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

To: Joss who wrote (6430)	9/15/1998 6:00:00 PM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Steve, <<My impression from this thread is that things are becoming desperate and dangerous. >> To be objective I guess we would have to specify what is desperate and dangerous. However, my impression is that Asia en masse is becoming a critical area of concern in a number of ways. The concerns are economic, social, and political. We have discussed the economic issues at length here on the thread so I will assume as you have been following that you are reasonably up to speed insofar as the thread is. You likely know Asia is in the midst of a recession and is showing dire consequences as a result. Economically you see asset deflation, loss of jobs, inflationary pressures on food, bank defaults, Corporate defaults, declining sales, declining imports, etc etc. Indonesia is the worst hit but there is no country that has not felt the effects. I guess the other end of the spectrum would be Taiwan or Singapore where the damage has been considerably less so far. However, economic problems have a way of becoming political and social problems. Indonesia, as you would expect, is at the extreme here as well with transfer of power, riots, racially motivated crimes, uprisings in Timor, etc. Again Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore have all been less affected but a full range of issues exist on the spectrum in between with demonstrations and changes in power in S. Korea, and Thailand, ditto in Cambodia, etc. Further we have sword rattling in N. Korea and India. We have seen a recent Deputy P.M. (Malaysia)removed from office in a remarkable demonstration of outrageous and draconian methods. We also have seen moves by Asian governments to distance themselves from free market tenets (Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan for example). The economic problems have already affected all the emerging markets including S. America and Russia. And of course all this precipitates social problems such as hunger, crime, poor medical help, etc etc. <<Am I overreacting to what I read here or is this just another case of journalism ignorance?>> Hard to say since I do not know what your reactions have been. If you built a bomb shelter, spent the family savings on canned foods and ammo, pulled the kids out of school, and are addressing me through a connection to the internet somewhere in the hills of Idaho, then I guess I would have to tell you that you have overreacted (in my humble opinion). However, if you have moved to minimize risk in your investment portfolio, considered beefing up your saving, recently deffered making a jump to a more expensive lifestyle, have decided against taking a new job that has increased risk over your current one, or decided against making a big uneccessary purchase for now, then I think you have been wise. Best, Stitch