Date: Fri, 9 Jan 98 3:40:25 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Japan






		C. Schaap,


	Why should enshrined Japanese Mandarins invest in local business
when they can get better returns on overseas financial instruments?  These
people aren't socialists.  What the hell do they care about the Japanese
economy?  *Their* Japanese economy is doing fine. 


	As for the overproduction/underconsumption question, consider
this: The benefits of the famed Japanese savings rate only accrue if
Japanese bankers aggressively make loans to value-producing Japanese
firms.  The assumption is that the loaned yen will go into workers'
pockets who will spend it.  The value-producing velocity of these yen is
assumed to exceed the marginal savings rate. If the banks make bad loans
or loans that do not produce consumption, you have underconsumption, as
one has in Japan today.  I believe that if Japan had comparable spending
habits to the rest of the world, their current stag-flation condition
would be more obvious.  Japan has a very expensive, artificial pricing
structure.


	Japan could go back to Nippo-Keynesianism, conceivably, but their
bourgeoisie would have to be willing to make the changes and take the
risks. Japan could become a world developer, but the real use-value of the
yen would have to be made clearer through global economic engagement on a
more rational basis.  Closed exporters' currencies have uncertain value. 
Does anyone believe that the GDP of Indonesia changed in value by over 60%
or 70% (it changes so fast I can't keep track)  since the first of last
year? 





	peace





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