A global crisis in the making?

A global crisis in the making?

Day by day, the number of countries affected by the economic
crisis keeps increasing. Starting in Thailand, South Korea and
Indonesia, the crisis has since ensnared Japan, Hong Kong and now
Russia. Fear of the contagion has already spread to India, the
United States and Europe.

In brief, the world is moving toward a global recession. One
after another, countries are sliding into crisis. Those who
believe in the domino theory are convinced that many more
economies are headed toward collapse.

When the crisis first started pounding Asia a year ago,
experts sneered at what was known as "Asian values". They
suggested that the three-decade-long Asian economic miracle was
caused not so much by the presence of a certain new paradigm in
the region, but because of a pseudo-economy -- an economy that
appeared healthy and robust on the surface, but that actually was
euphoria-dependent. When the euphoria came to an end, all the
artificial superior values collapsed.

The most important thing that created the euphoria in Asian
economies was the practice of collusion between power holders and
entrepreneurs. But the latest international developments point to
yet another interesting aspect: Economic deviations occurring in
one country or region have an effect on other regions. Since the
world economy has grown to become a global entity, the domino
effect becomes valid.

The current global crisis has made us all aware of the fact
that "globalism" has become a new tenet. Economic practices or
canons that countries claim to have the right to adopt
exclusively, and are not be condemned by anyone else, no longer
exist. Globalism demands that any one country can police any
another, and conversely must be willing to be policed by another.
This means that practices such as corruption, collusion and
nepotism must be abandoned.

-- Media Indonesia, Jakarta