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1997 Asian financial crisis

The 1997 Asian financial crisis was a period of financial crisis that gripped much of East and Southeast Asia during the late 1990s. The crisis began in Thailand in July 1997 before spreading to several other countries with a ripple effect, raising fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion. However, the recovery in 1998–1999 was rapid, and worries of a meltdown quickly subsided.

Originating in Thailand, where it was known as the Tom Yum Kung crisis (วิกฤตต้มยำกุ้ง) on 2 July, it followed the financial collapse of the Thai baht after the Thai government was forced to float the baht due to lack of foreign currency to support its currency peg to the U.S. dollar. Capital flight ensued almost immediately, beginning an international chain reaction. At the time, Thailand had acquired a burden of foreign debt. As the crisis spread, other Southeast Asian countries and later Japan and South Korea saw slumping currencies, devalued stock markets and other asset prices, and a precipitous rise in private debt. Foreign debt-to-GDP ratios rose from 100% to 167% in the four large Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies in 1993–96, then shot up beyond 180% during the worst of the crisis. In South Korea, the ratios rose from 13% to 21% and then as high as 40%, while the other northern newly industrialized countries fared much better. Only in Thailand and South Korea did debt service-to-exports ratios rise.

South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand were the countries most affected by the crisis. Hong Kong, Laos, Malaysia and the Philippines were also hurt by the slump. Brunei, mainland China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam were less affected, although all suffered from a general loss of demand and confidence throughout the region. Although most of the governments of Asia had seemingly sound fiscal policies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stepped in to initiate a $40 billion program to stabilize the currencies of South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia, economies particularly hard hit by the crisis.

The efforts to stem a global economic crisis did little to stabilize the domestic situation in Indonesia, however. After 30 years in power, Indonesian President Suharto was forced to step down on 21 May 1998 in the wake of widespread rioting that followed sharp price increases caused by a drastic devaluation of the rupiah. The effects of the crisis lingered through 1998, where many important stocks fell in Wall Street as a result of a dip in the values of the currencies of Russia and Latin American countries that weakened those countries' "demand for U.S. exports." In 1998, growth in the Philippines dropped to virtually zero. Only Singapore proved relatively insulated from the shock, but nevertheless suffered serious hits in passing, mainly due to its status as a major financial hub and its geographical proximity to Malaysia and Indonesia. By 1999, however, analysts saw signs that the economies of Asia were beginning to recover. After the crisis, economies in East and Southeast Asia worked together toward financial stability and better financial supervision.

Credit bubbles and fixed currency exchange rates
[[File:Indonesia money supply increases and inflation.webp|thumb|290px|

]] The causes of the debacle are many and disputed. Thailand's economy developed into an economic bubble fueled by hot money. More and more was required as the size of the bubble grew. The same type of situation happened in Malaysia and Indonesia, which had the added complication of what was called "crony capitalism". The short-term capital flow was expensive and often highly conditioned for quick profit. Development money went in a largely uncontrolled manner to certain people only – not necessarily the best suited or most efficient, but those closest to the centers of power. Weak corporate governance also led to inefficient investment and declining profitability.

Until 1999, Asia attracted almost half of the total capital inflow into developing countries. The economies of Southeast Asia in particular maintained high interest rates attractive to foreign investors looking for a high rate of return. As a result, the region's economies received a large inflow of money and experienced a dramatic run-up in asset prices. At the same time, the regional economies of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and South Korea experienced high growth rates, of 8–12% GDP, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This achievement was widely acclaimed by financial institutions including IMF and World Bank, and was known as part of the "Asian economic miracle".

In the mid-1990s, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea had large private current account deficits, and the maintenance of fixed exchange rates encouraged external borrowing and led to excessive exposure to foreign exchange risk in both the financial and corporate sectors.

In the mid-1990s, a series of external shocks began to change the economic environment. The devaluation of the Chinese renminbi and the Japanese yen, subsequent to the latter's strengthening due to the Plaza Accord of 1985, the raising of U.S. interest rates which led to a strong U.S. dollar, and the sharp decline in semiconductor prices, all adversely affected their growth. As the U.S. economy recovered from a recession in the early 1990s, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank under Alan Greenspan began to raise U.S. interest rates to head off inflation.

This made the United States a more attractive investment destination relative to Southeast Asia, which had been attracting hot money flows through high short-term interest rates, and raised the value of the U.S. dollar. For the Southeast Asian nations which had currencies pegged to the U.S. dollar, the higher U.S. dollar caused their own exports to become more expensive and less competitive in the global markets. At the same time, Southeast Asia's export growth slowed dramatically in the spring of 1996, deteriorating their current account position.

Some economists have advanced the growing exports of China as a factor contributing to ASEAN nations' export growth slowdown, though these economists maintain the main cause of their crises was excessive real estate speculation. China had begun to compete effectively with other Asian exporters particularly in the 1990s after the implementation of a number of export-oriented reforms. Other economists dispute China's impact, noting that both ASEAN and China experienced simultaneous rapid export growth in the early 1990s.

Many economists believe that the Asian crisis was created not by market psychology or technology, but by policies that distorted incentives within the lender–borrower relationship. The resulting large quantities of credit that became available generated a highly leveraged economic climate, and pushed up asset prices to an unsustainable level, particularly those in non-productive sectors of the economy such as real-estate. These asset prices eventually began to collapse, causing individuals and companies to default on debt obligations.

Panic among lenders and withdrawal of credit
The resulting panic among lenders led to a large withdrawal of credit from the crisis countries, causing a credit crunch and further bankruptcies. In addition, as foreign investors attempted to withdraw their money, the exchange market was flooded with the currencies of the crisis countries, putting depreciative pressure on their exchange rates. To prevent currency values collapsing, these countries' governments raised domestic interest rates to exceedingly high levels (to help diminish flight of capital by making lending more attractive to investors) and intervened in the exchange market, buying up any excess domestic currency at the fixed exchange rate with foreign reserves. Neither of these policy responses could be sustained for long, as several countries had insufficient levels of foreign exchange reserves.

[[File:South Korean bonds.webp|thumb|right|South Korean bonds

]] Very high interest rates, which can be extremely damaging to a healthy economy, wreaked further havoc on economies in an already fragile state, while the central banks were hemorrhaging foreign reserves, of which they had finite amounts. When it became clear that the tide of capital fleeing these countries was not to be stopped, the authorities ceased defending their fixed exchange rates and allowed their currencies to float. The resulting depreciated value of those currencies meant that foreign currency-denominated liabilities grew substantially in domestic currency terms, causing more bankruptcies and further deepening the crisis.

Other economists, including Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs, have downplayed the role of the real economy in the crisis compared to the financial markets. The rapidity with which the crisis happened has prompted Sachs and others to compare it to a classic bank run prompted by a sudden risk shock. Sachs pointed to strict monetary and contractionary fiscal policies implemented by the governments on the advice of the IMF in the wake of the crisis, while Frederic Mishkin points to the role of asymmetric information in the financial markets that led to a "herd mentality" among investors that magnified a small risk in the real economy. The crisis has thus attracted attention from behavioral economists interested in market psychology.

Another possible cause of the sudden risk shock may also be attributable to the handover of Hong Kong sovereignty on 1 July 1997. During the 1990s, hot money flew into the Southeast Asia region through financial hubs, especially Hong Kong. The investors were often ignorant of the actual fundamentals or risk profiles of the respective economies, and once the crisis gripped the region, the political uncertainty regarding the future of Hong Kong as an Asian financial centre led some investors to withdraw from Asia altogether. This shrink in investments only worsened the financial conditions in Asia (subsequently leading to the depreciation of the Thai baht on 2 July 1997).

Several case studies on the topic of the application of network analysis of a financial system help to explain the interconnectivity of financial markets, as well as the significance of the robustness of hubs (or main nodes). Any negative externalities in the hubs creates a ripple effect through the financial system and the economy (as well as any connected economies) as a whole.

The foreign ministers of the 10 ASEAN countries believed that the well co-ordinated manipulation of their currencies was a deliberate attempt to destabilize the ASEAN economies. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused George Soros and other currency traders of ruining Malaysia's economy with currency speculation. Soros claims to have been a buyer of the ringgit during its fall, having sold it short in 1997.

At the 30th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting held in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, the foreign ministers issued a joint declaration on 25 July 1997 expressing serious concern and called for further intensification of ASEAN's cooperation to safeguard and promote ASEAN's interest in this regard. Coincidentally, on that same day, the central bankers of most of the affected countries were at the EMEAP (Executive Meeting of East Asia Pacific) meeting in Shanghai, and they failed to make the "New Arrangement to Borrow" operational. A year earlier, the finance ministers of these same countries had attended the 3rd APEC finance ministers meeting in Kyoto, Japan, on 17 March 1996, and according to that joint declaration, they had been unable to double the amounts available under the "General Agreement to Borrow" and the "Emergency Finance Mechanism".

IMF role
The scope and the severity of the collapses led to an urgent need for outside intervention. Since the countries melting down were among the richest in their region, and in the world, and since hundreds of billions of dollars were at stake, any response to the crisis was likely to be cooperative and international. The International Monetary Fund created a series of bailouts ("rescue packages") for the most-affected economies to enable them to avoid default, tying the packages to currency, banking and financial system reforms. Due to IMF's involvement in the financial crisis, the term IMF Crisis became a way to refer to the Asian Financial Crisis in countries that were affected.

