Quote:
Dr Mahathir may be 86 years old, but he still holds very strong views.
In particular, he believes Europe and the West must begin the long slow process of restructuring their economies to reduce their dependence on the financial sector.
"I think you should go back to doing what I call real business - producing goods, providing services, trading - not just moving figures in bank books, which is what you are doing."
His big bugbear is still currency trading, which he believes did huge damage to the Malaysian economy during the financial crisis that hit Asia in the late 1990s.
"Currency is not a commodity", he says.
"You sell coffee. Coffee… can be ground and made into a cup of coffee.
"But currency, you cannot grind it and make it into anything. It is just figures in the books of the banks and you can trade with figures in the books of banks only.
"There must be something solid to trade, then you can legitimately make money."
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Wise words! That's indeed an accurate assessment.
It should be pointed out, though, that many Asian countries have in fact been at the forefront of promoting speculative (if not outright fictitious) economies and currency-meddling, China perhaps more than anybody.
Frankly I don't think this says as much about EU as it does about the sustainability of finance/service-oriented economies, which are not endemic to the EU.