In the summer of 1997, Larry Summers, then the deputy treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, was having a private meeting with a senior Wall Street executive who oversaw his bank’s international operations. The executive had been watching with concern the mounting turmoil in the financial and property markets of Thailand, the small Southeast Asian country that normally wouldn’t warrant much high-level attention in the corridors of Washington power.
Summers listened to the man politely, but he was underwhelmed. Thailand represented less than 1 percent of total trade with the U.S., and the size of its economy was, relatively speaking, …read more
Source: Newsweek
