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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: smolejv@gmx.net who wrote (24216)	10/15/2002 5:24:54 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi DJ, this about sums it up ... Message 18113596 Chugs, Jay

To: smolejv@gmx.net who wrote (24216)	10/15/2002 5:36:26 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 74559

Hello DJ, my partner belongs to this lunch club of 20 expats called CRAFT, standing for Cannot Remember A Frigging Thing, and this is what one member wrote about his experience in Bali over the weekend: craft.com.hk REPORT FROM A MEMBER IN BALI The following is an email from our Member, Richard Warburton, who was there. Guys, You may have heard that I was right in the middle of the Bali bomb. I left the Sari club 5 minutes and was sitting in Paddy's bar right opposite when it happened. I was bending down to pick up some change behind the bar when it happened. I was 10 metres away from the bomb which destroyed windows and roofs a mile away. I am the luckiest man alive. If I had been drinking a large Bintang instead of a vodka Red Bull in the Sari it would have taken me longer to finish and would have been dead. The guy I was drinking with in the Sari bar I found dead later. I got out of Paddy's just before it fell down and trapped everyone inside. My legs caught the shrapnel but basically it was only surface stuff. When I found out I was OK I went back to help. It was horrific, bodies and limbs everywhere, people on fire everyone with third degree burns - 4 people died in my arms on the side of the road as we were trying to load them into the back of trucks. As there were no lights it was impossible to tell who was nearly dead or badly injured. Well, you've seen the pictures so I don't need to describe any more. I stayed around for another couple of hours and got back home around 2 absolutely covered in blood - mainly other peoples. Had a few stitches in my leg but otherwise OK. I'm assuming my rental car was completely destroyed as it was parked by the side of Paddy's - I haven't been back there yet. Someone up there was looking out for me on Saturday as I don't think anyone who was as close as I was to an absolutely enormous explosion got away without serious injuries, I can still smell the TNT and my ears are still buzzing. Best, Richard

To: smolejv@gmx.net who wrote (24216)	10/15/2002 6:02:56 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

And now DJ, we are on the same page, literally (I wonder if ACF Mike still thinks that my views are inordinantly affected by what surrounds me): quote.bloomberg.com 10/14 21:01 Hong Kong, Germany Take on Shades of Japan: William Pesek By William Pesek Jr. Tokyo, Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- In the world of economics, few ailments are more frightening than ``Japan disease'' -- a business climate that worsens and can't recover. Not surprisingly, analysts around the globe are scrambling to figure out where the illness may break out next. Much of the attention has been on the U.S. After all, its recent experience with plunging stocks and historically low interest rates that aren't boosting growth seems quite Japan-esque. Ditto for Hong Kong, where there's no end in sight to deflation and sliding asset values. A Tokyo-like inability to revive things seems to have set in worldwide. Germany also looks like a potential victim. Unemployment is rising, consumers are spending less and consumer prices are weakening. Policy paralysis isn't helping. Rather than stepping up market-based reforms, the country's gone the other way, amassing a large -- and growing -- budget deficit. None of this is Japan's fault. While the world's second- biggest economy is undermining global growth, it's hardly exporting its structural problems. But the risk that other major economies may go the way of Japan is broadening, and that could be dreadful news for stock markets around the globe -- especially in Asia. Export Dependent That's because Asian economies remain highly dependent on demand from the U.S., Europe and, to a lesser extent these days, Japan. Asian leaders have known for some time that their export-dependent economies risk becoming mere extensions of the U.S. and that some serious retooling is needed. From Beijing to Singapore, officials need to stop relying on one single customer -- or at least on a small number of them. Central banks have cut interest rates, and governments have done lots of fiscal spending, yet Asia is mostly betting on a rebound in industrialized economies. In that context, the spread of Japan disease is a problem for large and small economies alike. At a time when the global economy badly needs locomotives, it has none. It's unclear what can be done about all this, a situation made abundantly clear at the most recent meeting of the Group of Seven nations on Sept. 28. While the G-7 pledged to protect the global financial system from crisis, it offered few details on how to accomplish it. As asset markets swoon, governments are running out of room to boost spending, and central banks already have trimmed rates. Plunging Prices So, for Asian analysts, it may be more useful to look at which economies seem most susceptible to Japan disease. If governments act quickly to avoid Japan's mistakes over the last 12 years, they may have a better experience with the evils of plunging asset prices than Tokyo. For all the speculation, the U.S. still doesn't seem a likely candidate. Its banking system is sound, and its employment and product markets are flexible and dynamic -- unlike Japan's. And real estate prices haven't crashed, as they did in Japan a decade ago. The risk shouldn't be completely dismissed, of course. The mountains of debt taken on during the boom of the 1990s are weighing on households, companies and the banks from which they borrowed. Recently, U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill appealed to bankers not to withhold credit as the economy struggles to accelerate. To many observers, the step was reminiscent of Tokyo's actions in the 1990s. Unemployment What about Hong Kong? One could argue the once-vibrant city already has become Japan, considering its deflation and unemployment trends. Conventional tools to revive growth aren't working, forcing officials to mull how to reinvent the city's economy. Even if Hong Kong experiences a Japan- like lost decade of negligible growth, though, its share of global gross domestic product is small. That's hardly the case with Germany, which may be the most vulnerable to the kinds of economic stagnation chipping away at Japan. Like their counterparts in Tokyo, German officials resist labor-sector reforms, broad deregulation and policy steps that would stimulate entrepreneurship. Instead, Berlin relies on massive fiscal spending to make ends meet -- and it's running out of room to do more of it. All of this would seem less dire if experts knew how to treat Japan disease. The truth is, analysts are still wondering how an economy recovers once it's used up many of the conventional tools. They're also grappling with ways of limiting the fallout from the bursting of asset bubbles. If Japan's experience during the past decade is any guide, global markets may not be vibrant ones in the next couple of years.