By year's end, the crisis had spread throughout Southeast Asia and even affected the richer economies to the North, especially South Korea. The value of currencies across the region collapsed-not just the Thai baht but also the Indonesian rupiah and the Malaysian ringgit, Southeast Asian financial markets crashed as well. Plummeting stock prices and plunging currencies combined to slaughter three-quarters of the value of Indonesian and Thai financial assets. Financial capital, unlike the proverbial ocean liner, turned on a dime, withdrawing more funds in less than a year than accumulated in the region over the previous seven years. The miracle economies of Southeast Asia are in depression.
Conditions vary from country to country.
Recession prevails in Malaysia, and in Thailand the steep downturn will cause over two million workers their jobs by the end of 1998. In Indonesia, crippling stagflation threatens to double prices at the same time that it pushes nearly one half the population into poverty. These once high-flying Southeast Asian economies are tending to the wounds from their sudden fall to earth. Meanwhile Malaysia independently administers similar austerity measures. But the Thai and Indonesian economies may not have hit bottom yet.