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Gold/Mining/Energy : An obscure ZIM in Africa traded Down Under -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (301)	9/21/2002 10:03:52 AM
From: que seria	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 867

Interesting implications from those articles about Japan's ongoing financial descent. There seems to be a "too Japanese to fail" system of banking, which most of us Americans take (perhaps wrongly, not knowing Japanese history) to be rooted in culture and tradition. Maybe they just misread our FDIC legislation as being about the banks, not the depositors. Bad as our our moral hazard is with FDIC/SPIC/LTCM (JPM, C, ... ??), Japan's systemic moral hazard is magnitudes greater. The best and brightest in Japan certainly have the ability to recognize where their propping system leads, but when were such people ever in office anywhere? Politicians there seem to lack the will and/or popular support to at least try to steer another course. Then there's the corruption, the yakuza, and I suppose even a "face" issue about what implosion and misery happens on your watch. I sense creative destruction coming on, made all the more destructive for having been suppressed so long. Any thread guesses on who picks up the pieces when Japan's financial system and businesses are shattered by inexorable economic forces? Or does anyone argue "if?" I only know of Japan what I read (Fallows seeming very instructive years back). I envision major cultural issues about US and other gaijin buying up Japanese businesses and assets on the cheap, as they surely will. I would if I were running a US corporation that could benefit. I can easily imagine a popular backlash forming over the debt comeuppance of a great nation at the hands of its profligate debtors (clearly, enabled by its politicians and thus ultimately by the people themselves). That reserve currency sure does offer an unfair advantage while it lasts. In a purgation of debt by fire, it's the last store of value standing that "wins," but meanwhile there is a lot of money to be made hopping around. Wish I were nimble enough to play. I'll just stick to dollars plus long term Canadian junior gold holdings and symptomatic amounts of senior gold stocks as their prices and the POG indicate.