shocks ripple from Sao Paolo to the Silicon Valley. How could a region that had been the most dynamic growth zone for a decade self-destruct seemingly overnight? Senior specialists at Business Week who have covered Asia's economy from boom to bust to the wrenching aftermath, Mark Clifford and Pete Engardio vividly tell the story of this debacle. Drawing on interviews with the region's leading politicians, industrialists, and technocrats, the authors explore the causes and implications of the most severe financial collapse since the Great Depression. The Asian economic miracle was not a mirage. The continent's development strategies went terribly wrong due to a tendency to carry initiatives to wild excess, compounded by problems hidden by authoritarian political systems. Can Asia's economies get back on the growth track? What safeguards might keep other developing countries from crashing? Does the global financial system need urgent, basic reform? MELTDOWN confronts these critical questions and more for compelling reading.« less