wall street | FeudArt

Go to youtube and search “salman khan”, or visit http://www.khanacademy.org for easy-to-understand videos on the financial crisis. Salman Khan is the instructor. This dude is kewl! Learn practical financial management to understand the global financial crisis, and to manage your own finances.

Salman Khan (Sal) founded the Khan Academy with the hope of using technology to foster new learning models. He is currently the portfolio manager of a fund based in Menlo Park, CA. Prior to this, Sal was one of the initial employees at MVC Venture Capital. He has also worked as a Technical Architect at Scient Corporation and as a Senior Product Manager at Oracle Corporation.

Sal received his MBA from Harvard Business School where he was president of the student body. He also holds a Masters in electrical engineering and computer science, a BS in electrical engineering and computer science, and a BS in mathematics from MIT where he was president of the the Class of 1998. While at MIT, Sal was the recipient of the Eloranta Fellowship which he used to develop web-based math software for children with ADHD. He was also an MCAT instructor for the Princeton Review and volunteered teaching gifted 4th and 7th graders at the Devotion School in Brookline, MA.

To contact the Khan Academy, please send an email to sal@khanacademy.org

Power to rise from the East

Caroline J. Howard, ABS-CBN News | 09/20/2008 3:14 AM

When the dust over the ongoing US financial chaos eventually clears, Asian countries may end up getting back the glory that they lost to the West 200 years ago.

Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, said China and India—the two largest economic powers in the world for 18 centuries before the West took over, and which had very little hope of succeeding in the 60’s and 70’s—are once again reigning supreme.

In his book, “The New Asian Hemishphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East,” Mahbubani speaks of Asia’s unprecedented economic, cultural and social transformation which has made possible a massive shift of power from Western dominance in the last 200 years, to Asian societies.

Mahbubani cites a Goldman Sachs projection, which says that by 2050, the four largest economies will be China, India, the U.S. and Japan, and not a single economy will be European.

“We’re seeing the greatest change ever seen in human history. You will see the end of the era of Western domination of world history. For the last 200 years, world history has been dominated by the European powers, later by the rise of America. But now the amount of space occupied by the West in the world will diminish.”

But this is not to say, the world is seeing the end of the West, Mahbubani added. “The West will remain the strongest civilization but there will be other civilizations as successful as the West. We have to believe Asian societies can succeed and study why they’re succeeding now.”

US’ rise and fall

The US economy, long considered a global growth engine, now buckles under the weight of its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. With the impact of the U.S. credit crisis rippling across the globe, Asian economies are scrambling to insulate their markets.

Already the Asian Development Bank has stepped in, calling for an “Asian Financial Stability Dialogue” among the region’s financial experts and regulators to assess the risk of a spillover.

“It’s a development that even the best American minds did not see happening,” Mahbubani said.

“It shows, something has fundamentally gone wrong in American economic management,” he said. “There was a feeling America could continue to defy gravity, issue loans and not worry. But even American corporations are subject to the laws of gravity and when they violate rules of good governance—when they issue more loans than they can and take on more risks than they should—they pay a price.”

While Mahbubani is optimistic America’s financial turmoil has more or less hit bottom after the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers, the takeover of Merrill Lynch and the $85 billion bailout of insurer AIG, and will begin to recover, he also believes that Asian countries have a vested interest in being supportive of America.

In performing the role of benefactor to help keep the U.S. economy stay afloat, Asia’s strength and incidental position of dominance only serves to solidify its potential as an emerging global power.

Learning the lessons

What is causing the power shift to the East?

Mahbubani cites Asia’s ability to tap Western concepts to effect this transformation.

“Asian societies have finally figured out the seven pillars of Western wisdom: free-market economics, a mastery of science and technology, culture pragmatism, meritocracy, rule of law, culture of peace and education.”

Mahbubani explained that having copied best practices from Western Societies, Japan’s Meiji reformers became the first Asian society to take off; while from running on a Communist central plan economics 30 years ago, China has grown to become the world’s fastest rising economy for three decades after introducing free market economics.

Mahbubani said that more Asian societies are showing they know what to do, and discovering they can fall back on their own strength and succeed. “It’s important for Asians to realize now that they’re the biggest beneficiaries of an open multilateral trading system that was a gift of America and Europe to the world.”

“America and Europe were happy to be the custodians of this multilateral trading order as long as they see themselves as the biggest beneficiaries. Now they see that the biggest beneficiaries would be the Chinese, Indians and other Asians, so its important for Asians to take on more responsibility for managing global governance.”

Mahbubani noted that “There’s a very high degree of geopolitical competence that you can find in Beijing which has led to relative calm and peace in this area.”

But other Asian nations still have to overcome internal political instability. Malaysia and Thailand must resolve power struggles and political squabbles, what Mahbubani believes can best be addressed with good governance.

He cited Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s approach to Aceh’s long standing problem with its separatist movement, as a success story the Philippines can learn from in solving its stalled peace process with the separatist group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) .

“It partly had to do with the 2004 tsunami and the political wisdom of president [Yudhoyono] who decided to give Aceh a reasonable degree of automony normal in a federal democratic state as long as Aceh remains part of Indonesia it could continue to be autonomous. It can be done but it requires the capacity to listen.”

He also cited how Asian countries are preventing a worst case scenario with geopolitical tensions by providing a venue for discussions for great powers to come together via the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Shared power

Despite the internal political instability, Mahbubani also noted a rising amount of trade flows and interdependence, and a certain degree of resilience in the region.

“Economic growth is likely to continue rising but we have to manage the geopolitics and the internal governance of these societies,” he explained.

“What the Asian countries have to do is achieve what the European Union has achieved. In the EU, you dont just have zero wars between any two European states, you have zero prospect of war between any two EU states. Among the Asean we have zero war but we have not reached zero prospect of war.”

The shift of power is possible while ensuring stability in the global arena, Mahbubani said. “Throughout history, the worlds most important relationship was between the US, the world’s greatest power, and China, the greatest emerging power. You should see rising tensions between the two, instead you see it diminishing.”

But Western approaches to resolving conflict within its borders have at times also only ended in failure. “The general assumption is that Western countries are geopolitically competent and Asian states are not. But as you can see in the Georgian episode, we saw a lot of geopolitical incompetence. Western powers provoking this conflict with Russia was not necessary at all.”

Mahbubani added, “Both the US and the EU now face a more insecure future, even though they have had two decades to enhance their security without any obvious challenge to them.” If international organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the United Nations do not reflect the modern world and allow for shifts in power based on new developments, emerging powers will establish their own systems and rules.

The US credit crunch that sparked the global economic crisis may just be the beginning of the West’s reawakening to the existence of emerging powers that are better able to withstand market turbulence by sheer foresight and by putting the appropriate policies in place. Mahbubani expects that there will be countervailing forces that will want to accept and work with Asia and some that will resist the shift of power.

But just as the sun rises from the East, so has the world’s new powerhouse. And the sooner the West can accept it, then the better off it is.