Economic reforms
The IMF's support was conditional on a series of economic reforms, the "structural adjustment package" (SAP). The SAPs called on crisis-struck nations to reduce government spending and deficits, allow insolvent banks and financial institutions to fail, and aggressively raise interest rates. The reasoning was that these steps would restore confidence in the nations' fiscal solvency, penalize insolvent companies, and protect currency values. Above all, it was stipulated that IMF-funded capital had to be administered rationally in the future, with no favored parties receiving funds by preference. In at least one of the affected countries the restrictions on foreign ownership were greatly reduced.

There were to be adequate government controls set up to supervise all financial activities, ones that were to be independent, in theory, of private interest. Insolvent institutions had to be closed, and insolvency itself had to be clearly defined. In addition, financial systems were to become "transparent", that is, provide the kind of financial information used in the West to make financial decisions.

As countries fell into crisis, many local businesses and governments that had taken out loans in US dollars, which suddenly became much more expensive relative to the local currency which formed their earned income, found themselves unable to pay their creditors. The dynamics of the situation were similar to that of the Latin American debt crisis. The effects of the SAPs were mixed and their impact controversial. Critics, however, noted the contractionary nature of these policies, arguing that in a recession, the traditional Keynesian response was to increase government spending, prop up major companies, and lower interest rates.

The reasoning was that by stimulating the economy and staving off recession, governments could restore confidence while preventing economic loss. They pointed out that the U.S. government had pursued expansionary policies, such as lowering interest rates, increasing government spending, and cutting taxes, when the United States itself entered a recession in 2001, and arguably the same in the fiscal and monetary policies during the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis.

Many commentators in retrospect criticized the IMF for encouraging the developing economies of Asia down the path of "fast-track capitalism", meaning liberalization of the financial sector (elimination of restrictions on capital flows), maintenance of high domestic interest rates to attract portfolio investment and bank capital, and pegging of the national currency to the dollar to reassure foreign investors against currency risk.

IMF and high interest rates
The conventional high-interest-rate economic strategy is normally employed by monetary authorities to attain the chain objectives of tightened money supply, discouraged currency speculation, stabilized exchange rate, curbed currency depreciation, and ultimately contained inflation.

In the Asian meltdown, highest IMF officials rationalized their prescribed high interest rates as follows:

From then IMF First Deputy managing director, Stanley Fischer in 1998:

When their governments "approached the IMF, the reserves of Thailand and South Korea were perilously low, and the Indonesian Rupiah was excessively depreciated. Thus, the first order of business was... to restore confidence in the currency. To achieve this, countries have to make it more attractive to hold domestic currency, which in turn, requires increasing interest rates temporarily, even if higher interest costs complicate the situation of weak banks and corporations...

Why not operate with lower interest rates and a greater devaluation? This is a relevant tradeoff, but there can be no question that the degree of devaluation in the Asian countries is excessive, both from the viewpoint of the individual countries, and from the viewpoint of the international system. Looking first to the individual country, companies with substantial foreign currency debts, as so many companies in these countries have, stood to suffer far more from… currency (depreciation) than from a temporary rise in domestic interest rates…. Thus, on macroeconomics… monetary policy has to be kept tight to restore confidence in the currency....

From the then IMF managing director Michel Camdessus:

"To reverse (currency depreciation), countries have to make it more attractive to hold domestic currency, and that means temporarily raising interest rates, even if this (hurts) weak banks and corporations."

Thailand
From 1985 to 1996, Thailand's economy grew at an average of over 9% per year, the highest economic growth rate of any country at the time. Inflation was kept reasonably low within a range of 3.4–5.7%. The baht was pegged at 25 to the U.S. dollar.

On 14 and 15 May 1997, the Thai baht was hit by massive speculative attacks. On 30 June 1997, Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said that he would not devalue the baht. However, Thailand lacked the foreign reserves to support the USD–Baht currency peg, and the Thai government was eventually forced to float the Baht, on 2 July 1997, allowing the value of the Baht to be set by the currency market. This caused a chain reaction of events, eventually culminating into a region-wide crisis.

Thailand's booming economy came to a halt amid massive layoffs in finance, real estate, and construction that resulted in huge numbers of workers returning to their villages in the countryside and 600,000 foreign workers being sent back to their home countries. The baht devalued swiftly and lost more than half of its value. The baht reached its lowest point of 56 units to the U.S. dollar in January 1998. The Thai stock market dropped 75%. Finance One, the largest Thai finance company until then, collapsed.

On 11 August 1997, the IMF unveiled a rescue package for Thailand with more than $17 billion, subject to conditions such as passing laws relating to bankruptcy (reorganizing and restructuring) procedures and establishing strong regulation frameworks for banks and other financial institutions. The IMF approved on 20 August 1997, another bailout package of $2.9 billion.

Poverty and inequality increased while employment, wages and social welfare all declined as a result of the crisis.

Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, income in the northeast, the poorest part of the country, rose by 46 percent from 1998 to 2006. Nationwide poverty fell from 21.3 to 11.3 percent. Thailand's Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, fell from .525 in 2000 to .499 in 2004 (it had risen from 1996 to 2000) versus 1997 Asian financial crisis.

By 2001, Thailand's economy had recovered. The increasing tax revenues allowed the country to balance its budget and repay its debts to the IMF in 2003, four years ahead of schedule. The Thai baht continued to appreciate to 29 Baht to the U.S. dollar in October 2010.

Indonesia

In June 1997, Indonesia seemed far from crisis. Unlike Thailand, Indonesia had low inflation, a trade surplus of more than $900 million, huge foreign exchange reserves of more than $20 billion, and a good banking sector. However, a large number of Indonesian corporations had been borrowing in U.S. dollars. This practice had worked well for these corporations during the preceding years, as the rupiah had strengthened respective to the dollar; their effective levels of debt and financing costs had decreased as the local currency's value rose.

In July 1997, when Thailand floated the baht, Indonesia's monetary authorities widened the rupiah currency trading band from 8% to 12%. As a result, the rupiah suddenly came under severe attack in August. Therefore, on the 14th of the month, the managed floating exchange regime was replaced by a free-floating exchange rate arrangement. The rupiah dropped further due to the shift. The IMF came forward with a rescue package of $23 billion, but the rupiah was sinking further amid fears over corporate debts, massive selling of rupiah, and strong demand for dollars. The rupiah and the Jakarta Stock Exchange touched a historic low in September. Moody's eventually downgraded Indonesia's long-term debt to "junk bond".

Although the rupiah crisis began in July and August 1997, it intensified in November when the effects of that summer devaluation showed up on corporate balance sheets. Companies that had borrowed in dollars had to face the higher costs imposed upon them by the rupiah's decline, and many reacted by buying dollars through selling rupiah, undermining the value of the latter further. Before the crisis, the exchange rate between the rupiah and the dollar was roughly 2,600 rupiah to 1 U.S. dollar. The rate plunged to over 11,000 rupiah to 1 U.S. dollar on 9 January 1998, with spot rates over 14,000 during 23–26 January and trading again over 14,000 for about six weeks during June–July 1998. On 31 December 1998, the rate was almost exactly 8,000 to 1 U.S. dollar. Indonesia lost 13.5% of its GDP that year.

In February 1998, President Suharto sacked the incumbent Bank Indonesia governor, J. Soedradjad Djiwandono, but this proved insufficient. Amidst widespread rioting in May 1998, Suharto resigned under public pressure and Vice President B. J. Habibie replaced him.

As a result of the financial crisis that hit the country, many factors arising from all aspects, including sports broadcasting on Indonesian television, including:

 * ANTV lost their television rights to broadcast the 1998 Formula One World Championship despite their Formula One broadcasting rights contract in Indonesia lasting until 1999; as a result, the 1998 season was not aired on Indonesian television. RCTI finally re-secured the broadcast rights for the to  season.
 * ANTV also stopped the coverage of 1997–98 Serie A, 1997–98 Bundesliga, and the 1997–98 La Liga, before the end of their respective seasons. However, it did not affect the 1997–98 FA Premier League, as they had already broadcast it up to the end of the season.
 * All television stations had limited broadcast schedules, with an average closedown at 11:30 pm or 12:00 am.

Additionally, the Indonesian motorcycle Grand Prix, which was held at Sentul, was dropped from the 1998 Superbike and MotoGP calendars. World Rally Championship also dropped the Rally Indonesia from their 1998 calendar.

South Korea
The banking sector was burdened with non-performing loans as its large corporations were funding aggressive expansions. During that time, there was a haste to build great conglomerates to compete on the world stage. Many businesses ultimately failed to ensure returns and profitability. The chaebol, South Korean conglomerates, simply absorbed more and more capital investment. Eventually, excess debt led to major failures and takeovers.

[[File:South Korean bonds.webp|thumb|right|South Korean bonds

]] Amongst other stimuli, the crisis resulted in the bankruptcy of major Korean companies, provoking not only corporations, but also government officials towards corruption. The Hanbo scandal of early 1997 exposed South Korea's economic weaknesses and corruption problems to the international financial community. Later that year, in July, South Korea's third-largest car maker, Kia Motors, asked for emergency loans. The domino effect of collapsing large South Korean companies drove the interest rates up and international investors away.

