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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (8193)	3/5/1999 7:55:00 AM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Well, this is way OT And along the lines of the rambling that I do here on occasion. As some of you know I am married to a local Chinese Malaysian. For both of us it is our second marriage. I have had the bonus of acquiring a son in the course of the marvelous events that have led me here. He is one of the more marvelous. At ten years old he differs in many ways from the American youngsters that I have known (and raised). I could probably write a treatise on cultural differences but that isn't the point of this little excursion into my journal. I am simply going to write about a little vignette that happened tonight. Dinner had been over for about an hour. I had been in my study with a cigar and the afternoon's worth of emails. It is usually about this time that my 10 year old Nicholas starts finding ways to interrupt me. It is usually because he is eager to start the movie we plan to watch (if it is a week-end night) or it is because he has stumbled up against a tough homework problem, or he has any one of the thousands of questions that he reserves for his strange, funny talking, step dad. But tonight was different. After taking out the trash he retreated to his bedroom and was silent. It was this silence that jarred me from my preoccupation with the computer. Nicholas knew we were going to watch an action movie tonight which is his favorite. Why wasn't he bugging me to start? Why so quiet? I stepped out to the stair well and hollered up "NICK!" The rest went something like this: Nick:"Yea?" Me:"What are you doing?" Nick:"An experiment" Me: "Come here" (with enough of a sense of urgency that he came running down the stairs quickly) Me: "What kind of experiment?" Nick: "I found a bug" Me: "Yes?" Nick: "Yes" Me: "Well what are you doing with the bug" Nick "I want to see his eye. With the microscope." Me: "Why" Nick: "To see if it is a bunch of eyes, or just one like regular" Me: "Oh, I see, ok" He dashed out of my sight as soon as he detected approval in my voice, running up the stairs, the movie forgotten, all else forgotten for the moment. A boy on a quest. "Let me know what you find" my voice chased after him. "OK" I could barely discern as the door on his room clipped his reply in half. I think I can almost remember that kind of burning curiosity, and that kind of barely concealed impatience at being interrupted by an authority, not to mention trepidation if I wasn't 100% sure that what I was doing was all right. I guess boys are boys. Whatever side of the ocean they are on. As I write this 20 minutes later I am still kind of enjoying the whole encounter. Best, Stitch

To: Dayuhan who wrote (8193)	3/5/1999 8:29:00 AM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9980

Re: Yuan Devaluation: Good or Bad? From Stocksite.com: "Trade wars... If we have a yuan devaluation, it's going to add to the trade friction that already is heating up. The dollar has been going straight up, which has made the trade deficit completely out of control, but now it looks like we're headed for trade conflicts. ....trade problems are developing, which is the outcome of our currency going up and the rest of the world's going down. Not to be too pessimistic about this, but when we speak of ominous parallels to the late '20s and early '30s, currency devaluation and trade wars both were part of the picture." --------------------------- Thread, Just taking the other side of a yuan devaluation for arguments sake. Is the worry caused by such an event mainly media driven? After all, we have been hearing about this doomsday scenario for about 19 months now. If China lets the peg go, then it means Asia crashes further and the US gets hurt because they lose their export market. There is this belief that China will just let the peg go completely, but in most cases, it doesn't happen that way. It's more of a gradually lowering. If China held on this long, you would think they have the ability to adjust slowly. And after all, they are competing with economies who currencies have weakened considerably. Shouldn't China truly have a weaker one too. Another side of a yuan devaluation means that the fear created could even have more capital heading to the US. Hence a much stronger dollar and hopefully lower interest rates. This would enable the US to continue supporting an already massive current account deficit. Also I wonder how much worse can the trade deficit get? By most accounts, Asia has been in serious trouble for a long time now and the trade deficit is pretty lop-sided as is. Granted it will get worse with a yuan devaluation, but I'm simply wondering to what degree? Then there's that old argument about Asia's problems keeping world inflation down to the almost non-existent level. I don't think I can recall anyone 19 months ago predicting how incredibly well this appears to have worked! The problems in Asia has created in the US, a "Goldilocks," economy. If China does decide to devalue, this even puts more downward pressure on inflation. Now there probably would be a problem if Americans quit doing what they do best, CONSUME. But that has never seem to be a big problem with US culture. So if unemployment remains low and interest rates remain low, then maybe a yuan devaluation wouldn't be so bad after all? I've just never seen anyone take the other side of a yuan devaluation before, and am just curious if my comments are totally off-base. Thanks, MikeM(From Florida)

To: Dayuhan who wrote (8193)	3/8/1999 12:52:00 PM
From: Robert Douglas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

Steven, Four days ago you posted a Bloomberg article on the pickup in household spending in Japan. I have thought a lot about it since that time and think that this may by an early indicator of recovery in Japan. I have also seen numbers showing producers' inventory in Japan are being liquidated, as they have been the last six months. If these two things continue, they will eventually butt heads and the result will be a pickup in manufacturing. Is everyone being too negative on Japan? -Robert