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

To: HB who wrote (2832)	4/2/1998 1:12:00 PM
From: Worswick	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

Stitch and HB..to all. Yesterday was April fool's day. A riddle: What is today? Imagine Yule Brenner with hair. Hmmm. R. Hashimoto right? The new action hero. An office in New York. Two film executives talking. Thunder in the background over the sounds of traffic. The first man Mort speaks in a stacatto burst of anger, "I can't believe it...this picture stinks. It's in Japanesse." "You're wrong Mort. This is a masterpiece. You just don't understand it." "Understand it? I can't understand it. It's in Japanese. Fuck it I can't understand Japanese." The taller man, more gloomy. "Ummm. I'm thinking about this. We can get him coupling with the ant lady from Hong Kong. Star of a hundred Run Run Shaw productions... when we first see R. Hashimto we are looking at the ant lady tied who is to an ant's nest. I see young, I see buxom, she's writhing and half naked,shit she's half devoured. Her skin looks like salami from ant bites. You follow me so far?" Mort moody now, "I got it. I see it all. At that moment the ant lady passionately believes that somewhere up the road she took a wrong turn. That is before....R. Hashimoto rides up on his beaten up Hondo motocycle from a different era. Right?" At that moment we cut to the Imax screen 8 stories tall. On screen R. Hashimoto whips out his kendo stick and begins to beat at the ants...everywhere there ants.. the ant lady writhes atop a pile of studio dirt... Fade slowly to another time.... Wednesday April 1, 8:34 pm Eastern Time Japan business confidence plummets in tankan poll TOKYO, April 2 (Reuters) - Business confidence has plunged deeper at Japanese companies large and small, a closely watched Bank of Japan survey showed on Thursday. The BOJ said its diffusion index for major manufacturers, a key gauge of business confidence, sank to minus 31 in March from minus 11 in December, when the previous survey was conducted. ''It's pretty catastrophic, really -- if anything, even worse than expectations,'' said Russell Jones, chief Asia economist at Lehman Brothers Japan Inc. ''Business confidence has plummeted, inventory levels have increased, the profit outlook is flat to negative, capex (capital spending) expectations down, and corporate perceptions of a credit crunch are extremely severe.'' Jesper Koll, chief economist at J.P. Morgan, said the survey confirmed that the Japanese economy had slipped into a very deep recession. ''We're just starting to see Japan's darkest hour.'' The tankan reading was far below the average forecast of minus 23 in a Reuters survey of 18 economists and much more pessimistic than the the minus 15 reading the companies themselves had forecast in the previous tankan survey. Lehman Brothers' Jones said the survey results were sending ''a very clear message here to policy-makers, both at the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan, that the country needs sizeable stimulus, and the sooner the better.'' Tokyo stocks fell in early trading, partly on the tankan results, in turn weaking the yen against the dollar. Japanese government bond prices rose. The tankan, conducted in late March, showed a diffusion index for big non-manufacturers of minus 30, compared with the Reuters average forecast of minus 28 and the December tankan forecast for March of minus 22. Confidence also slid at smaller companies. The tankan indices represent the percentage of companies reporting favourable conditions minus the percentage reporting unfavourable conditions. A negative reading means pessimistic firms outnumber optimistic ones. The poor showing, which was announced just minutes after Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto left for an Asia-Europe summit in London, was sure to increase pressure on his government to take strong measures to spur the flagging economy. Hashimoto's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its alliance partners have promised a stimulus package worth 16 trillion yen ($119 billion) but have not fleshed out details. ($1 equals 134 yen)