| What we Asians use to achieve astronomical growth rates in our economies. The Asian economic model was lauded as the much anticipated ubermodel of hypercapitalism for economic development, in the period of the surging Japanese yen, a long time ago. The yuppies of Wall Street were singing hymns of high praise and glory for the geniuses in Japan while training MBA's by the buckletload to fight to imminent Economic Holocaust, a war that never manifested as Japan sunk into recession in the 90's. The devastated loudmouths predicted a "Japanese return", when the fall of Southeast Asia struck the second and final blow to their high hopes of an "Asian evolution". Back to investor corporations, Yanks.
Anyways, the story of the Asian Economic Model is a long a boring one, combining bits of Japanese fanatical loyalty, saving rates, loose-handed banks and a love for megaconglomerates. While the Americans sat back after hitting home runs in the 50's, the sneaky Japanese crept up behind them and bonked them in the head with a big yen-stick, creating fear in the collected Western corporate giants.
In other words, banks supplied the majority of funds in Japanese corporations, in the form of large amounts of very bad loans, instead of investors. It's much more complicated than this, but I'm not an MBA, go to the Starbucks in Hong Kong for a more detailed explanation. And some free mocha.
Encouraged by the Japanese miracle, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia all rushed in to copy Japan, private banks popped up like a bad plague, mega-monopolies created every second. Merge was the keyword. Nobody cared about the bad loans, prosperity was around the corner! Apparently, none of these fools read about a little crisis called the Great Depression in America. They were probably too busy snorting cocaine and listening to pre-1987 Wall Street stories. Anyways....
Japan's keiretsu all died in a jiffy in the early 90's, not quickly mind you, but a slow slide, so everyone else didn't notice. After a while, Thailand died in 1997, then Indonesia, then Korea, then Malaysia. Hong Kong and Singapore got a bad case of the jitteries, but they recovered, leaving their dead brothers to rot. So much for the Asian Economic Model.
So America is once again the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, and everyone is now making money off the dot com fad. SUV's, 25 year-old millionaires, gourmet coffee, and consumerism is everywhere. The dastardly Asians beg Demigod Greenspan for financial advice. Life is good.
Everything is as it should be, so says the Illuminati. Spend, and be merry.
Damn yakuza.... | 
