[PEN-L:8284] Re: Here we go again!

[Rob Schaap <rws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Here we go again, setting Asia and Latin America up for another financial
>crisis a year from now.  The average timing will be one crisis every two
>or three years to repatriate all surplus value from the periphery back to
>the core.

Might be quicker than that, Henry!  My (admittedly simplistic) take on this
is that if too much money leaves America too quickly (pre-hike escapes and
concomitant bouncing Asian markets in general, all combined with the whiff
of a fragile but rapid Japanese rejuvenation), that changes the
significance of the current account, the reliability of Wall St projections
(against and for which much borrowing has been done), the faith put in
hedge funds (still ever-so-secretive regarding their investments, but now
with a big dark precedent planted in the public mind), and the value of the
greenback.  If America's heroic consumer suddenly pulls her head in, we'll
get pretty dramatic capital destruction everywhere, no?

I persist in amateurly manic bearishness, I know, but what else can a bloke
do when nothing makes any sense and the whole world economy seems to be
predicated on one over-extended economy sucking in everybody else's
product?  That's balancing an awfully big angel on a very thin pin, no?

Night all,
Rob.