[PEN-L:3163] Japan can't get out from under?

[Rob Schaap <rws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Okay, I'll try another scenario (I shouldn't listen to the BBC finance
programmes, they're beginning to sound .. well, so millenial):

Japan's government is issuing record debt.  Long term interest rates are
gonna have to keep going up as a consequence.  Makes the Yen stronger.
Japanese business depends an awful lot on exports (its domestic market
suddenly choc-a-bloc with non-consuming savers), but money's getting dearer
for it and a strong yen makes their exports dearer while the Yanqui CAD
blows out even further and people dump the greenback to follow the Yen and
the Euro to artificial highs.

Greenspan ups the interest rate there to protect said greenback.
Debt-financed stock speculators start shuffling out, mebbe with Japanese
government paper in mind.

And then Y2K kicks in - not necessarily as a technical problem, but as a
sociological phenomenon.  Better to have real greenbacks sitting idle under
the bed than trying to accumulate in unreliably digital form - and isn't so
much of that high-tech stock on the Nasdaq more likely than most to cop the
slings and arrows of outdated fortunes - what with possible liability for
whatever technical problems do arise?  And the possible tank on the Nasdaq
is huge - there's just no comforting reference point, is there?

Does any of this hold up?

Cheers,
Rob.