I find it's a good idea to expose one's ignorance immediately upon entering (mostly) new company. It keeps the pressure off later.
Anyway, Dennis reckons:
>Though
>Indonesia and Thailand are clearly being nailed to the cross of the
>T-bill (a.k.a. rentier gold),
and I'd love to know what he means. He also says:
>I still think South Korea is going to
>ameliorate the worst of the austerity drive -- not so much because of any
>newfound tolerance on the part of US banks for their Asian competitors,
>but because US banks don't really have that much leverage over Asia.
And maybe they took the hint when half the Korean workforce hit the streets yesterday to lob bricks at the assembled constabulary by way of May Day celebration.
>The April 1998 issue of "The Banker" had an interesting chart on page 59,
>which summed up the exposure of Japanese, European and US banks to the
>various Asian countries, reproduced below (all figures in billions US$):
>
>Country Total Japan France Germany UK EU USA
>China 57.9 18.7 7.3 7.3 6.9 28.1 2.9
>Hong Kong 22.3 87.4 12.8 32.2 30.1 99.5 8.8
>Indonesia 58.7 23.2 4.8 5.6 4.3 22.5 4.6
>Malaysia 28.8 10.5 2.9 5.7 2 12.7 2.4
>Philippines 14.1 2.1 1.7 2 1.1 6.8 2.8
>Singapore 211.2 65 15.4 38.4 25.2 113.3 5.2
>South Korea 103.4 23.7 10.1 10.8 6.1 36.3 10
>Taiwan 25.2 3 5.2 3 3.2 14.4 2.5
>Thailand 69.4 37.7 5.1 7.6 2.8 19.8 4
>
>source: Bank of International Settlements
>
>
>So Japan had 46% of the total exposure to Asia, but Europe as a whole had
>even more: 59.8% of the total! The US banks weighed in at a piddling 7.3%.
>Also interesting: the share of the German banks alone was 19.1%, bigger
>than the UK's share of 13.8%. Admittedly, the giant Brit banking firm
>HSBC, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, though nominally headquartered in
>London, has its historical roots as a Hong Kong city bank: still, the
>Continental Europeans have moved into Asia bigtime, and are at least as
>important to the region as Japan. If Asia recovers, then the EU-Japan
>codominion will have passed its first major test: it will have flexed its
>muscles and shown that it can manage its neocolonies more efficiently
>than its American predescessor. Today Seoul, tomorrow Warsaw!
I'm thinking it might be useful to distinguish between economies on the criterion of individual prognosis here. Indonesia and Thailand seem particular messes (so's the poor old Phillipines, but the numbers are relatively low), and there Japan is in up to its neck.
Does this matter?
Just wondering.
Cheers, Rob.