Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael who wrote (2446)	3/1/1998 9:11:00 AM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

I hadn't realized what ancient history the Great Depression had become until I read your message. It was Roosevelt's New Deal, not Hoover's. Hoover was assigned the blame for everything that happened, however, before Roosevelt came in and even afterwards--which was not really fair, since the disaster had been at least several years in the making. The same thing could well happen to Clinton. Speaking of course for myself, if a severe recession in the US should mean that Newt Gingrich gained power comparable to Roosevelt's, I might have to consider moving to New Zealand. Now of course there are many differences between the United States in the 1930s and Japan right now. The price levels, for example, remain very high, whereas in the American depression they dropped. But the raising of taxes recently in Japan is comparable to some of the earlier responses to the U. S. catastrophe. I think the Japanese may be reluctant to let go of their export-driven economy after having enjoyed its stunning success in the the period 1960-1989. When it began, Japanese automobile workers were paid a small fraction of American salaries and the cost of living in Japan was low. Now a week's visit to Tokyo would eat up a sizeable fraction of a middle-class American's annual income. In the United States, with the dollar still initially tied to gold, the deflation of the thirties was sudden and wrenching and the liquidation of debt very fast, whereas in Japan they seem to have just allowed insolvency and bad loans to persist, hoping that somehow all will be made good. I really can't begin to understand everything that is going into the Japanese problems--but I do understand that it's not a promising economy now for the value of Japanese stocks.