People who would never have encountered the Thai baht or the Malaysian ringgit in their travels now find themselves wondering how the collapse of these currencies could have set off a chain of events that caused an earthquake in the world's financial markets.
Some perspective is in order.
First of all, the countries whose economies are in trouble right now are not exactly a major engine of US economic growth. Our exports to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand combined are less than one percent of our national income. A fall off in demand in these markets is clearly not going to cause a recession in the United States. As for old Dow Jones, his troubles are rooted in domestic rather than foreign machinations. The market had doubled in less than two and a half years.