G'day Dennis,
>Consumer sentiment has dipped a bit, but has stayed high in the EU;
The September stat for France was spectacularly low (haven't got one for
October). And low prices in Europe, given a low Euro, indicate low pricing
power, don't they? And why'd that be?
> and the tigers plus China are continuing to do well. Some parts of
>the chip biz are slowing, but it's a relative, not yet absolute, decline.
Well, you wouldn't think the Tigers were doing at all well to look at their
sharemarkets and currencies. The Philippines is in the toilet, but the rest
of 'em have their governments very worried just now. I can't get to the web
from here (not in less than the half-hour it takes for each graphics page to
unfurl, anyway), but there's a lot of talk about this at the moment, Dennis.
>The US is overdue for a recession, of course, but interest rates and
>fiscal policy in the EU and East Asia remain decidedly stimulative;
I thought they were being pretty tight on interest rates? Duizenberg'd have
to be scared of that droopy euro of his, wouldn't he? Not too much room for
manouvre there, I'd've thought.
>Fed could cut rates in a hurry to contain a Bubble blow-out.
Only as long as foreigners (responsible for more than eight per cent of Wall
St values - at a rate of $1.5 billion per day) keep feeding the greenback.
If they find cause to go elsewhere, well, then Greenspan'd have a dollar to
protect, wouldn't he? And that kinda limits the rate-cut option.
>I still think we're headed for a long upwave, punctuated by
centibillion-euro bailouts
>and a delightfully vicious bear market in US equities.
So you're with the likes of Thurow? He reckons you can take hundreds of
billions out of the stock markets without hurting the economy. But better
than 20% of households are into those markets up to their necks - and not a
few of 'em on margin call, too. With consumer debt the way it is, it
wouldn't take much to start a credit crunch from there.
>On the other hand, it *would* be nice to see Strasbourg-approved NATO
peacekeepers occupying
>America's polling booths, to supervise a program of massive electoral
reconstruction.
Be lovely. So are my reservations as unlikely a scenario as that?
Cheers,
Rob.
