To: Sam who wrote (8200 ) 3/5/1999 5:56:00 PM From: Stitch Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Sam,<<Well, this has been alluded to by AG and others. We are actually benefitting in this regard by the closed Asian markets. Since Western companies were limited in their exports to the region, the damage that could have been caused by the crisis was limited, and the benefits from the devaluations increased, as the cost of goods went down so dramatically. To take one example that I am familiar with: when the Thai devaluation occurred in July 97, Seagate announced a big hit to their earnings because they had, being the largest private employer in Thailand, dabbled in the baht futures market on the wrong side. But they claimed that the hit they would have to take would be offset by the decrease in their operating expenses. Whether that transpired or not is impossible for me to say (since ASPs in the disk drive market took a dive for many reasons), but it indicates the two sided nature of the crisis for the US.>> 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!" ) deserves noting but we may need to also understand another factor in the lid on inflation. I refer to oil prices. While Asian decline in oil consumption has , no doubt, contributed heavily to this there may be more involved. The following are some recent comments to Wall Street analysts by Bob Palmer, Chairman, CEO, and President of Rowan Companies, a preeminent oil driller:"During a previous collapse of Rowan's stock price, the hot stock was an IPO called Boston Chicken. We needed to do something to create"The Prize: The ."Victory" . A key strategy was to drive down the Soviet hard currency earnings through the collapse of oil and gas prices -- and it worked."A World Transformed" by George Bush and Brent Scrowcroft.
