On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Peter Dorman wrote:
> investment. The structural question is whether the elimination of
> these unproductive investments, and the resulting financial drag, can
> be accomplished within the political-economic framework of Japanese
> capitalism. So far, Japan has not found a way to do this.
Japanese profit rates are way, way, *way* up, especially in high-tech
markets, and most of the bad debts of the system have been washed
out. Even the banks are showing decent profit margins again. There isn't
much evidence that capital markets have replaced the keiretsu banks as
sources of investment, though the Big Four (Sumitomo-Mitsui,
Mitsubishi-Tokyo, UFJ and Mizuho) *are* becoming more like European-style
universal banks, i.e. doing business with their erstwhile keiretsu
competitors.
-- Dennis
