William Pesek

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia has a scandal on its hands, and it involves gross domestic product.

That won’t sound too serious to observers worried about corruption or anti-pornography laws intensifying debates about Islam’s role in public. Yet what might best be described as the “4 percent crisis” is getting breathless press coverage.

That’s the dismal rate at which many expect the economy will grow next year. What, did someone say dismal? When you look around the world, it’s hard to think of a sizeable economy that might perform at even close to 4 percent.

It was the US subprime mortgages, then it was money markets in the US, then it was money markets in the Europe, then it was the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the collapse of Washington Mutual, the run on Bank of East Asia, the collapse of Fortis, the $700bn bailout of the US, ... , and is now the collapse of the Hypo Real Estate rescue and the gloom in the Chinese art auction.

If the rest of the world were to go through what the US had to go through, I would not know if we, the rest of the world, would ever do better than what the US has done.

China Could Be Dragged Down by Wall Street Crash: William Pesek

Commentary by William Pesek

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Few questions confound economists more: What might tip China into the meltdown that so many have feared for so many years?

Possibilities include overheating, social instability, corruption, pollution, debt crises, war over Taiwan and a post- Olympics growth swoon. It's a perfectly rational expectation. No rapidly industrializing nation has ever avoided some kind of crisis, least of all upstarts in Asia.