Southeast Asia

BANGKOK—November 18, 2008—After its successful premiere in 2007, PACK PRINT International, International Packaging and Printing Exhibition for Asia, will to return to the Bangkok International Trade & Exhibition Centre (BITEC) from September 23 – 26, 2009.

We're shaking our heads. We just cannot believe that the U.S. economy continues to flourish month after month, year after year. Low unemployment rates, negligible inflation, low interest costs, soaring productivity, a surplus in place of a deficit, all of this and more, while Russia, Japan, Southeast Asia, Brazil and other countries are sinking in recession. There are as many explanations for this economic phenomenon as there are economists! There are a number of factors operating and interacting. But I'm most impressed with this suggested reason: the impact that IT—Information Technology—is now having on the economy; IT has replaced manufacturing as the driving force

One morning last month, the daily newspapers simultaneously gladdened my heart and embarrassed me. My pleasure came not from the chagrin—I'm hardly fond of humiliation—but from a report about the unexpectedly strong growth of employment and the likelihood that '99 will bring yet another year of economic growth. I'm delighted by the news, but embarrassed by the memory of a column of mine that appeared in these pages in November. It offered marketing advice for the imminent downturn that many economists then predicted. I reported their projections, but I hedged: Before winter is over, slower demand may begin to reduce the number of cylinders in