The gods of the corporations, the high priests of finance, the economic soothsayers, looking at their capricious and spotty son, the free market. The Magic Mountain. The search for answers in a program presented by ABC Asia specialist, Peter Mares. In fact, the Tigers are in meltdown. Mahathir says it's a free-market Jewish conspiracy.
Western financiers blame it on poor management by the Asian leaders.
Most agree that corruption at the top hasn't helped. There's a boom in IT stocks, and scores of byte billionaires. Owning the rights to software programs have made smart young computer programmers millionaires overnight. We're told the weightless economy is the paradigm shift for the future. But it is difficult to understand.