Rashomon, I am not sure it is as high as 90%, but it seems to be serious enough that these bankers refuse to provide more loans to the like of Daweoo, and even some of the larger construction companies there. When bank can no longer loan money (for whatever reason) you simply get economic contraction. If too many banks get into serious troubles in one of the SE Asia countries, you can expect a domino effect in other countries as well, and thus a relatively severe recession in the basin, which will drag Japan down with it. If at the same time, we in the US have a Bush administration writing huge tax cut laws, Greenspan will not be able to come to the rescue with "lose money", and then we get an extremely severe bear market. If Gore gets elected and still keeps balancing the budget and minimal surpluses (big surpluses are deflationary), the decline might not be too severe, and might end by Spring with Greenspan once more stepping into the breach. So, fasten your seat belt.
The problem, however, is that sooner or later, the US ability to pull the world back from the brink will become limited by its ever increased trade deficits. Each time we come to the rescue of the "world", we end up at a new higher plateau of negative balance of payments. That will eventually bring about inflation due to dollar weakening and other impacts, and a period of possible stagflation. That is one of the reasons that I see a period of adjustment (a relatively long period, possibly another 4 years at least), where the markets are locked in a wide trading range between 1900 to 5300 on the Naz and between 6000 or so and 13,000 on the dow.
Zeev
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