In the wake of the Asian market downturn, Moody's lowered the credit rating of South Korea from A1 to A3, on 28 November 1997, and downgraded again to B2 on 11 December. That contributed to a further decline in South Korean shares since stock markets were already bearish in November. The Seoul stock exchange fell by 4% on 7 November 1997. On 8 November, it plunged by 7%, its biggest one-day drop to that date. And on 24 November, stocks fell a further 7.2% on fears that the IMF would demand tough reforms. In 1998, Hyundai Motor Company took over Kia Motors. Samsung Motors' $5 billion venture was dissolved due to the crisis, and eventually Daewoo Motors was sold to the American company General Motors (GM).

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided US$58.4 billion as a bailout package. In return, Korea was required to take restructuring measures. The ceiling on foreign investment in Korean companies was raised from 26 percent to 100 percent. In addition, the Korean government started financial sector reform program. Under the program, 787 insolvent financial institutions were closed or merged by June 2003. The number of financial institutions in which foreign investors invested has increased rapidly. Examples include New Bridge Capital's takeover of Korea First Bank.

The South Korean won, meanwhile, weakened to more than 1,700 per U.S. dollar from around 800, but later managed to recover. However, like the chaebol, South Korea's government did not escape unscathed. Its national debt-to-GDP ratio more than doubled (approximately 13% to 30%) as a result of the crisis.

Philippines
In May 1997, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the country's central bank, raised interest rates by 1.75 percentage points and again by 2 points on 19 June. Thailand triggered the crisis on 2 July and on 3 July, the Bangko Sentral intervened to defend the peso, raising the overnight rate from 15% to 32% at the onset of the Asian crisis in mid-July 1997. The peso dropped from 26 pesos per dollar at the start of the crisis to 46.50 pesos in early 1998 to 53 pesos as in July 2001.

The Philippine GDP contracted by 0.6% during the worst part of the crisis, but grew by 3% by 2001, despite scandals of the administration of Joseph Estrada in 2001, most notably the "jueteng" scandal, causing the PSE Composite Index, the main index of the Philippine Stock Exchange, to fall to 1,000 points from a high of 3,448 points in 1997. The peso's value declined to around 55.75 pesos to the U.S. dollar. Later that year, Estrada was on the verge of impeachment but his allies in the senate voted against continuing the proceedings.

This led to popular protests culminating in the "EDSA II Revolution", which effected his resignation and elevated Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the presidency. During her presidency, the crisis in the country lessened. The Philippine peso rose to about 50 pesos by the year's end and traded at around 41 pesos to a dollar in late 2007. The stock market also reached an all-time high in 2007 (surpassed by February 2018) and the economy was growing by more than 7 percent, its highest in nearly two decades.

China
China's nonconvertible capital account and its foreign exchange control were decisive in limiting the impact of the crisis.

The Chinese currency, the renminbi (RMB), had been pegged in 1994 to the U.S. dollar at a ratio of 8.3 RMB to the dollar. Having largely kept itself above the fray throughout 1997–1998, there was heavy speculation in the Western press that China would soon be forced to devalue its currency to protect the competitiveness of its exports vis-a-vis those of the ASEAN nations, whose exports became cheaper relative to China's. However, the RMB's non-convertibility protected its value from currency speculators, and the decision was made to maintain the peg of the currency, thereby improving the country's standing within Asia. The currency peg was partly scrapped in July 2005, rising 2.3% against the dollar, reflecting pressure from the United States.

Unlike investments of many of the Southeast Asian nations, almost all of China's foreign investment took the form of factories on the ground rather than securities, which insulated the country from rapid capital flight. While China was unaffected by the crisis compared to Southeast Asia and South Korea, GDP growth slowed sharply in 1998 and 1999, calling attention to structural problems within its economy. In particular, the Asian financial crisis convinced the Chinese government of the need to resolve the issues of its enormous financial weaknesses, such as having too many non-performing loans within its banking system, and relying heavily on trade with the United States.

Other Asian countries harshly affected by the crisis sought the United States or Japan to bail them out of the difficult economic conditions. As the United States and Japan moved slowly, China made a highly regarded symbolic gesture by refusing to devalue its own currency (which presumably would have touched off a series of competitive devaluations with serious consequences for the region). Instead, China contributed $4 billion to neighboring countries via a combination of bilateral bailouts and contributing to IMF bailout packages.

In 1999, as a result of these actions, the World Bank described China as a "source of stability for the region" in one of its reports.

The Asian Financial Crisis helped solidify Chinese policymakers' views that China should not move towards a liberal market economy, and that its reform and opening up should focus on tightening financial regulations and resisting foreign pressures to open the country's financial markets prematurely. Lessons learned by policymakers following the financial crisis also became an important factor in China's evolving approach to managing state-owned assets, particularly its foreign exchange reserves, and its creation of sovereign funds beginning with Central Huijin.

Hong Kong
In October 1997, the Hong Kong dollar, which had been pegged at 7.8 to the U.S. dollar since 1983, came under speculative pressure because Hong Kong's inflation rate had been significantly higher than the United States' for years. Monetary authorities spent more than $1 billion to defend the local currency. Since Hong Kong had more than $80 billion in foreign reserves, which is equivalent to 700% of its M1 money supply and 45% of its M3 money supply, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (effectively the region's central bank) managed to maintain the peg.

Stock markets became more and more volatile; between 20 and 23 October the Hang Seng Index dropped 23%. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority then promised to protect the currency. On 23 October 1997, it raised overnight interest rates from 8% to 23%, and at one point to '280%'. The HKMA had recognized that speculators were taking advantage of the city's unique currency-board system, in which overnight rates (HIBOR) automatically increase in proportion to large net sales of the local currency. The rate hike, however, increased downward pressure on the stock market, allowing speculators to profit by short selling shares. The HKMA started buying component shares of the Hang Seng Index in mid-August 1998.

The HKMA and Donald Tsang, the then Financial Secretary, declared war on speculators. The Government ended up buying approximately HK$120 billion (US$15 billion) worth of shares in various companies, and became the largest shareholder of some of those companies (e.g., the government owned 10% of HSBC) at the end of August, when hostilities ended with the closing of the August Hang Seng Index futures contract. In 1999, the Government started selling those shares by launching the Tracker Fund of Hong Kong, making a profit of about HK$30 billion (US$4 billion).

Malaysia
In July 1997, within days of the Thai baht devaluation, the Malaysian ringgit was heavily traded by speculators. The overnight rate jumped from under 8% to over 40%. This led to rating downgrades and a general sell off on the stock and currency markets. By end of 1997, ratings had fallen many notches from investment grade to junk, the KLSE had lost more than 50% from above 1,200 to under 600, and the ringgit had lost 50% of its value, falling from above 2.50 to under 4.57 on (23 January 1998) to the dollar. The then prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad imposed strict capital controls and introduced a 3.80 peg against the U.S. dollar.

Malaysian moves involved fixing the local currency to the U.S. dollar, stopping the overseas trade in ringgit currency and other ringgit assets therefore making offshore use of the ringgit invalid, restricting the amount of currency and investments that residents can take abroad, and imposed for foreign portfolio funds, a minimum one-year "stay period" which since has been converted to an exit tax. The decision to make ringgit held abroad invalid has also dried up sources of ringgit held abroad that speculators borrow from to manipulate the ringgit, for example by "selling short". Those who did, had to repurchase the limited ringgit at higher prices, making it unattractive to them. It also fully suspended the trading of CLOB (Central Limit Order Book) counters, indefinitely freezing approximately $4.47 billion worth of shares and affecting 172,000 investors, most of them Singaporeans,  which became a political issue between the two countries.

In 1998, the output of the real economy declined plunging the country into its first recession for many years. The construction sector contracted 23.5%, manufacturing shrunk 9% and the agriculture sector 5.9%. Overall, the country's gross domestic product plunged 6.2% in 1998. During that year, the ringgit plunged below 4.7 and the KLSE fell below 270 points. In September that year, various defensive measures were announced to overcome the crisis.

The principal measure taken were to move the ringgit from a free float to a fixed exchange rate regime. Bank Negara fixed the ringgit at 3.8 to the dollar. Capital controls were imposed while aid offered from the IMF was refused. Various task force agencies were formed. The Corporate Debt Restructuring Committee dealt with corporate loans. Danaharta discounted and bought bad loans from banks to facilitate orderly asset realization. Danamodal recapitalized banks.

Growth then settled at a slower but more sustainable pace. The massive current account deficit became a fairly substantial surplus. Banks were better capitalized and NPLs were realised in an orderly way. Small banks were bought out by strong ones. A large number of PLCs were unable to regulate their financial affairs and were delisted. Compared to the 1997 current account, by 2005, Malaysia was estimated to have a $14.06 billion surplus. Asset values however, have not returned to their pre-crisis highs. Foreign investor confidence was still low, partially due to the lack of transparency shown in how the CLOB counters had been dealt with.

In 2005 the last of the crisis measures were removed as taken off the fixed exchange system. But unlike the pre-crisis days, it did not appear to be a free float, but a managed float, like the Singapore dollar.

