Poor, Helpless, Weak Japan

Rob Schaap rws at comserver.canberra.edu.au
Mon Feb 8 09:08:01 PST 1999


G'day Doug,

You write of Japan:


>For sure, the talk of collapse so fashionable in the English-language
>press is >way overdone, but you can't run an accumulation engine on sub-5%
>profit rates.

Er, why not?

5% of, say, half a trillion (Daiichi's revenues alone, according to Dennis's stunning stats) strikes me as useful dough.

And, while I'm at it, might Japan's government not be tempted to indulge in a spot of military Keynesianism. And Japan's capacity to do this without creating a huge fiscal hole for itself seems pretty formidable (new govt paper gives all those savings somewhere better to go than the bank and the Keiretsu arrangement strikes me as an ideal military-industrial complex-in-waiting.

Or would America, er, advise against this? On grounds that this would destabilise the region

- this being America's job.

Cheers, Rob.



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