All these firms and managers operated conditioned by the economic context in which they operated.

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For more than a decade, the world has operated under an economic model in which most of the world under-consumed while becoming dangerously dependent on exporting to a gluttonous, debt-ridden American consumer.

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Sir John paid strong attention to the economic and intellectual environment where target companies operated.

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In every country it operated in, its dollar returns were reduced by local currency depreciations, reflecting the economic chaos in much of Latin America during that decade.

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Mr Krugman, who pioneered formal economic analysis of what causes currency crises, points out that Asia's banks and finance companies operated with implicit government guarantees.

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It is similar to the system operated in the UK, where Chancellor Gordon Brown has promised not to run a budget deficit over the whole economic cycle - but not in any one particular year.

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