Mongolia
Mongolia was adversely affected by the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 and suffered a further loss of income as a result of the Russian crisis in 1999. Economic growth picked up in 1997–99 after stalling in 1996 due to a series of natural disasters and increases in world prices of copper and cashmere. Public revenues and exports collapsed in 1998 and 1999 due to the repercussions of the Asian financial crisis. In August and September 1999, the economy suffered from a temporary Russian ban on exports of oil and oil products. Mongolia joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1997. The international donor community pledged over $300 million per year at the last Consultative Group Meeting, held in Ulaanbaatar in June 1999.

Singapore
As the financial crisis spread, the economy of Singapore dipped into a short recession. The short duration and milder effect on its economy was credited to the active management by the government. For example, the Monetary Authority of Singapore allowed for a gradual 20% depreciation of the Singapore dollar to cushion and guide the economy to a soft landing. The timing of government programs such as the Interim Upgrading Program and other construction related projects were brought forward.

Instead of allowing the labor markets to work, the National Wage Council pre-emptively agreed to Central Provident Fund cuts to lower labor costs, with limited impact on disposable income and local demand. Unlike in Hong Kong, no attempt was made to directly intervene in the capital markets and the Straits Times Index was allowed to drop 60%. In less than a year, the Singaporean economy fully recovered and continued on its growth trajectory.

Japan
The crisis had also put pressure on Japan, whose economy is particularly prominent in the region. Asian countries usually ran a trade deficit with Japan. The Japanese yen fell to 147 as mass selling began, but Japan was the world's largest holder of currency reserves at the time, so it was easily defended, and quickly bounced back. A run on the banks was narrowly averted on 26 November 1997 when TV networks decided not to report on long queues that had formed outside banks, before the central bank had ordered that they be let in. The real GDP growth rate slowed dramatically in 1997, from 5% to 1.6%, and even sank into recession in 1998 due to intense competition from cheapened rivals; also in 1998 the government had to bail out several banks. The Asian financial crisis also led to more bankruptcies in Japan. In addition, with South Korea's devalued currency and China's steady gains, many companies complained outright that they could not compete.

According to Van Sant et al., in August 1997, Japan proposed the establishment of an Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) to address the Asian currency crisis. Japan aimed to reduce its dependence on the United States and increase its autonomy in economic, security, and diplomatic matters. However, the AMF proposal was abandoned due to strong objections from the United States and indifference from China. Instead, Japan announced plans for cooperation loans with international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. In October 1998, Japan proposed providing $30 billion to support Asia, and in December 1998, it proposed a total of $600 billion in special yen credits over the next three years.

A longer-term result was the changing relationship between the United States and Japan, with the United States no longer openly supporting the highly artificial trade environment and exchange rates that governed economic relations between the two countries for almost five decades after World War II.

United States
The U.S. Treasury was deeply involved with the IMF in finding solutions. The American markets were severely hit. On 27 October 1997, the Dow Jones industrial plunged 554 points or 7.2%, amid ongoing worries about the Asian economies. During the crisis, it fell 12%. The crisis led to a drop in consumer and spending confidence (see 27 October 1997 mini-crash). Nevertheless, the economy grew at a very robust 4.5% for the entire year, and did very well in 1998 as well.

Asia
The crisis had significant macroeconomic-level effects, including sharp reductions in values of currencies, stock markets, and other asset prices of several Asian countries. The nominal U.S. dollar GDP of ASEAN fell by $9.2 billion in 1997 and $218.2 billion (31.7%) in 1998. In South Korea, the $170.9 billion fall in 1998 was equal to 33.1% of the 1997 GDP. Many businesses collapsed, and as a consequence, millions of people fell below the poverty line in 1997–1998. Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand were the countries most affected by the crisis.

The above tabulation shows that despite the prompt raising of interest rates to 32% in the Philippines upon the onset of crisis in mid-July 1997, and to 65% in Indonesia upon the intensification of crisis in 1998, their local currencies depreciated just the same and did not perform better than those of South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia, which countries had their high interest rates set at generally lower than 20% during the Asian crisis. This created grave doubts on the credibility of IMF and the validity of its high-interest-rate prescription to economic crisis.

The economic crisis also led to a political upheaval, most notably culminating in the resignations of President Suharto in Indonesia and Prime Minister General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh in Thailand. There was a general rise in anti-Western sentiment, with George Soros and the IMF in particular singled out as targets of criticisms. Heavy U.S. investment in Thailand ended, replaced by mostly European investment, though Japanese investment was sustained. Islamic and other separatist movements intensified in Southeast Asia as central authorities weakened.

New regulations weakened the influence of the bamboo network, a network of overseas Chinese family-owned businesses that dominate the private sector of Southeast Asia. After the crisis, business relationships were more frequently based on contracts, rather than the trust and family ties of the traditional bamboo network.

More long-term consequences included reversal of some gains made in the boom years just preceding the crisis. Nominal U.S. dollar GNP per capita fell 42.3% in Indonesia in 1997, 21.2% in Thailand, 19% in Malaysia, 18.5% in South Korea and 12.5% in the Philippines. Falls in income per capita with purchasing power parity were much smaller: in Indonesia by 15%, Thailand 12%, Malaysia 10%, South Korea 6%, Philippines 3%. In most countries recovery was fast. Between 1999 and 2005 average per capita annual growth was 8.2%, investment growth nearly 9%, foreign direct investment 17.5%. Precrisis levels of income per capita with purchasing power parity were exceeded in 1999 in South Korea, in 2000 in Philippines, in 2002 in Malaysia and Thailand, in 2005 in Indonesia. Within East Asia, the bulk of investment and a significant amount of economic weight shifted from Japan and ASEAN to China and India.

The crisis has been intensively analyzed by economists for its breadth, speed, and dynamism; it affected dozens of countries, had a direct impact on the livelihood of millions, happened within the course of a mere few months, and at each stage of the crisis leading economists, in particular the international institutions, seemed a step behind. Perhaps more interesting to economists was the speed with which it ended, leaving most of the developed economies unharmed. These curiosities have prompted an explosion of literature about financial economics and a litany of explanations why the crisis occurred. A number of critiques have been leveled against the conduct of the IMF in the crisis, including one by former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz. Politically there were some benefits. In several countries, particularly South Korea and Indonesia, there was renewed push for improved corporate governance. Rampaging inflation weakened the authority of the Suharto regime and led to its toppling in 1998, as well as accelerating East Timor's independence.

It is believed that 10,400 people committed suicide in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea as a result of the crisis.

In August 2001, the International Labour Organization arranged the Thirteenth Asian Regional Meeting with 39 member states as a result of the financial crisis. It focused on providing social protection, rights at work and creating new jobs.

Outside Asia
After the Asian crisis, international investors were reluctant to lend to developing countries, leading to economic slowdowns in developing countries in many parts of the world. The powerful negative shock also sharply reduced the price of oil, which reached a low of about $11 per barrel towards the end of 1998, causing a financial pinch in OPEC nations and other oil exporters. In response to a severe fall in oil prices, the supermajors that emerged in the late-1990s, undertook some major mergers and acquisitions between 1998 and 2002 – often in an effort to improve economies of scale, hedge against oil price volatility, and reduce large cash reserves through reinvestment.

The reduction in oil revenue also contributed to the 1998 Russian financial crisis, which in turn caused Long-Term Capital Management in the United States to collapse after losing $4.6 billion in 4 months. A wider collapse in the financial markets was avoided when Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York organized a $3.625 billion bailout. Major emerging economies Brazil and Argentina also fell into crisis in the late 1990s (see 1998–2002 Argentine great depression). The September 11 attacks contributed to major shockwave in developed and developing economies (see Stock market downturn of 2002)

The crisis in general was part of a global backlash against the Washington Consensus and institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, which simultaneously became unpopular in developed countries following the rise of the anti-globalization movement in 1999. It was a major cause for the beginning of the current anti-globalism movement and many nationalist movements. Four major rounds of world trade talks since the crisis, in Seattle, Doha, Cancún, and Hong Kong, have failed to produce a significant agreement as developing countries have become more assertive, and nations are increasingly turning toward regional or bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) as an alternative to global institutions.

Many nations learned from this, and quickly built up foreign exchange reserves as a hedge against attacks, including Japan, China, South Korea. Pan Asian currency swaps were introduced in the event of another crisis. China, in particular, bought up the government debt of the United States to protect itself. However, nations such as Brazil, Russia, and India as well as most of East Asia began copying the Japanese model of weakening their currencies, and restructuring their economies so as to create a current account surplus to build large foreign currency reserves. This has led to ever-increasing funding for U.S. treasury bonds, allowing or aiding housing (in 2001–2005) and stock asset bubbles (in 1996–2000) to develop in the United States, setting the factors that led to the financial crisis of 2007–2008.

