> As a followup to a rather long message on this
> I just sent: Japan "owned our sorry asses" last
> year, but the yen was falling then. Why?
You said it yourself: irrational short-term speculation. Markets are by no means the streamlined monuments to curvilinear perfection the neolibs and squawk hawks lining CNBC make it out to be. They bounce around all the time, just like capitalist society itself: constantly in motion. But there are indeed long-term trends in the churn.
Plus, Japan's economy was still shrinking last year, and has stabilized this year.
-- Dennis