The Onset of the East Asian Financial Crisis

Yet it is also true that small events at times have large consequences, that there are such things as chain reactions and cumulative forces.It happens that a liquidity crisis in a unit fractional reserve banking system is precisely the kind of event that can trigger-and often has triggered-a chain reaction.And economic collapse often has the character of a cumulative process.Let it go beyond a certain point, and it will tend for a time to gain strength from its own development as its effects spread and return to intensify the process of collapse.Because no great strength would be required to hold back the rock that starts a landslide, it does not follow that the landslide will not be of major proportions.