RES: RES: [lbo-talk] Recent Growth & Bush's Economic Policy

dredmond at efn.org dredmond at efn.org
Mon Jan 5 20:54:10 PST 2004


Quoting kjkhoo at pro.SoftHome.net:


> as a general rule. In any case, in the present period, all countries
> are more and more exposed to external trade.

Not necessarily. External trade is only 16% of the continental EU's GDP and only 10% of Japan's, and the ratio of trade to GDP is well below its late 19th century peak.


> technology. Ditto the family of ICT goods. And these are usually
> priced in USD, and in a world market at exchange rates.

This isn't a problem for the EU or East Asia -- they have massive cash reserves and they produce plenty of those ICT goods themselves. ICT production seems to be shifting dramatically to the East Asian region -- Japan has recovered somewhat, and China is growing like mad.


> To a
> large degree, I think that's what's happened in SE Asia, including
> Singapore whose currency was minimally affected by the 1997-98
> financial crisis.

Isn't Singapore running huge current account surpluses, on the order of 15% or 20% of its GDP?

-- DRR



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