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

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (4346)	6/10/1998 10:59:00 AM
From: Joseph Beltran	Respond to of 9980

Mike, From what I have recently read, Hashimoto has dismal popular support. As far as I can tell the Japanese are desperately trying to get the other G7 nations to commit to a course of intervention in support of the yen but there are no takers, including the U.S. The general conviction must be that it is useless at this point to support the yen unless there is a commitment (not words but ACTIONS) on the part of the Japanese to implement the necessary banking and market reforms. G7 nations are all too familiar with Japanese "promises" of reforms. been there, done that. why commit their reserves in a useless endeavor? IMO the Japanese will not act on their own because deep down inside they also know that it will be useless. regards

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (4346)	6/10/1998 11:27:00 AM
From: Mark Myword	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

>> Maybe my views are naive, but they have been sucking wind for 8 years running and there was never an outpouring of disgust or panic all during this time.<< MikeM: Imagine that you are a 50 or 60-something Japanese , who has faithfully watched for 8 years as the economy has died and the govt. & cronyists have lied to you and shown their complete lack of trustworthiness and, also, almost total ineptitude to the world. Your "savings" are sitting in a bank that will , quite possibly, collapse all of a sudden , as the sham accounting and worthless assets are revealed. You know you can get your money out RIGHT NOW and put it into something much more safe than the local bank. U.S. and European investments are looking pretty good , and at least you can sleep at night. As markets all over Asia continue to gyrate toward a complete meltdown , the likelihood of things getting better soon for the banks is looking like a dream , not a reality. Now , just how loyal are you to the cause?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (4346)	6/10/1998 7:19:00 PM
From: Jess Beltz	Respond to of 9980

Mike, I do not believe that the situation today is the same in Japan as other times when the Yen was above 140 or the Nikkei was dropping. The wild card, and the point whose gravity you're missing, is that the Japanese banking sector is an ER patient on a respirator. There is a real danger of a total systemic collapse of the banking sector, and in Japan, that means an end to debt funds for business activity without an unprecedented IMF bailout infusion. If (1) the level of bad debt on the books of Japanese banks continues to increase, or (2) the value of the assets of Japanese banks falls further (say, due to declining equity values in the equity portfolios of those banks), or both, there will be real problems. I wonder if Japanese consumers are going to believe calming words from an individual who has done nothing while this situation has worsened. But if, as the banks positions worsens, Japanese depositors decide to pull their money out of those banks (and capital flight out of Japan is what's leading to the fall of the Yen right now), it will trigger the collapse I've been warning about. I do NOT say that the collapse WILL happen, but rather that there is a damned good chance of it happening, and if it does, it won't be only oil and semiconductors hit by it. I think that is what Wall Street is looking at real hard. I think Hashimoto is right now scrambling to save his political life. Let's hope he sees the light towards fixing the banking sector. That may be the one thing that would restore confidence in the ultimate future of the Japanese economy. jess.

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (4346)	6/11/1998 1:31:00 AM
From: Step1	Respond to of 9980

Four top headline news in Japan this morning. 1- Not enough world cup tickets for Japanese fans (Japan-Argentina match) 2- Nomo with the NY Mets 3-Aum Shinrikyo and sentencing of the chief "technology minister" 4- Over 10 billion dolares (not pesos) (1.42 "cho" yen for those japanese speakers on the thread= 1.42 trillion yen) in unrecoverable loans made to a government corporation for oil exploration ventures. The government will end up picking up the tab. The guest on the news also mentioned that the government is starting to look into the "zaito budget", loans to government or near governmental entities and assess the real national debt and alluded to an article in Business Week where the national debt of Japan was reported as 250% of GNP. 5- lowest birth rate ever nationwide, now at 1.39 down from 1.43. Tokyo has the lowest in the country at 1.25 per woman over and out sg

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (4346)	6/11/1998 7:24:00 AM
From: MikeM54321	Respond to of 9980

Joseph, William, Jess, Stephan, It's tough for me being the only semi-bear regarding Japan. I read all your responses and they are certainly hard to argue with them. I really don't have a defense except this very lame, weak one. We get a lot of our information from the press (with the exception of Stephan). The US press AND even the Japanese press seem to be on a "60 Minutes" like witch hunt trying to turn up everything negative regarding Japan and ignoring the positive. The press is simply overwhelming us with negative news regarding Japan. It reminds me a lot of the time when the tables were turned and the press was very certain that Japan was going to take over the US and the World. If you based your beliefs on Time, Business Week, Dan Rather, etc. You would have gone out and bought a Japanese flag to plant on your lawn. But obviously they ALL missed something. So as lame as it sounds, my gut tells me not to buy it all, but your logic definitely says Japan is in deep trouble. Particularly troubling for me is that both US and Japan seem to agree. But hey, if we can't figure out if the Y2K problem (which is extremely well-defined) is going to be a tiny hiccup, or send the world into total darkness, I'm not so sure we can define or even predict how Japan's troubles are going to pan out. I did go back and find a few bright spots regarding Japan opening their financial and real estate markets, but I would have to say, overwhelmingly, most opinions of the Japanese press and Hashimoto are currently extra bearish. Thanks very much for your comments. I'm learning quite a lot from them and went from thinking Japan's economic problems were way overblown, to believing they are a lot more serious than I originally thought. MikeM(From Florida)