> http://www.tieconomy.com/articles/japansfunk.htm
Oooh. There's a tidbit there too good to pass up; Norbert Walter, chief economist for Deutsche Bank, delivering the party line of the Eurobourgies. Quoth Walter:
"By 2005, spending 102 percent of household income will be over, saving will be in fashion, and the current account deficit will have been halved. But the United States will continue to be the only superpower."
That means a decline of $300-400 billion in net economic stimulus. If this happens, something else has to take up the slack, or the US economy will fall off a cliff.
"It will remain the youngest society among the G7, thus supporting more creative destruction, thus modernizing faster than Europe-and much faster than Japan. It will do so because of higher birth rates and continued selective immigration. Its efficient financial markets will act as a catalyst in this process and as a magnet for international savings."
Wall Street is efficient at making Andy Grove rich, but terrible at channeling funds into new investment. Japan spends more as a % of GDP on science, investment and technology than the US, the EU has a deeper and broader industrial base, but being an economist means you don't have to bother with silly details like how economies actually work. Note also the truly evil ideology of natural history here: Americans are hyperreproductive Uebermenschen and the Old World is, like, old, dude, because a bunch of orthodox wealthy tired white males say so. As Adorno would put it, in the soul of every neoliberal rages a neofascist.
"It is quite obvious, though, that the U.S. manufacturing sector has taken a severe beating and is in for a rough time, since the dollar has gone to crazy levels damaging companies' ability to compete on price everywhere, but especially versus Euroland suppliers."
In other words, the US is getting its ass kicked in global competition at the same time that the tech bubble is bursting, at the same time that interest payments on the US' 2 trillion EUR debt to the new metropoles are starting to kick in.
-- Dennis