Gone are the days when Hong Kong real-estate developers could make a bundle just by playing the game. We can make a big 'boo-boo' tomorrow and be in trouble.
Past success is no guarantee of future success.
Discovering that you are not as clever as you once believed is a humbling lesson - and one that has been imparted widely. Asia's rich and powerful have been tumbling like platinum-plated tenpins as stock prices, property values, and currencies took a dive. In Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the world's wealthiest people, the number of Asians dropped to 44 this year from 56 last year. All 10 Thai tycoons listed in 1997 were gone from the magazine's June rolls. During a recent informal meeting with Jakarta journalists, Indonesian property baron Ciputra went so far as to ask forgiveness from the Indonesian people for his failures.