ent for granted, a new Mercedes showroom was opening every other week and skyscrapers rose like souffls out of the polluted logjam. Now the souffl has collapsed with vengeance, and Thailand, a country without state welfare, is bracing itself for full-blown recession.President Suharto of Indonesia shut 16 banks in an attempt to convince the IMF that it is serious about cleaning up its economy and especially its corrupt banking sector. Prime minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh presided over a borrowing binge which produced a domino-effect of bad loans. Billions of dollars, provided at cheap rates by western banks eager to cash in on the Thai economic miracle, have been pumped into finance companies controlled by the friends of those in power. Most of the money had gone into costly but unnecessary construction projects. The cheap easy loans failed to take into account that Thailands economic fundamentals had become fundamentally unsound. It is that that caused the disastrous run on the baht in June and triggered the currency crisis in South-East Asia....
