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To: John Cuthbertson who wrote (6389)	7/27/1998 8:18:00 PM
From: Jim Willie CB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

Katherine et al, I made a couple dozen sweeping statements on Japan... let me backtrack on a couple first, you are right about feudal... Japan is a mix of feudal and socialist, but certainly closed and suffering from inbreeding and sick thinking that results from windows to the west that send product in one direction, and only money (not ideas) the opposite... feudal in that lifetime employmt was the norm... rarely does anyone turncoat and work for competitor... a company is not really a company, but a keiretsu to move around -- conglomerate family of companies (fiefdom)... unfortunately the inbreeding within keiretsus becomes a problem just like inbreeding within the nation... the keiretsu can arguably be identified as the local embodiment of socialism Japan is also a socialist state... the entire "convoy system" almost forces healthy companies to support sick and dying companies... that is pure socialism... watch the Bridge Bank proposal become subverted into a bastardized convoy system and socialist tool... it does lack the vast social safety net known to older European and US economies... but it has many elements characteristic for sure... like massive stupid subsidies for its farmers, who unload $3 peaches and $20 steaks on the public... like minboggling staggering construction projects (neverending Tennessee Valley Authority) to make roads for farmers to NOWHERE, extensions to the Tokyo Airport which now has almost NO TRAFFIC... like public funds from MITI to nurse along fledgling firms... the commonplace practice of large companies owning large stock assets of other companies (including competitors) in corporate treasuries is but a rubric for socialism... Japan Inc owns the companies, the companies own the companies, the companies own the behavior of the people and the people themselves... sounds to me like a socialist soul and a corporate charter my conclusion is that Japan is a corporate socialist state, but devised not for the benefit of the individual Japan's absolute requirement to conformity, its protection from infusion of gaijin ideas, its relative lack of free speech, its total ignorance about cost of capital in the formation of capital... these concepts are now crippling the nation I think Su meant to say "yen is down to 142" up is down... yes, the savvy currency traders and internatl traders see LDP is party of morons playing musical chairs while their economy decays, while the govt continues to direct massive streams of urination (money) down the black hole of imploded old ways ideas two weeks ago I predicted Nikkei to 12,000 by yearend... I repeat the point that Japan will take bitter medicine only when their healthy banks suffer the excruciating reality that their deposits (read Nikkei stocks) have rendered their solvency in jeopardy the other main ill for Asia is the wretched banking model copied by most of the Tigers, copied from Japan... instead they should have copied the Hong Kong British model, or the Taiwan model... look for Taiwan and HK to lead Asia out of the morass by example, not magnitude of capital ironic that Japan's peak was purchasing for a high price both Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach Golf... I thought they could go to hell then, and they did... just hate to see a nation's economy crumble before our eyes the fact that I hit a nerve tells me both strong opinions exist, and a dearth of information following Q2 announcments I mean nobody harm... had pleasure of knowing one Japanese woman in my career... she left her country due to outright bigotry, saw major flaws now unfolding later, Jim

To: John Cuthbertson who wrote (6389)	7/27/1998 8:52:00 PM
From: Katherine Derbyshire	Respond to of 10921

Your point about Japanese elites is well taken, and is actually true of most societies, including our own. I wouldn't want to be a medieval Japanese serf any more than I would want to be a medieval European one. >>Japan has been changing, continues to do so, and I would bet that they will make the changes in their policies and culture that are needed now. << Absolutely, or Japan would never have survived World War 2. I just think the Japanese view of "the changes that are needed now" is likely to differ from the western view. Katherine