Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
Dennis, Can *you* borrow money at 2 percent interest? 4 percent? That money is so cheap it's almost free. Besides, what business does a democratic government have handing over a lot of cash to corporate fat-cats? Do you think the managements of Mitsubushi and Sony are socialists or something? If they are, why don't they give their companies to the workers and get the hell out of the way? These are the people, after all, who have screwed up the Japanese economy. peace
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, boddhisatva wrote: > The > capitalists in Japan wouldn't know what to do with more money. They > already have the cheapest money in the industrialized world. The very > idea of giving them more money is absurd. Gee, really? I've never had any problem whatsoever spending money, so why should Mitsubishi and Sony be any different? -- Dennis
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
To whom, Dennis has really tipped his hand with this statement: "All this talk of how Japan is going to go bankrupt tomorrow is so much hooey -- what's happening is that some deeply unsettling fears about the length and tenure of the Wall Street bubble are being projected, by the usual punters and earnings-obsessed analysts, onto an immensely powerful Japanese economy all but drained of speculative excess and about to declare its fiscal and political autonomy from the USA." Meanwhile Japanese debt from bankruptcies is at a fifty year high. The problem with the Keynesian approach is that, unfortunately, somebody has to *own* it and that somebody is *NOT* the proletariat. Keynesianism is two things: welfare for people (some) and pork-barrel gifts to capitalists (lots). The capitalists in Japan wouldn't know what to do with more money. They already have the cheapest money in the industrialized world. The very idea of giving them more money is absurd. As for the Japanese people, if the government wants to fork over all those bonds to regular folks, I'm all for it. Two words: Not likely. Capitalism has to be disciplined to counter its greed and complacency because it is a bad system. The Japanese are coddling a bad system and it is acting badly. Either they will have to discipline it or get rid of it. peace
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
In a message dated 98-04-17 01:36:03 EDT, you write: << Comptroller of the Currency >> If its that guy Lugwig, there are a lot of insurance agents who HATES what he's doing to financial services (of course, all those Travelers' guys have just been given a new script by that mis-named communist, oops, I mean kist, "John Reed" of Citigroup Jason
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
Dennis R Redmond wrote: >> Tom Schlesinger - who's putting Fed transcripts up on the Financial >> Markets Center website > >What's the URL on this? I spidered for this and came up empty. It's not up yet; lots of text to input. When I talked to Tom yesterday, he pointed out how boring most of the transcripts are - in contrast, say, to the transcripts of LBJ's cabinet meetings. Nothing, in other words, like this morsel reported in the NY Times Book Review the other day (reminding us how apt his surname was): "Johnson found it difficult to sustain his rationality in dealing with war critics. During a private conversation with some reporters who pressed him to explain why we were in Vietnam, Johnson lost his patience. According to Arthur Goldberg, L.B.J. unzipped his fly, drew out his substantial organ and declared, 'This is why!'" Doug
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
Dennis R Redmond wrote: >If Japan really did >what Wall Street says, namely raised interest rates and cut domestic >spending, you'd see a global credit and GDP holocaust which would make >the breakup of the Soviet economy look like a success story. No, Wall Street doesn't want that. Wall Street wants Japan to do some kind of Keynesian stimulus - big tax cuts preferably. Yeah, sure they'd save a lot of it, but they'd probably spend more of it than they save. Summers and Rubin would never sound off about a Japanese stimulus program if Wall Street didn't approve. Speaking of the adminstration & Wall Street, Tom Schlesinger - who's putting Fed transcripts up on the Financial Markets Center website soon! - told me today that the Treasury's top bank regulator, Comptroller of the Currency whathisname, has been the most industry-friendly in at least 30 years. Doug
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Doug Henwood wrote concerning Japanese austerity: > No, Wall Street doesn't want that. Wall Street wants Japan to do some kind > of Keynesian stimulus - big tax cuts preferably. Yeah, sure they'd save a > lot of it, but they'd probably spend more of it than they save. Summers and > Rubin would never sound off about a Japanese stimulus program if Wall > Street didn't approve. Rubin actually said this? Oh, yeah, the G-7 thing, I'd forgotten about that... the idea of Wall Street talking up other people's deficit spending is kind of amazing, though consistent with the logic of the whole Asian bailout, which was mostly done with Japanese/European money. This probably explains why the Nikkei Weekly, putative voice of Japan's deeply wounded but ever hopeful proto-rentier class, has been sounding off for awhile now about the necessity for cutting taxes on the rich. > Tom Schlesinger - who's putting Fed transcripts up on the Financial > Markets Center website What's the URL on this? I spidered for this and came up empty. -- Dennis
Re: Dollars Break, the Yen Bends
Dennis writes: >If Japan really did what Wall Street says, namely raised interest rates and cut domestic spending, you'd see a global credit and GDP holocaust which would make the breakup of the Soviet economy look like a success story.< I thought that what Wall Street was pushing was the opening up of financial markets to Wall Street, not "raised interest rates and cut domestic spending." In fact, aren't the muck-a-mucks encouraging fiscal expansion by the Japanese? Please correct me if I'm wrong or give me more information. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "The only cause of depression is prosperity." -- Clement Juglar.