Papers

 * Ngian Kee Jin (March 2000). Coping with the Asian Financial Crisis: The Singapore Experience. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
 * Tiwari, Rajnish (2003). Post-crisis Exchange Rate Regimes in Southeast Asia,, Seminar Paper, University of Hamburg.
 * Kilgour, Andrea (1999). The changing economic situation in Vietnam: A product of the Asian crisis?
 * Stiglitz, Joseph (1996). Some Lessons From The East Asian Miracle. The World Bank Research Observer.
 * Weisbrot, Mark (August 2007). Ten Years After: The Lasting Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis. . Center for Economic and Policy Research.
 * Tecson, Marcelo L. (2009), "IMF Must Renounce Its Weapon of Mass Destruction: High Interest Rates" (4-part paper on high-interest-rate fallacies and alternatives, emailed to IMF and others on 27 January 2009)

title: 1997 Asian financial crisis


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Pierre-Esprit Radisson

Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636/1640–1710) was a French coureur des bois and explorer in New France. He is often linked to his brother-in-law Médard des Groseilliers. The decision of Radisson and Groseilliers to enter the English service led to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company. His career was particularly notable for its repeated transitions between serving Britain and France.

There is no image of him other than that provided in his writings and those of the people who encountered him in New France, in Paris on the fringes of the court, on remote Hudson Bay, and in late Stuart London. Radisson should be considered in multiple contexts; for his achievement as a narrator of his own life, the range of his explorations, his experiences among the Indigenous peoples, and his social formation, both as a man of the early modern period for whom personal honour was an important value and as a working trader participating in the mercantile projects of the era. Radisson's life and writings have been interpreted from many different perspectives. Many French Canadians until the twentieth century accepted the verdict of his French contemporaries that he was a traitor to France.

Birth and emigration to New France
Pierre-Esprit Radisson's birthplace is unclear, but was likely in France's lower Rhône region near the town Avignon. In a 1697 affidavit and a 1698 petition he reported his age as 61 and 62, respectively, suggesting birth in 1636. Yet a 1681 census in New France, Canada, reported his age as 41, suggesting birth in 1640. This coheres with baptismal records from Carpentras, a city near Avignon, that concern Radisson's father, Pierre-Esprit Radisson Sr.

Radisson would trace his family, the Hayet-Radissons, to the town St. Malo, whereas records suggest either Paris or Avignon. According to Radisson, he emigrated from France to Canada on 24 May 1651. He may have arrived with his two sisters, Élisabeth and Françoise. They may also have been accompanied by their maternal half-sister Marguerite Hayet, who would eventually marry Radisson's later fur-trading partner, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers. By sometime in 1651, these three women were living together in Trois-Rivières.

Capture, adoption, and torture by Mohawk
In 1651 or 1652, while hunting fowl near his Trois-Rivières home, Radisson became separated from his hunting group. After discovering its several men killed by a Mohawk raiding party, he was captured by the warriors. Perhaps because of his youth, he received fairly mild treatment and, as he showed interest in Mohawk language and culture, was adopted and assimilated. In the Mohawk custom of adopting young captives, whether indigenous or European, to replace relatives lost to disease or warfare, Radisson joined a local Mohawk family near modern-day Schenectady in New York.

Not long after Radisson's integration, which took about six weeks, while out hunting with three Mohawk, he met an Algonquin man who convinced him to defect and return to Trois-Rivières. Together, they killed Radisson's Mohawk companions, traveled 14 days, and sighted the town, but were captured by patrolling Mohawk. The Mohawk killed the Algonquin and subjected Radisson, along with some 20 prisoners, to ritual torture. His adoptive, Mohawk family advocated for him and materially compensated the bereaved families to spare him execution and temper his torture.

As the Iroquois despised cowardice and punished it with death, Radisson's adoptive parents advised him to be brave and yet not too brave, since the Iroquois also sometimes ate the hearts of exceptionally brave men to acquire their courage. Radisson's fingernails were pulled out while he was forced to sing, one finger was cut to the bone, and he watched ten Huron Indians get tortured to death. The next day, an old man burned Radisson, tied to a scaffold, and a young man drove a red-hot dagger through his foot. After three days of similar treatment, the Mohawk brought out Huron prisoners and, using tomahawks, bashed in the heads of some, whereas the rest were adopted by individual families.

Once eventually released, the overwhelmed Radisson found that, as he would recall, "all my pains and griefs ceased, not feeling the least pain. [My father] bids me be merry, makes me sing, to which I consented with all my heart." He felt deep gratitude to his adoptive parents, whom he described as very loving, for saving his life. By Iroquois standards, Radisson's torture had been moderate. Radisson recounts witnessing other torture: "They burned a Frenchwoman; they pulled out her breasts, and took a child out of her belly, with they broyled [broiled] and made the mother eat it, so in short she died". Sometime after his own wounds healed, Radisson spent some five months on a war-party expedition.

Departure from Iroquois and missionary work
With other Mohawk warriors, Radisson traveled to a trading post at Fort Orange, then controlled by the Dutch, located in present-day Albany, New York. There, a governor recognized him as a Frenchman and offered to pay for his freedom. But Radisson returned to his Mohawk village. He escaped on 29 October 1653, "at 8 of the clock in the morning". Reaching Fort Orange, he was hidden at a farm, then met a Jesuit priest Joseph Antoine Poncet, who made him "a great offer", whereby he returned to Holland in early 1654 under an agreement now unclear but perhaps involving missionary work.

Later that year, 1654, Radisson returned to Trois-Rivières in New France. Over the next three years, he would embark on several missionary expeditions. His writings largely ignored this period, so little is known about his whereabouts during it, apart from a documented a deed of sale that he signed in November 1655. In 1657, Radisson accompanied a joint Franco–Iroquois expedition into Onondaga territory to aid a Jesuit priest named Simon Le Moyne operate his mission and to promote further fur trading. In 1658, under rising tensions with local Iroquois, the French left, ending the expedition. Radisson soon returned to Québec.

Career
Radisson's biggest influence in Canadian history dates from the period of 1658 to 1684, when he was an active coureur-des-bois, fur trader, and explorer. In August 1659, Radisson persuaded his brother-in-law, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers, to hire him for his journey around Lake Superior. The year-long trip was planned to collect furs, in order to participate in the ever-lucrative fur trade.

In the winter of 1659–1660, Radisson and Des Groseilliers lived just south of Lake Superior in what is now Wisconsin, associating with groups of Huron, Ottawa, Ojibwa and Sioux (Dakota) Indians. When Radisson arrived at an Ojibwa village on the shores of Lake Superior, where he spent much of the winter, he later reported giving three types of presents: to the men, women and children of the village. He gave each of the men "...a kettle, two hatchets [tomahawks], and six knives and a blade for a sword"; the women "...2 and 20 awls, 50 needles, 2 graters [scrapers] of castors, 2 ivory combs and 2 wooden ones, with red painte [vermilion], 6 looking-glasses of tin"; and to the children "...brasse rings, of small bells, and rasades [beads] of divers colors...". American historian Bruce White wrote that Radission and Des Groseilliers did not entirely understand Ojibwa society, as the kettles were typically used much more by the women for cooking than by the men. Giving paint and make-up only to women overlooked the fact that Ojibwa men used make-up and painted their faces just as much as Ojibwa women did. But Radisson may have learned that kettles were used prominently by the Huron in their Feast of the Dead, and thought that the Ojibwa men might use them in their own version of that feast.

On the other hand, White notes that the two Frenchmen clearly understood some aspects of Ojibwa gender roles very well: the gift of tomahawks for the men acknowledged that Ojibwa men were hunters and warriors, while the gift of awls for the women reflected that Ojibwa women gathered rice, gardened, cooked, fished, built bark houses, and wove mats. Ojibwa women also played important roles in the fur trade. Some married winter partners or traders, establishing relations that gave advantages to their bands. Others used their sexuality as a way of establishing informal relations with the French in order to ensure the continued supply of European goods and prevent the French from trading with other Indians.

Radisson reported on visiting one Ojibwa village in the spring of 1660, where there was a welcoming ceremony: "The women throw themselves backward on the ground, thinking to give us tokens of friendship and wellcome [welcome]". Radisson was confused at first by what the action meant, but as the women started to engage in more overtly sexual behavior, he quickly realized what they were offering. Several tribal elders informed Radisson that they did not want him trading with their enemies, the Dakota [Sioux], and that he and Des Groseilliers were free to sleep with the unmarried women of the village on condition that they did not trade with the Dakota. As Radisson's account was written for an English audience, he was vague as to whether he and Des Groseilliers took up this offer.

When Radisson and Groseilliers returned to Québec on August 24, 1660, with many furs, the merchants waiting for them were delighted to be able to sail with the pelts to Europe, but the Governor was jealous of their success. In 1659 Groseilliers had met with Governor Pierre de Voyer d'Argenson to gain a year-long permit to explore New France; the governor granted it. Seeing the success of the trip and the number of furs they had brought back, d'Argenson levied high taxes on the men, ostensibly because they had exceeded the terms of their year-long permit by a couple of days.

After seeking unsuccessfully in the courts to regain what had been confiscated by the Governor, Radisson and Groseilliers decided to go to Boston in the English Thirteen Colonies for their next explorations. They would seek English financing there to support their expedition.

Trade and journeys to Hudson Bay
Throughout their 1659–1660 voyage, the French explorers had heard references to a "salt sea" as an area with an abundance of good furs. They determined the reference must be to Hudson Bay and began to seek financing and sea-going ships for their new explorations. They could reach this destination by travel on waters outside the continent, instead of through a number of internal rivers. The first voyage to Hudson Bay was unsuccessful since the winter of that year came early, and they judged their rations on board insufficient to survive it. The pair were forced to return to Boston but were promised two ships and crew for a second attempt the following year.

