> Second, they will take over many Japanese and Korean bank, insurance and
> real estate groups. This will also allow them to take over many other
> companies as well.
Well, this is the great question facing Japan and East Asia: knuckle under to the US, trash the industrial base, and turn Matsushita into Enron, or... or what, precisely? One of East Asia's real geopolitical weaknesses is, the credit superstructure is run by the keiretsu, which don't have a huge interest in creating an EU-style superstate. Six years ago, Anno's "Evangelion" painted the contradiction perfectly: Eva 01 captured the Angel of Neoliberalism in its hand, but took forever to bring itself to act (sixty seconds, which seems like ten years).
Now the Euromillenium is upon us, and a resurrected Eva 02, a.k.a. Starship Europa, stands at the gateway to the 21st century, radiating unthinkable energies. Will East Asia act?
-- Dennis