Inside Asia Podcast

This week on Inside Asia, we’re tackling a big topic – Capitalism. You might argue that it’s a system as tightly imbedded in our daily lives as any other. There’s hardly a place on Earth that isn’t affected by it. In most places, it governs the basic exchange of goods and service, provides the means for that exchange, and offers a set of economic rules by which most of us can agree. It can be credited in large part for lifting half of the human population out of poverty in only half a century’s time. Healthcare and lifestyle innovations did wonders in keeping disease in check. That led to a global population explosion. But corporations responded, building things better, faster, and cheaper so that everyone could take part in the great Capitalist dream. It was all going so swimmingly, until it wasn’t. Starting in 2005, there were warning signs. By 2007, in the U.S., delinquency rates on subprime lending rose sharply. And at the outset of 2008, the markets were in free-fall. What ensued was a Global Financial