Asian rope burn.
From: WCrimi@aol.com
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 20:58:08 EDT
Subject: The Rope with which they hung themselves
Western banks gave Asia the rope with which Asia hung itself.
Taxpayers pick up the tab via the IMF and the printing presses
and then our corporations (vultures) pick up the carcasses at a
discount. It's enough to make one lean Libertarian...if I wasn't
already leaning that way!
[I think it is a rotten shame that Japan bought into our real estate market at the peak of our 1980's bubble economy; and that now the U.S. is buying into Tokyo's property market at its trough. -- RR]
Reuters article follows:
SEOUL, June 6 (Reuters) - South Korea on Saturday confirmed
President Kim Dae-jung was scheduled to meet heads of Intel Corp
(INTC - news), General Motors Corp (GM - news) and
Hewlett-Packard Corp (HWP - news) during his U.S. visit.
An official at the presidential Blue House said the companies
were expected to reveal their investment plans to South Korea
during the meetings.
Kim will leave for his first state visit to the United States on
Saturday to seek support on security issues and help in
overcoming his country's financial crisis.
Kim will meet Andrew Grove, chairman of Intel, John Smith,
chairman of General Motors, and Edward Barnholt, executive vice
president of Hewlett Packard, the official said.
''GM is considering about $2 billion investment in Daewoo Motors
and Intel is planning $1 billion investment in a South Korean
semiconductor company,'' an unidentified senior government
official was quoted in Chosun Ilbo newspaper as saying.
A 120-member Korean business delegation headed by the Commerce
Minister, Park Tae-young, will travel to the United States at the
same time in an effort to attract American investment.
Local papers said Kim was expected to agree to over $5 billion worth
of investment during the trip.
[Do you suppose that East Asia's previous unwillingness to let the West invest there (and let their own workers consume more output) might be the cause of the overexpansion they borrowed so much money to keep afloat? But as Calvin Coolidge, infamously, said of Germany's debt problem in the 1920's, "They hired the money, didn't they?" Maybe if there had been an IMF bailout back then, for all the IMF's ineptitude, Germany might not have gotten so far off track. -- RR] |
