> http://www.tnr.com/030501/judis030501.html
Hmm, Judis is right about the potential for Japanese capital to make life hellish for the US, but he's utterly wrong about a bunch of other things. The main howlers: most East Asian countries are not "pegged to the dollar" as he claims, only Hong Kong. Rubin didn't save SE Asia in 1997, East Asia saved itself (Japan's $30 billion bailout fund for its neighbors, South Korea's huge bailout of the chaebol, and China's massive Keynesian investment program in Hong Kong). Finally, Japan is still very much stagnant, but it's not collapsing. Japan's quarterly GDP figures are notoriously fickle, i.e. you'll see huge swings and corrections one way and then another; most of their big firms, though, are experiencing a profits recovery. If I were really ghoulish, I'd argue the real question is, who are the Japanese and EU officials who are going to bail out a post-Bubble US?
-- Dennis