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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Terry D who wrote (1675)	3/15/2001 11:30:44 AM
From: kodiak_bull	Respond to of 23153

Terry: OT Japan That is the truth. As a 5.5 year resident of Tokyo in the 80s and 90s I can tell you the Japanese economy beggared the people. Smart expatriates would receive and keep their COLAs and live very frugally, waiting for a trip to Guam or Thailand or New York to cut loose. When we returned to NYC every year for a couple of weeks we'd rent a mini suite near the U.N. and I'd turn my wife and kids loose with the credit cards. It didn't matter what they spent (as long as we could take it back with our baggage); it was always half or less of what we had to pay in Tokyo. Restaurants? It didn't matter. When we returned to Tokyo that was the end of shopping, restaurants, everything until we left again. We had a name for it: lifestyle arbitrage. If you bought a can of beer in a grocery store it cost 215 yen, about $2.30 at the time. Every can of beer, every grocery store. Talk about zero competition. I remember it sooooooooo well. Kirin Brewery, 215Y. But when I traveled to Shanghai on business I could buy a can of Kirin beer for U.S. 80 cents. Japan in the 80s, a land of rich companies and poor people. Japan in the 90s, in the tank. Japan in the 21st century: it's up to them. Which will it be, the Lady, or the Tiger? Regards, Kb