This second attempt was cancelled after one of the ships was destroyed in a storm. The two men were invited to England to meet King Charles II in 1665. There they passed the winter. In the spring, they left for the New World with ship's crew that the king had promised them. The vessel Eaglet, which was carrying Radisson to Hudson's Bay, nearly sank in an Atlantic storm and was forced to turn back to Plymouth, England. In September 1668, Nonsuch landed in the Rupert River region on the shores of James Bay, where Des Groseilliers used his knowledge of frontier living to build dwellings for the crew for wintering over. About 300 Cree Indians came up in the spring of 1669 to trade furs in exchange for European goods.

Radisson sought the support of a royal patron to secure a crown monopoly on trade within the Hudson's Bay region. Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the king's first cousin and a war hero on the royalist side during the English Civil War, became that patron. Prince Rupert was not considered to be a good businessman and was not one of the king's closest friends, but he was the only member of the royal family prepared to champion the Radisson–Des Groseilliers project of fur trading at Hudson's Bay, and critical to their getting a royal charter from Charles II. While soliciting financing from the City of London, Radisson and des Groseilliers had the advantages of being the only men who knew how to survive in the North, and who also knew the local languages and customs of the Indians, and the geography.

Foundation of the Hudson's Bay Company
In 1670, Radisson was back in England and on 2 May received a royal charter giving him and his partners the exclusive rights to the land surrounding Hudson Bay; with this they founded the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). During the next few years, they made a number of highly profitable trips between England and the Bay region. With the founding of the HBC, Radisson became forced to deal with a European context; there he had to struggle for survival among rival monarchs, competing courtiers, and the changing political and economic world in which they operated.

King Charles II in his charter for the Hudson's Bay Company also founded a proprietary colony named Rupert's Land, declaring that the lands adjacent to Hudson's Bay or rivers flowing into Hudson's Bay now belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company. In theory, much of modern Canada then belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, as Rupert's Land was a vast region. In practice, the company maintained a few trading forts on the sea coasts of northern Ontario and northern Québec, to which they later added forts on the sea coast of northern Manitoba. It was not until the late 18th century that the Hudson's Bay Company showed any interest in moving inland and making good its claims to control Rupert's Land.

Both Radisson and Groseilliers operated within the HBC with the support of Prince Rupert and the company's director Sir John Robinson. Radisson and Groseilliers were successful in having the HBC receive much capital from the City of London in order to fund its operations. In 1672, Radisson married Mary Kirke, the daughter of Sir John Kirke, one of the City investors in the HBC.

As anti-French and anti-Catholic sentiment increased in England following discontent expressed in events such as the Bawdy House Riots of 1668, both Prince Rupert and Sir John decreased their support for the men. Although Radisson's reasons for doing so are not fully clear, he left London in 1675 with Grosseiliers to reenter the service of France, leaving his wife behind in England.

In French service
After leaving Britain, Radisson was unpopular in the royal court. In 1677 he decided to join the navy and to fund Marshal of France, Jean II d'Estrées's expedition in the Franco-Dutch War to conquer the island of Tobago, winning the man's favor. Following his involvement in the war, he borrowed 100 Louis d'or from the Marshal in a failed attempt to pay to arrange his wife's passage from Britain. He also failed to regain a position in the Hudson's Bay Company, as a further result of anti-French prejudice.

In 1681 Radisson headed out to found a fort on the Nelson River under a French flag, albeit against the wishes of the French state. He did so as a means of capturing the market, fearing the construction of a British fort on the same river and thus further dominance of the bay by the Hudson's Bay Company. He recruited Grosseilliers the following year to build a more permanent base.

In the winter of 1683 he and Groseilliers went to France to deal with their legal problems. (They had seized two English parties in time of peace and paid Québec tax on furs from Hudson Bay from their Nelson River fort, which may not have been part of New France.) Here they found themselves pawns in the events that led up to the Glorious Revolution. The English ambassador, Lord Preston, asked that they be punished. Compromise plans were made to send Radisson back to the Bay to pick up the remaining furs and divide the profits fairly. Lord Preston recruited Radisson back into the English service and Groseilliers returned to Québec.

Working for the Hudson's Bay Company
In 1684 Radisson sailed for the Hayes River in the vessel Happy Return, where he found Groseilliers' son Jean-Baptiste conducting a brisk trade with the Indians. He recruited Jean-Baptiste into joining HBC service and left for England in September, leaving John Abraham in charge of the fort. (Eight days later two ships belonging to Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye arrived from Québec. Although there was conflict, no blood was shed. The French wintered near the English and returned to Québec with a moderate load of furs.) Radisson's differences with various Hudson's Bay Company underlings in the 1680s suggests that he was not admired by the English seamen who had to work with him, because of their rooted detestation of the French.

In 1685 Radisson was made "Superintendent and Chief Director of the Trade at Port Nelson", where he seems to have accomplished little. In 1687 he made serious charges against the superintendent of York Factory. The HBC rejected the charges and Radisson was removed. Thereafter he lived in England on an HBC pension, which was irregularly paid. He died in 1710. In 1729 the company voted to pay ten pounds to his third wife, "she being ill and in great want."

Legacy and honors
On October 3 1989, the Canadian Armed Forces named the HMCS Radisson after him.

The towns of Radisson, Quebec; Radisson, Saskatchewan and Radisson, Wisconsin; a street and Metro station in Montreal; and the Radisson provincial electoral district in Manitoba, are all named after him.

The Radisson Hotels group, starting with the Radisson Hotel in Minneapolis in 1909, is also named after him.

The Canadian Coast Guard named CCGS Pierre Radisson after him.

Representation in other media
American writer Sinclair Lewis wrote several novels about Grand Republic, the seat of the fictitious Radisson County, Minnesota.

Sterling North dramatized Radisson's life and adventures in his young adult novel Captured by the Mohawks.

Radisson was portrayed by Paul Muni in the 1941 film Hudson's Bay.

The CBC Television series Radisson (1957–1958) was based on the explorer's life. Jacques Godin played the character of Radisson.

Historian Martin Fournier has written both an academic biography of Radisson, ''Pierre-Esprit Radisson 1636-1710. Aventurier et commerçant (2001), and a series of historical young adult novels, The Adventures of Radisson''.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Pierre-Esprit Radisson


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John Coape Sherbrooke

General Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, (29 April 1764 – 14 February 1830) was a British soldier and colonial administrator. After serving in the British army in Nova Scotia, the Netherlands, India, the Mediterranean (including Sicily), and Spain, he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia in 1811. During the War of 1812, his policies and victory in the conquest of present-day Maine, renaming it the colony of New Ireland, led to significant prosperity in Nova Scotia.

Early life
John Coape Sherbrooke was born in Oxton, Nottinghamshire, on 29 April 1764, the third son of the wealthy country squire William Coape and his wife Sarah Sherbrooke. The surname comes from Shirebrook, Derbyshire. Upon his marriage Sherbrooke's father had taken his wife's surname as his own.

Early career
Sherbrooke joined the British Army as an ensign in the 4th Regiment of Foot on 7 December 1780. He was promoted to lieutenant on 22 December 1781 and then transferred to the 85th Regiment of Foot when he became a captain on 6 March 1783. The end of the American Revolutionary War brought a number of reductions to the army and this included the disbanding of the 85th, and so on 23 June 1785 Sherbrooke transferred to the 33rd Regiment of Foot which was at the time serving in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He returned to England in 1786. When the French Revolutionary War began in 1793 Sherbrooke was still a captain but was quickly promoted twice so that by the end of May 1794 he was a lieutenant colonel in the 33rd and second in command to Colonel Arthur Wellesley. Under Wellesley he fought in the Flanders Campaign between March 1793 and April 1795, as a part of which he fought at the Battle of Boxtel on 13 September 1794 before participating in the retreat towards north-west Germany at the end of the year.

After an attempt to join the West Indies Campaign in October 1795 was aborted due to large storms in the English Channel Sherbrooke and the 33rd were instead sent to serve in India, arriving at Calcutta in February 1797. Sherbrooke was promoted to colonel on 1 January 1798 and as such fought in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, participating in the final defeat of Tipu Sultan at the Siege of Seringapatam on 4 May 1799. His service in India was cut short when he fell ill with malaria which forced him to return to England, doing so in 1800. Sherbrooke's break in service was exacerbated by the Peace of Amiens in 1802, at which point he went on half pay.

The Peace ended in May 1803 with the start of the Napoleonic Wars and Sherbrooke accordingly resumed active service, being given command of the 4th Battalion of the Army of Reserve, a home defence force created to prepare for a French invasion, based at Norman Cross. He was promoted to major general on 1 January 1805 and served under Wellesley in the Hanover Expedition between 8 November and 15 February. In June he was transferred to Sicily where he served as a subordinate to Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore and commanded at Messina; most of the troops (and Moore) were withdrawn from Sicily in October 1807, leaving Sherbrooke in command of British interests on the island. In February he had also became colonel of the Royal Sicilian Regiment. While the court of King Ferdinand urged Sherbrooke to make offensive manoeuvres towards mainland Italy with his troops, he instead began to improve Sicily's defences and prepare for a possible French invasion. He left the island in June 1808, having been superseded by Lieutenant-General Sir John Stuart.

