Lan_Xang wrote:

---

Would be nice if Laos was a participant.

I am wondering if Vietnam sold any land right to finance countruction of the new facility that will be hosting the event.

---

Doomsayers have been predicting for a while that the profligacy will lead to serious trouble. So why hasn’t it?

One answer is that Asia won’t let it. Last year, Asian countries invested almost four hundred billion dollars in the United States, mostly in government bonds. China is effectively taking most of its excess national savings and lending it to the United States. The Japanese, who despite their creaking economy remain flush with savings, bought a quarter trillion dollars of American debt last year, even though the interest is lousy and the assets themselves are losing value. More than any other nation in history, the United States depends, economically, on the kindness of strangers. Right now, Asian investors appear very kind.

Asian central banks also already own trillions of dollars in American assets.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/04/18/050418ta_talk_surowiecki

Lan_Xang wrote:

---

Would be nice if Laos was a participant.

I am wondering if Vietnam sold any land right to finance countruction of the new facility that will be hosting the event.

---

Something for Lanxang to wonder about!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/23/AR2006022301412.html

Taste of the Future

By David IgnatiusFriday, February 24, 2006; Page A15

The best quick analysis I've seen of the fiscal squeeze comes from New York University professor Nouriel Roubini, in his useful online survey of economic information, rgemonitor.com. He notes that with the U.S. current account deficit running at about $900 billion in 2006, "in a matter of a few years foreigners may end up owning most of the U.S. capital stocks: ports, factories, corporations, land, real estate and even our national parks." Until recently, he writes, the United States has been financing its trade deficit through debt -- namely, by selling U.S. Treasury securities to foreign central banks. That's scary enough -- as it has given big T-bill holders such as China and Saudi Arabia the ability to punish the U.S. dollar if they decide to unload their reserves.

But as Roubini says, foreigners may decide they would rather hold their dollars in equity investments than in U.S. Treasury debt. "If we continue with our current patterns of spending above our incomes, by 2013 the U.S. foreign liabilities could be as high as 75 percent of GDP and an increasing fraction of such liabilities will be in the form of equity," he explains. "So, let us stop whining about the dangers of unfriendly foreigners owning our firms and assets and get used to it."

Here's how bad it is: The worst thing that could happen to the United States, paradoxically, would be for Arab and other foreign investors to take us at our xenophobic word and decide that America doesn't really want foreign investment. If they pulled out their money, U.S. financial markets would plummet in a crash that might make 1929 look like a sleigh ride.

Zak wrote:

---

Let me save this thread from being so political:

Miss Universe Japan 2008 (left) is freaking smokin'.


Thoughts?

-- Edited by Zak at 04:36, 2008-04-08

---