Just when we thought we’d seen everything from Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai prime minister has managed to clone himself.

Buy a farm house in the middle of nowhere, pick up a gun or two, prepare for hyperinflation and brace for a catastrophic bankruptcy. Thirty minutes with hedge- fund manager J. Kyle Bass has you wanting to do all of the above.

Pretend you’re Darmin Nasution , Indonesia’s central bank governor, and inflation is running at about 6 percent. Do you raise interest rates or cut them?

Japanese officials won’t intervene further in the currency market unless they see evidence of speculative buying strengthening the yen, according to Naomi Fink , head of Japan strategy at Jefferies Japan Ltd.

Credit downgrades can elicit fascinating reactions. Take a January move by Standard & Poor’s to cut Japan’s rating to the same level as China’s. I expected the backlash to come from Tokyo. Instead, it was the Chinese who were aghast.

For a man who billed himself as the CEO president, Lee Myung Bak of South Korea sure seems to lack business sense. In February 2008, voters turned to Lee, the former chief executive officer of several Hyundai Group businesses, to see through the reforms needed to break the economic gridlock. Who better to drive change than a guy famed for bulldozing the competition?

Ten weeks after the earthquake and tsunami, it’s tempting to give Japan a new name: Tepco Nation.

In the annals of career suicide, Dominique Strauss-Kahn may warrant his own chapter.

All in.

Nguyen Van Giau sighs audibly and shifts in his chair when I ask him the dreaded question: Is Vietnam losing its inflation battle?