QUOTE(andrekua2 @ Nov 24 2023, 08:22 AM)
That time Soros attack asian currencies. Tun reluctant to listen to World Bank thus he rather borrow from fellow Malaysians. Increase FD rate until 10% because no fucking elsewhere will you get 10% guaranteed. Luckily that time barang still murah and it works. Try it again today and I wonder how effective it will be. Inflation will be crazy.
I think the old man got lucky with it. Time has changed though...
Not just Soros, we and other SEA countries were like little fresh meat in the eyes of global big sharks, especially all big hedge funds and Europe and US giant banks, each of them got slaughtered us, and our financial system look so naive during that time in their eyes.
To me, Mahathir actually did not do anything impressive, despite he was called bapa pembangunan in SRJKC textbook, together with stupid wawasan 2020. Every country will experience high speed growth in initial stage when they start transform from solid agricultural economy into heavy industrial based economy, so it can start borrow to invest and expand the gross production of the country, foreigner willing to invest because of cheap labor and cost of capital. But soon it will enter into stage call diminishing in return if the economy failed to invest in human capital. That was why in 1980 we were richer than Korea indeed, both countries start embark transformation programs rely on tap of foreign capital investment. Korea did focus in human capital development yet we didnt but only ensure quota with NEP policy, so later on they got Samsung LG Hyundai which able to compete in global, we Malaysia only can get Proton and KLCC. Both experienced economy crisis 97/98, but they manage to advance back to first world country with their strong human capital, we are stucked in developing stage. Now with proud of B40.
In short, his method was borrow heavily in short term foreign loan like USD and invest in domestic mkt. So this kind of debt push growth effect made Malaysian economy went into high speed growth, yet unsustainable. Because by borrowing heavily in USD, a country must also ensure their in flow of foreign capital will never stop plus export>import, any deficit need to be funded by inflow of foreign capital. Once the foregin capital stop flow in, the country will fall into "impossible trinity dilemma".
So due to the strong net capital in flow, USD/MYR was rising until 2.5, and we turned from high net saving country (during agriculture based model) into country with ultra high foreign debt (heavy industrial based with low productivity due to protectionism plus low competitiveness= proton for best example) The worst happened when the banking system became very fragile and start gather enough momentum for systemic risk...We had 60 banks and multiple finance companies back in 1996, and all with thin capital. All heavily involved in money lending without proper risk control. In short, our whole economy model was like the US banks in 2008 and also now the Properties Giants in China, borrow borrow and borrow with ultra high leverage. Like Renong, I remember it's recorded more than RM30 billion debt, it was significance compare to Malaysia GDP value, it only worth USD 90 billion ++ in that time.
So until we had done enough of stupid things in 1997, we and other SEA countries all fell into the impossible trinity dilemma for a perfect storm. All foreign capital players can vividly see that the whole region's economy and assets prices were in deep bubble, or like castle in the air, so it was golden time for them to liquidate or start short selling in stock and assets in asia mkt. That was how later the famous 1997 Asia financial crisis strated, it start with Thailand, next Malaysia, and Indonesia and then Korea like domino effect.
And that was when many people remember interest rates was raised to 12%, because Anwar naively think that the rates can please foregin investor and for them to come back put their money back into Malaysia again, ended up it trigger full blown of economic recession. So in 1998 we have to start capital control, and made Malaysia out from international mkt in 1998, because we were technically bankrupt and loosing ability to repay the remaining USD loan. Worse, PNB have to bail out all mega conglomerate by nationalise their debt, so the banking system can revive and continue lend out money for good businesses to rebuild economy activities.
It was the BNM governor in 1998 and then his successor , Tan Sri Zeti reformed and implemented proper governance into all these banks, and cut them until the strongest 10 in mkt, with strong governance and well capitalised. That was why even during when MYR depreciate multiple times in najib tenure, and recently dropped to 4.8, we are still solid and can blow water here. It is very funny to see those naive one keep shouting we supposed bankrupt few mths ago when MYR hit 4.8. Because they have no idea on how much efforts have been paid in past 20 years to rebuild our financial system from scratch (due to one person's ego) until now.
This post has been edited by Jingle91: Nov 24 2023, 02:08 PM