To: ynot who wrote (28809 ) 9/15/1999 5:10:00 PM From: Crystal ball Read Replies (1) | Respond to
The problem is TIMING and TIME, low dollar would help US exports and US production if it lasted long enough for the whole ramp up, manufacturing, marketing, distribution and sale into say Japan. However, Japan is not like the Walmart/Kmart/Office Depot/JC Penney/Sears etc USA. There is xenophobia, there is corruption from the docks all the way through the banking and customs all the way to the japanese parliment say nothing of unions trucking railroads etc. So it would take more TIME to push US products into japan, despite our ability and high productivity. We can not count on it. Greenspan thinks otherwise. Remember the World Trade Orgainization WTO fight over bananas and France recently....TIME lots of it!! So the timing of higher rates and the quirk of the low dollar only allows because of the TIMING one thing to happen FAST and thats STOCK PURCHASES....in a slumped or corrected Greenspan US stock market, simply economics and caluclations byu the arbitragers is that higher valued YEN can buy up lower dollar valued US stocks that are already underpriced due to the FED higher rates and US Treasuries higher bond/notes etc rates dooming higher techs and internets. AOL.JAPAN may end up owning AOL.us or even AOL.UK (Britain) if this continues. Ifit continues, US investors lose out to foreign investors and that usually means if not the Saudiis then the Japanese and Asian central banks...all ready to gamble again, since there have been NO REAL REFORMS IN ASIA. Don't forget China and its coastal Free Trade zones. Chinagate etc. Who says history does not repeat itself. Look at WWI and WWII, same thing. Currency devaluations lead to hyper inflation. Germany Marks by the cart full to buy one pair of shoes etc., don't think it can't happen here. It can happen anywhere, this is a smaller world now. The problem or dilemna I have is, I would opt for US leadership which means ownership of the high techs and internets before I would trust foreign ownership, but on the otherhand, looking at Greenspan's miscalculations so far, (and they are not over with because some increased interest rate payments take time to be applied, eg. ARMs and VAR and etc.) I no longer trust the US government. I trust the US leadership but not the US Government. We need change in DC, and soon.
