Japan (was Re: All that is solid melts into air

[Rob Schaap]

>On Thu, 1 Mar 2001, Peter K. crossposted:
>
>> 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?

Hey, Dennis!  Any truth to the rumours I'm starting that Yen leaving the
Nikkei aren't making for Wall St this time 'round?  That Japanese domestic
consumption has climbed all the way from 58% of domestic product to, er,
59% after years of pumping trillions of Yen into the economy?  That China's
having a hard time competing against SE Asia's toilet-paper currencies, and
might itself be grinding to a halt?  That if Wall St doesn't soon find some
foreigners to resume the $1 billion-per-day drip-feed to which it became
addicted in the nineties, Greenspan's gonna be left having to up interest
rates just when a flat economy and a gaggle of desperate punters are
demanding a drop?  That the recession's point-of-no-return has beaten that
poxy tax cut of Shrubya's to the punch?

Cheers,
Rob.