Peninsular War
Sherbrooke was next given command of 4,000 men to assist Spanish patriots in Cadiz as part of the Peninsular War, in February 1809. The patriots did not want the British to interfere and so his force was redirected to Lisbon where he joined the main British army commanded by Wellesley, soon to become Lord Wellington. He was promoted to lieutenant general on 12 April and was the second-most senior general in the army behind Wellington. He fought at the Second Battle of Porto on 12 May with a formation of men that on 18 June was designated the 1st Division. The same month as the Second Battle of Porto, Sherbrooke became colonel of the 68th Regiment of Foot. With his division Sherbrooke fought at the Battle of Talavera in July where he successfully fought off the attacks of the French infantry but then lost control of three of his brigades in the subsequent charge, leaving a dangerous gap in the British line.

At Talavera, Sherbrooke's 1st Division included four brigades: Henry Frederick Campbell's British Guards - 2,045 men, Alan Cameron of Erracht's British regulars - 1,364, Ernst Langwerth's King's German Legion (KGL) - 1,388, and Sigismund von Löw's KGL - 1,167. Early on 28 July 1809, the numerically superior French artillery took the British positions under fire. While in one sector, British units were withdrawn out of sight from the French guns, Sherbrooke's division occupied an exposed position and suffered casualties before gunsmoke hid its position. The main French attack occurred at 3:00 pm when the French divisions of Pierre Belon Lapisse and Horace Sebastiani advanced against the 1st Division. Sherbrooke ordered his infantry not to fire until the French came within 50 yd and then to charge. These orders were carried out to the letter, causing tremendous casualties and compelling the French to hastily retreat. Apparently, Sherbrooke forgot to warn his officers not to advance too far and all the brigades except Cameron's recklessly rushed after their fleeing enemies. When the disordered Guards and the KGL came up against the intact French second line, it was their turn to take to their heels as the fresh French foot soldiers counterattacked. The day was saved by the appearance of John Randoll Mackenzie's reserve brigade and the 1st Battalion of the 48th Foot. Sherbrooke's routed troops quickly rallied behind the reinforcements and, after an extended exchange of musketry, the French counterattack was defeated. Losses were ghastly on both sides. Sebastiani's division suffered 2,100 casualties out of 8,000 while Lapisse's division lost 1,700 men out of 6,800, including Lapisse killed. In Sherbrooke's division, Langwerth was killed and his brigade reduced to 650 men, Löw's brigade lost 350 men, Cameron's brigade lost 500 men, and the Guards sustained 611 casualties. Mackenzie was killed and his brigade lost 632 men.

Sherbrooke commanded the 1st Division through the retreat to Portugal, where he threatened to hang his commissary officer if he did not provide the required food for his division, and for his service at Porto and Talavera was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in September. A recurrence of Sherbrooke's malaria forced him to resign his command on 26 April 1810 and he was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia on 19 August 1811.

War of 1812
Sherbrooke arrived at Halifax on 16 October 1811, as military commander of the Provinces of Nova-Scotia, New-Brunswick, and their Dependencies, including the Islands of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Prince Edward and Bermuda. The area of command was referred to as the Halifax Command or Nova Scotia Command.

When the War of 1812 began Sherbrooke initially fought a phoney war, allowing trade to continue with Maine to the benefit of British merchants. Having complained at the lack of defences available to protect the colony and that the extant fortifications were dilapidated, he mounted guns at harbour entrances across the colony and placed the militias in a state of readiness to repel attacks. Sherbrooke's tactic of informally continuing trade with the neighbouring American states while still making sure that his own territory was amply protected provided an opportunity for the Atlantic-facing provinces of Canada to enhance their place in international trade; they were able to flourish at a time when other areas were stifled by war.

When the Napoleonic Wars ended in April 1814 more troops were made available for North America; Sherbrooke used this opportunity to attack the disputed area of Maine between Passamaquoddy Bay and the Penobscot River, landing an expeditionary force of 2,000 men at Castine that August and proceeding to subdue the area between the Penobscot and St Croix rivers. He renamed the region the royal colony of New Ireland. Sherbrooke was able to collect customs dues while he occupied Castine, and these funds were in later years used to finance the Cambridge Military Library in Halifax and to create Dalhousie College. New Ireland remained under the control of Britain until April 1815, although Sherbrooke himself only stayed there for four weeks, when the Treaty of Ghent restored it to the United States. For his service during the war he was elevated to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.

While the majority of Sherbrooke's tenure as Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia was spent concentrating on the war, he also made a significant effort to increase support for the Church of England, as most of the population were dissenters. While largescale changes were voted down by the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, he provided small sums of money for the Church via taxation and allotted undeveloped land to it for the construction of religious buildings. At the same time Sherbrooke was aware that his support of the Church was not popular and so he held a careful balance between the two religious factions, ensuring for example that religious appointments were taken up by moderates and not zealots.

British North America
His active defence of the colony during the War of 1812 combined with his proven ability to work competently with the civilian population led to his appointment as Governor General of British North America (fully Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over the Provinces of Lower-Canada, Upper-Canada, Nova Scotia, New-Brunswick, and their several dependencies, Vice-Admiral of the same, Lieutenant-General and Commander of all His Majesty’s Forces in the said Provinces of Lower-Canada & Upper-Canada, Nova-Scotia and New-Brunswick, and their several dependencies, and in the Islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, Cape Breton, and Bermuda, &c. &c. &c) in 1816. His talent as a mediator helped settle disputes between the Francophone and English political factions; he formed a good relationship with the leader of the Francophone faction, Bishop Joseph-Octave Plessis, but at the same time cemented the position of the Chief Justice of Lower Canada Jonathan Sewell although Plessis' faction had impeached him. Similarly, he won the confidence of Louis-Joseph Papineau by providing him with a permanent salary but made sure to not show favour by doing the same for Sewell.

Retirement and death
Sherbrooke continued to work actively into 1817, concentrating on reforming the colony's public finances, but once again was set back by his failing health. He found that the cold Canadian winters helped bring on recurrences of his malaria, and also suffered a paralytic stroke on 6 February 1818. He handed over his duties to Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond on 30 July and sailed for home. He reached England in September and spent much time recuperating at the spas of Bath and Cheltenham while living at Calverton in Nottinghamshire. He was promoted to general on 27 May 1825 and died at Calverton on 14 February 1830.

Family
Sherbrooke married Katherina (died 15 May 1856), the daughter of Reginald Pyndar, rector of Madresfield, on 24 August 1811 at Areley Kings. They had no children.

Personality and legacy
Sherbrooke was well-known for his short temper and abrasive language, with Wellington noting that he was the most passionate man he had ever met. Henry Edward Bunbury said of him that:

"'the brigade he commanded winced a little under the sharpness of his discipline, while they revenged themselves by comical stories of his rough sayings and impetuous temper...A short, square, hardy little man, with a countenance that told at once the determined fortitude of his nature. Without genius, without education, hot as pepper, and rough in his language, but with a warm heart and generous feelings; true, straight forward, scorning finesse and craft and meanness, and giving vent to his detestation with boiling eagerness, and in the plainest terms. As an officer, full of energy, rousing others to exertion, and indefatigable in his own person.'"

While he resided in Nova Scotia, his home was at Birch Cove on Bedford Basin, near Halifax. Named Sherwood, it eventually lent its name to the neighbourhoods of Sherwood Park and Sherwood Heights. The community of Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia also bears his name. Other honorific eponyms are listed below:

 * Geographic locations
 * Nova Scotia: Sherbrooke
 * Nova Scotia: New Ross, formerly known as Sherbrooke
 * Quebec: Sherbrooke
 * Quebec: Rue Sherbrooke, Montreal

 * Buildings
 * Quebec: Sherbrooke Station, Montreal
 * Sherbrooke Martello Tower (1814–1828; four guns), at McNabs Cove, opposite York Redoubt at Halifax harbour.
 * Fort Sherbrooke (Maine)

 * Vessels
 * Sir John Sherbrooke
 * Sir John Sherbrooke
 * Barbados

title: John Coape Sherbrooke


text:
Talk:Seismic wave

Untitled
Surface waves do NOT cause most damage in earthquakes. High horizontal accelerations responsible for most damage are associated with shear waves (S-waves). Some geologists think that, because the surface wave traces are largest on seismograms from distance earthquakes, that surface waves cause the damage. Although the displacement of surface waves is usually higher than that of shear waves at teleseismic distances, horizontal accelerations are highest in the near field when the shear waves arrive, and these high horizontal accelerations do the damage.

This error has propagated through generations of physical geology textbooks.

Some seismologists are looking into a new kind of surface wave called a basin-generated wave, but strong motion seismograms usually reveal that the damaging motions are inconsistent with classical Love or Rayleigh waves, the surface waves well recorded hundred to thousands of kilometers from large earthquakes.

Shear wave amplification and resonance in the soft sediments of deep basins is a well know and understood phenomenon.

