Holiday Reading

I've been trying to read this book by Thomas Friedman titled, "The Lexus and The Olive Tree", which I got from the LSE library. Wanted to get "The World Is Flat" but someone had already taken it. Anyway.

Friedman essentially talks about globalisation in his book and what we need to do in response to this phenomenon. Here's an excerpt from Chapter 7 which I found particularly interesting.

In 1997, Dr Mahathir blasted “morons” who traded in currencies and accused “Great Powers” such as Soros of forcing Asians to open their domestic markets to global speculators and manipulating their currencies to destroy them.

Friedman speculates that this is what US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin should have said in response:

"..don't you play dumb with me. We both know that your Central Bank lost 3 billion dollars speculating on the British pound in the early 1990s-so don't give me that innocence crap...Did you really need to build the two tallest office buildings in the world? Have you rented even half their office space? I hear not. So the KLCI Index fell 48% in 1997, and your currency hit a twenty-six year low..you don't ask the herd for mercy, you don't denounce the herd as a 'Jewish conspiracy', you just get up, dust yourself off...and get back with the flow of the herd."

The "herd" refers to faceless stock, bond and currency traders as well as big multinational companies who spread their investments across the world. The book was originally published in 1999 so I don't really know if the said under-utilised office space has been fully rented out at the moment.

Friedman also mentions a meeting with Anwar Ibrahim and a rough account of what the latter said to the the former PM at the height of the 1997 Asian economic crisis.

“Look, you said this about Soros on Monday, and the Malaysian ringgit fell to here. You said this about the Jews on Tuesday and the ringgit fell to here. You said this about global investors on Wednesday, and the ringgit fell to here. SHUT UP!”

It's cool to note what other people think about us.