A recent Deutsche Bank Research report estimated that the Asian currency meltdowns have destroyed more than US$1,5 trillion in financial wealth in that part of the world. That is a dangerous implosion for the international economy to suffer, bringing fears of a systemic banking breakdown. In the long term, Asian companies will rise from the ashes, more competitive than ever before. But in the meantime the entire region is a pile of ashes.

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IT was to no small degree fallacious advice from the US-dominated IMF which caused the currency collapses in Thailand, Indonesia, Russia and Japan. Possibly because of their own culpability, US papers are giving little coverage to the sad human toll those crises are taking. Pain, hunger and poverty have descended on the entire Pacific Rim. In some ways, perhaps the disaster that has overtaken Japan’s samurai businessmen is particularly heartbreaking. Corporate Japan represents 70% of the entire Asian economy.

Suicide carries a complex message in Japan, since it is not always a stigma. Instead, it is sometimes considered an honourable way to express shame or atone for problems, such as unpaid debt. Japan is one of the few countries where life assurance is paid out after a suicide. It is suspected that this might encourage the trend. Earlier this year, the heads of three car companies hanged themselves in a triple suicide pact: having stipulated that the life assurance money be used to pay of company debts.

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