 * Hmm... ? - Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 07:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

From what I have read in my textbook (google Wave Phenomena, it's a pdf), surface waves are the most severe. 75.26.194.89 (talk) 21:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)trehansiddharth

You are both right. The confusion stems from the vague notation (which I myself have struggled with a lot -- hence the reason I wrote the "notation" section). S-waves and surface waves are actually two different things. S-waves (the kind that involve shearing) can travel along the surface or through the solid earth. (Similarly P-waves can travel both along the surface or through the earth). It is the secondary waves that travel along the surface that cause the most damage. I added some clarifying words to the main article to help alleviate this problem. Sprunger19 (talk) 18:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Sprunger19

Length of Article
In general, I find this article too long and comprehensive, with few outside references. Would it be good for a highschool project? I have started to divide some of these things into 1-page focused articles. These are then good for links in other articles. It's a question as to the 'social purpose' of the wiki ??? --Zeizmic 16:44, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion, 'outside references' - I presume by that you mean citations from scientific journals - are not terribly important, or even necessary, if the information presented is accurate (because it comes from direct, first-hand work experience). That is how experts are created, as much as study. I've noticed that some eminent experts - scientists - have been contributing their first-hand knowledge, in various fields. Excellent! Wiki needs 'em. I am never too concerned if an obvious expert in a field does not give references, but just says blah blah blah, this is what it's about. Good for him, or her. That person can condense a lot of information into relatively compact form, and spare other people the long and probably tedious study of that subject. And there are always other people come along and say, this is not quite correct, so it gets adjusted. Or added to. So usually it ends up quite accurate.

Who reads the journals anyway, but the experts? Not very many people! And: citation is a game in itself. There has been strong criticism of the policy of using the number of times a paper is cited as a measure of its quality, for example. Some scientists have said: wrong! (Just to cite the problem with citations.) They are not only used, today, but also abused. "Ha, I've been cited 112 times! Even so: that paper may not be terribly exciting or interesting or valuable or useful.  Yet, citations have become the default rating system.  Foolishly so, in the opinion of some scientists, who I happen to agree with.

Fact is: you can probably find supporting information/references on your own, using Google, if you want it. Type in any term: you can obtain a whole lot of information outside Wiki, about anything. Enough to boggle the mind, and growing rapidly. Wiki should not be considered 'the universe of information'. It's not important that it be 'the authoritative source', as long as the info is well-written and accurate.

In the case of this article...I authored better than half of it, as it stands. That's because I worked in seismology for a number of years. I saw gaps in the article as it was. So I added my knowledge. During my work in seismology I located many earthquakes, using a program I wrote, from scratch. My locations typically agreed very well with the official USGS epicenters, even though I was using data from merely three seismograph stations, and my own equations, which I derived, carefully, from published, well-accepted travel-time charts.

So, that's my reference: personal work experience. Years of it.

Maybe the article is 'too long and comprehensive' in your opinion, but I don't see the harm in being comprehensive, nor any harm in presenting information of a more esoteric nature. Someone else may think: wow, those waves *bounce* inside the earth? I didn't realize that.

Why is such information important? I think it's important because it may give that person a clue, how we happen to know so much about the inner planet. It's because the shock waves from earthquakes do bounce and refract! Thus, the inner Earth is subject to mathematical analysis, and can be effectively *observed*.

This is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary, after all. :-) You may not be too interested in some of the information given - (yawn, where did that video game control get to?) - but someone else may find it quite interesting.  That is the nature of the human beast.  I realize I'm sounding a bit 'Hemmingway' here, but...one man's milk is another man's poison. Law of human nature! In fact: a lot more could be said about the subject of P and S than I said.

Like: what if you reverse them, and make them S and P? But I didn't want to wear out my keyboard.

The 'social purpose' of any encyclopedia is - of course - to inform, and enlighten, and hopefully do it well, in a way that it's enjoyable to read, and maybe even entertaining. Why? So people will want to read, at a time when they are - in great numbers - forgotting how to. When 'R U 2?' came along, I was shocked, frankly! For a surprising number of people, that's standard English now! Shudder. The chinks speak better English than that! Sorry. Chinese. We're all becoming 'PC' these days too, tragically. As well as only partly literate. The lucky ones. I think Wikipedia admirably succeeds in its goal, which I personally believe is: turning back the tide on the illiterates, the semi-literates and the people what don't read so good. It's becoming a serious source of information. Impressive. Just from a lot of contributions, by a myriad unpaid people. Imagine that: a communist system. See: communism. (And I offer also a prayer: may the cyber-vandals who have done naughty in Wiki, and you know who you are, all die, most painfully, preferably by...being sanded, with an electric power sander...slowly...down to nothing. Beat that for a curse on the evil ones.  To quote George Bush.  Who I note: can't read too well.  See?  Even politics thrown into this reply!)

Those who can't read, or who prefer *short* paragraphs, of ideally one or two sentences...should not mess with encyclopedias, in my opinion. No. Because: encyclopedias can require some patience. (Also an old-fashioned virtue, very uncommon these days, I've noticed.)

I would say: don't be too eager to slice things up, too much. Much of what is there has *already* been sliced - rather tragically (sniff) - out of Seismology. Just to shake things up, I guess. (A seismic joke.) At least the information was not moved to mythology. Notice: just to annoy you: a too long, comprehensive reply. :-) Stellar-TO 00:19, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Question about the sentence in the opening paragraph: "Seismic waves are also continually excited by the pounding of ocean waves and the wind." I thought it would be seismic waves that initiate waves (tsunamis) not the other way around. Is this supposed to be there? If so, maybe it should be explained later in the article. I don't want to delete it unless it should be deleted.

 * This is correct - commonly referred to as microseismicity. For example, every time a wave breaks on the shore, the impact sets up waves which you can see on seismograms. It is clearly visible in a comparison of seismic records from stations on islands, as compared to those in the middle of the continents. And don't get me started on stations near motorways... These seismic waves are not large, but they are detectable. J chaloner 22:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Rayleigh waves
"In any case, waves of the reported amplitude, wavelength, and velocity of the "visible waves" have never been recorded instrumentally." What about the Goodyear blimp during the '89 World Series earthquake in Loma Prieta, near San Francisco? It demonstrated, for the first time, that the air column moved with the ground. Well, based on how the air moved (proved by cameras and the blimps instruments), I think it's safe to say that the ground moved in this fashion. Should I change the article to reflect this or does someone else have more information on this? Banaticus (talk) 09:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)camila & mr negron 4 ever 2getherx3

I lived on the island of Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu for 4 years in the early 1990s. We lived opposite a football field which was to the south of us. We had a number of earthquakes during my time there, which invariably came from that direction. The first indication that you were going to experience a "shake shake" was a rumbling sound that could be heard coming from the direction of the quake. On a number of occasions, I rushed outside to look at the coming quake. Before it reached me, I could see the flat surface of the football field rippling. The coconut palms in the distance could also be seen swaying wildly sideways as well as up and down. Then I felt the quake underfoot. I believe this verifies the claim made in the article that the Rayleigh waves are visible and not an optical illusion. The quake had not yet reached where I was standing and so the ripple effect cannot be explained by the process described in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Erik Hoekstra (talk • contribs) 03:05, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Love waves
I noticed the section explaining love waves describes them as being both faster than Reyleigh waves, but slowest as well. I for one don't know which statement is true. I would like to see someone who does know the answer to edit the article, then delete this portion of the discussion. A M Leyva (talk) 07:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

New Figures
I was searching around the web for a better example of figures on the waves. I stumbuled across this website that has a .gif of all 4 of the waves that you may want to consider adding to your page.

http://web.ua.es/en/urs/disclosure/seismic-wave-propagation.html

earthquakes
What is the difference between a seismic wave and an earthquake? Cesiumfrog (talk) 07:00, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

OTL: Pc & Sc Wave Speeds and Differentials
Something seems very amiss here regarding P and S wave speeds. On one hand, it is stated:

"the distance from a location to the origin of a seismic wave less than 200 km away is to take the difference in arrival time of the P wave and the S wave in seconds and multiply by 8 kilometers per second."

On the link Earthquake location, there are Gardner's relation and http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/locating.html. The later has a nomogram showing also about 8 km/s for the speed difference between P and S waves.

At first appraisal, "S-waves are slower than P-waves, and speeds are typically around 60% of that of P-waves in any given material", so that suggests that P waves travel at 8 * (1-.6) = 20 km/s.

On the other hand, looking at https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/sound-speed-solids-d_713.html, there is no terrestrial material supporting that sound velocity.

Using Gardner's relation, and re-arranging the formula to V = (rho/.31)**4 with crustal rho as 2.8* yields 6655 m/s for P wave speeds.

 * https://www.rsc.org/Education/Teachers/Resources/jesei/waves/home.htm

This brings forth more queries what other sources state:

https://wiki.seg.org/wiki/Velocities_in_limestone_and_sandstone

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02650942

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/crust/nam.php

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/crust/sam.php

https://escweb.wr.usgs.gov/share/mooney/2002_BSSA_NASeisStruc.pdf

Pc (continental) (km/sec) 6.287

Sc (continental) (km/sec) 3.650

So, maybe I am OTL, but I have no idea how the 8 km/s difference between P and S waves came about.

thanks, Baden — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.68.142.31 (talk) 00:58, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

 * Okay, I figured out I was OTL! I made a simple reciprocal error.  S=v*t [S=position, v=velocity, t=time], so dv=dS/dt [dS~(6.5-3.3), dt~(1-0.6)].  This yields 8 km/s.

 * 200.68.142.31 (talk) 17:14, 25 June 2020 (UTC) Baden K.

title: Talk:Seismic wave