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

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (3934)	5/28/1998 8:43:00 AM
From: Mark Myword	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

>>> writer obviously doesn't understand the extent of the "domestic savings" <<< Mike - what good are "savings" if the banks have lent a lot of those savings out to parties that can't repay ? While it is certainly true that Japan has a formidable export machine , that does not help with the fact that many of their banks are , today , technically bankrupt. The "asset" base of many institutions is made up of grossly inflated real estate holdings, corporate shares (the value of which has to be propped up by the government in the stock market ) and a slew of low quality loans. And that doesn't even get into the derivatives problems that nobody wants to talk about. The Japanese system is a quagmire of phony values , laughable accounting , and secret deals giving the illusion of much more wealth than actually exists. Why do you think the average Japanese person won't spend any money that isn't necessary ? The man on the street must know something that isn't being honestly addressed by the "authorities". One other point - although I don't have any figures , I have read over and over again that both the pension system and their insurance industry are deeply under-funded for the liabilities that are on the books , and there is no solution to this enormous problem , other than a return to late 1980s stock and property prices , which seems like an impossibility at this point.