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

To: Joseph Beltran who wrote (5557)	8/14/1998 4:37:00 PM
From: orkrious	Respond to of 9980

Joseph, when Milton Friedman wrote "Free To Choose" almost 20 years ago, most economists called him a heretic and a quack. He is now recognized as having the correct worldwide economic model, advocating people being free to choose products and services as they see fit, without economic tariffs and other impediments to free trade. This model is one of the primary reasons the US has prospered for the last 1+ decades. Friedman argues that consumers are far better off if their government does not reciprocate against other governments that put up impediments to trade, i.e. Japan. It has taken almost 20 years for Friedman to be proven right. If you were to read his book today but place it within the context of the early eighties, he was a genius. He really predicted what would happen to Japan, and at the time Japan was at the pinnacle of its power. Jay

To: Joseph Beltran who wrote (5557)	8/14/1998 8:29:00 PM
From: Ramsey Su	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 9980

The broader point which I was trying to make is that I view Japan as a country which is willing to take, take, and take, but which is completely unwilling to assume any responsible or leadership role as a world economic power. Joseph, there was a country a couple of hundred years ago that was founded by take take take. A bunch of immigrants found the natives easy push overs. They just decided to take over and corral the natives off to something called reservation. Lets go take take take some more easily exploitable people from Africa for cheap labor and a new world power was born. This country has always been willing to assume the leadership role in telling the world what to do, despite the fact that they know beans about the circumstances. I am not trying to start WWIII, just pointing out the ugly part of human nature that we are all part of. We are trying to apply western theories of J Keynes or A Smith to cultures and governments completely different from ours. Take the former USSR as an example. I cannot remember anytime in history that they have any form of democracy. It is a totally irresponsible act of the self appointed world leader to coerce and strong arm this thing called "democracy" down their throat. The leadership, the political infrastructure and above all, the people, are not ready for it. So a few opportunists took over and the people are screwed. Just imagine what the US would be like if we wake up one morning and we are now all communists. We, having never lived under a communist system before, would have to start from scratch. How do you think our economy will function, not to mention our daily lives? The Asian problems are so massive that I know we don't have a solution. Why not just shut up and let them work their way out? As for trade restrictions, that has a simple solution that our government never had the spine to enforce. All we have to do is let Japan or any trader partner make the rules. We will then adopt same. Sorry for the long weekend ranting. Ramsey