On Sun, 5 Apr 1998, boddhisatva wrote:
> Like I said: "Short the Yen. Fund the revolution."
Only if you use the profits to buy East Asian stocks. If Japan
was going to go belly-up, it would've done so in 1993, when the pressure
of high interest rates and negative growth threatened to implode the
Japanese banking system. As long as interest rates stay low and the
keiretsu continue to bail out their SE Asian subsidiaries, Asia will
stay afloat (which is not the same thing, of course, as prosperity).
Though it's unfashionable to say nice things about the welfare state these
days, it's pretty obvious that Asia is presently paying the price for
underdeveloping its welfare states. No real wage increases + bankrupt
American consumers = one gigantic case of overcapacity. Sony's
chairperson, of course, doesn't want to hear this -- his assumption is
that neoliberal tax cuts will be enough to substitute for a genuinely
multinational Keynesianism. Note that Sony is that rare thing, a very
independent company, not beholden to any of the major Japanese keiretsu
groups, and heavily dependent on precisely the sort of consumer
electronics and entertainment markets which will expand the fastest if
such policies were to be enacted. Doom-mongering in late capitalism is
merely market-positioning for the next consumer boom.
Incidentally, I hear Motorola is planning to invest umpteen zillions in
Cracow, Poland, in the near future; a $600 million joint venture with
Siemens in Desden is already up and running. It looks like Round One of
the global East Asia vs. EU slugfest over who gets to inherit the
mantle of the Pax Americana has gone to the Eurobourgeoisie.
-- Dennis
