Antony’s Life Blog

(Picture is from stock.xchng.)

Just like many of you, I am hit by the current financial crisis in the US. It’s not only by the stock market, but also housing market. Many analysts have predicted that Canadian housing price is going to drop soon.

So far, I have experiencing three big financial crisis that affected my life. Well, I heard about 1987 crash, but I was still a kid at that time.

1997: Asian Financial Criris. The 1997 Asian financial crisis was started with the collapse of Thai baht. It affected many Asian countries, including Indonesia, soon after that. I was still studying in the university at that time. Some of my friends just graduated from the university but they couldn’t find jobs. There were many lay-offs happening in the country.

About a year later, there was a big riot in Jakarta. It was triggered by many economic problems in the last one year. Ethnic-Chinese (Chinese Indonesia) were become the main target in the riot. Many of them left the country to save their life. How about me? Although nothing happened to me, I decided to finish my study as soon as possible and leave the country.

2001: Dot-com Bubble. I left my home country because of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. I pursued my Master degree at the University of Stuttgart starting in year 2000. The dot-com bubble in the US was still in its peak at that time. I managed to get a job offer from a US company (even though I haven’t finished my study). I applied for H1B visa and it was approved. Unfortunately, I never worked in the US because the company went bankrupt together with the dot-com crash. I still keep the approval of my H1B visa in a safe place even until today.

2008: Subprime Mortgage Crisis. It is an ongoing financial crisis that is caused by sub-prime mortgage in the US. Most of you may have read or watch news about the crisis that apparently have affected many other countries.