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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (8447)	3/30/1999 5:10:00 AM
From: Bosco	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

G'day Steve & all - well, now the Malay Health Minister thinks that the Paramyoxvirus is somehow a foreign introduction to sabotage the Malay economy... does politics make highly educated people paranoid and racist? biz.yahoo.com Of course, with the Balkan situation, even Mahathir and his merry men look like a bunch of boy scout <sad> best, Bosco

To: Dayuhan who wrote (8447)	3/30/1999 11:27:00 AM
From: Bill Ounce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Japanese Postal Savings owes $1 Trillion in 2000? So, is this an accurate description or fear mongering hype? www2.gol.com [...] In 1990, the Postal Savings was offering compounded annual yields of over 8.5% on ten-year deposits. Japanese "ordinary people" poured about $1trillion into the system. They subsequently withdrew about 40%, but the remaining balance with interest will come to maturity in 2000. Starting in 2000, people will be lining up at post offices to redeem their 10-year bonds. Since rolling over into new fixed-rate Postal Savings deposits will yield only about 0.2% interest, I expect most will want to put their money elsewhere. [...] So can you imagine all these Japanese housewives lined up at post offices with their savings books, asking for over 20% of Japan's GDP...in cash? "Okane wo misete kudasai" (Show me the money) Now, the question is...where is the money? Obviously the money is "invested." The problem is that much of it is "invested" in what are called "special corporations." Special corporations are businesses set up by the government bureaucrats to be run by former and retired bureaucrats. It is estimated that these special corporations have lost over $500 billion by allowing retired bureaucrats to pretend to be businessmen. The Japanese government plan is to "hope" only half of the people want their money. Then perhaps they can sell $500 billion of bonds to pay for the redemption of the first bonds. Bond prices could skyrocket for such a scheme. If that isn't enough, consider that next year companies are required to report the status of employee retirement funds. Currently, Japanese companies are not required to disclose this information. Many very large companies do not have the abiity to meet their pension obligations to Japanese baby boomers who devoted their lives to companies in exchange for their retirement money. The disclosure of corporate pension shortfalls could provoke 75% or more of Postal Savings investors to cash in their time deposits at maturity. There just isn't enough money to cover that scenario. [...]