John,
stratfor has been predicting doomsday since the beginning of time, more bearish than chicken little himself. Many of their points are valid, just that their predications are a little questionable.
China is in very sad shape economically, so is Japan. Korea has done a lot of jawboning. All the "reforms" have resulted in the 5 big chaebols still running the country, and the non-performing loans higher today than last year.
As I type Joe Battipaglia is mumbling his usual bullish BS on CNBC. Japan recovering, Europe doing great, no inflation ........ It is amazing people believe without trying to understand the substance behind those statements.
Have said the above, nothing is going to happen in China this year (just my opinion). They are getting ready to celebrate their 50th year anniversary. Zhu survived a round of China's version of "vote of no confidence" during their summer, behind the scene, power struggle. The positive part being their decision to open friendly talks with the US again. Needless to say, this has major remification to our beloved QC and CDMA. They are once again trying to join the WTO, which gave the HK market a boost last night.
Unfortunately, what China did not realize that with elections coming up here, neither the democrats nor the republicans are likely to be friendly toward China. The US has never been friends of communist China and had never hesitated to pound them on every opportunity. I doubted if China would find enough support from the US to join the WTO right now.
I have not posted my chicken little Asian contagion II comments for a while but my opinion has not changed. Since most of the "experts" have been selling the idea that Asia is or has already recovered, the element of surprise is in place. Any of the countries, be it Japan, China,(HK also), Korea (n or s), Thailand ..... have the ability to trigger the contagion II.
Sure is a sad day.
Ramsey |
