> As ever he relies on his fave one factor causal model (exchange rates /
> international "competition"), but in this piece it doesn't really much
> figure - it almost seems to have been thrown in more as a matter of
> habit. As for what has to be key - overcapacity - he lays it out with
> enthusiasm.
Plus, US investment rates in the 1990s were far from impressive by historical averages. Yes, the telecom burn was spectacular, but there wasn't much investing going on in the US compared to the EU and East Asia, where invst as % GDP was/is much higher. The Bubble was a consumption boom, fuelled by cheap foreign money pouring into the US credit superstructure.
Also, the classic German/Japanese export models of the 1960s just don't exist in that fashion anymore -- instead there are integrated networks in Central Europe and East Asia, which trade mostly within their indigenous zones rather than to the US.
-- DRR