And it was the start of what became known as the Asian currency crisis in 1997-98.
Unchecked, international matters sovereign debt, an Asian currency crisis or Russian devaluation can also take a toll.
Mr. Sokol entered Mr. Buffett's world when MidAmerican shares tumbled after several geothermal projects in Indonesia were delayed amid the Asian currency crisis.
"There are the questions of the impact of the Asian currency crisis on China and the effectiveness of the Japanese fiscal stimulus, " says Philippine Central Bank Governor Gabriel Singson.
Two years after the Asian currency crisis abruptly slammed booming economies into reverse and threatened a global recession, there has been much talk about reforming the international financial architecture, but less action.
Third, there is the obvious irony that the Hong Kong dollar remains pegged to the U.S. dollar and even after 30 years, including the turbulent Asian currency crisis of the late 1990s, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is reluctant to embrace a more logical tie to the yuan.
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Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad appeared to get away with a form of it during the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s when he divorced his currency from the capital markets. ("Hot money" is a particular bane of contemporary go-it-aloners.) Now Thailand's Thaksin Shinawatra is getting credited, even in sophisticated circles, with galvanizing his country's recovery through internal demand.
The debt of Asian economies is also now partly in their own currency, which would fall in a crisis, taking some of the strain.
Putting the debt in U.S. dollars and possibly yen is smart and hedging the debt will limit currency fluctuations (note that un-hedged debt burnt many Thai corporates during the Asian crisis).
And the local currency's 18% depreciation against the U.S. dollar since the onset of the Asian financial crisis has brought costs way down.
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