Is Iceland the Present-day Thailand?

The 1997 Asian Flu (aka Asian Financial Crisis) started with the devaluation of the Thai Baht (Here is a July 3, 1997 article from The New York Times mentioning the gamble of the Thai central bank. Obviously the gamble totally backfired, although it is debatable what other strategies would have worked).

Well, Iceland is going through a severe crisis (manufactured or not) right now. The chart below from the Financial Times illustrates why Iceland is faltering:

(source: Cool under fire: Iceland takes the fight back to finance,
David Ibison, Published: April 8 2008. Financial Times)


Although the Iceland situation has little in similarity to the Thailand problems back in 1997, I wonder if this is a precursor of further problems in other emerging markets...

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