Chaz, Joe: re: mercantilist peas in a pod. It was Barton Biggs, not Surfer Mike, who suggested that the Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese economies were based on a superior model vis a vis Japan. His point was that, while all are obviously export oriented, the Japanese have a hugely screwed up (technical economic term)INTERNAL economic infrastructure--seven distributors between the beer brewer and the end customer, that type of thing. He particularly noted that the Chinese and Koreans were trying and succeeding in getting their INTERNAL acts together.
I don't know enough to comment analytically, but merely reproduced Biggs' comments since it does indeed look, at this 5 minutes, as if Japan is on shaky ground. Japan is the only Asian country I've travelled to in any depth, and their decision making apparatus scares the hell out of me. If we are relying on those guys to pull the rest of Asia's chestnuts out of the fire, it's gonna be one long wait. They've been in recession now for 8 years, which is just about enough time to complete the first round of meetings on the issue. Wonderful, lovely folks in so many, many ways, but when it comes down to "making the call", sorry, nobody home.
Mike Doyle |
