The Global Economy in Turbulent Times

CHAPTER 2 2009: “Oxpicious” Year Ahead¹

In January 2009, I have had many conference calls with friends overseas, stretching from Boston (Harvard and MIT) to New York (Columbia) to Washington, DC (Brookings) to get an updated feel of the prospective state of the United States, the eurozone, and Japanese economies. As expected, the economic situation had since changed for the worse with each passing day (especially the rapidly deteriorating unemployment situation) and that does not appear to have reached bottom. So I decided to round up the picture and revisited Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)² (among the last to be really affected, except Singapore) to gauge the prevailing mood especially in this part of the world. I landed up in Chiang Rai, Thailand, over the February Chinese New Year festivities. Indeed, I am writing this from a tent (literally) along the Burma/Thailand/Laos Golden Triangle.

Ox Year

Here, this is also open season for astrologers/feng-shui masters/fortunetellers. For them, the year of the Rat (2008) was not good—we all know that. After all, the rat and water go together, and as everyone who follows this knows, water brings worries and provides fear. Worse, 2008 was also a year without fire—the element that drives the pursuit of money. This is not rocket science, of course. Nevertheless, their views have a general thrust that points in the same direction: There is no fire in the year of the Ox (2009), either. So don’t expect all things related ...