I hasten to add that commentators didn t see any signs of most past recessions, either. Part of the reason we ve been doing so well in the last two or three years is that East Asia has done so badly. That has had the effect of lowering the cost of imports and making the United States a good place to invest. Well, East Asia is going to turn around. It may be the recovery of East Asia, not the opposite, that causes us problems.
Japan has the capacity to make a tremendous recovery.
There s nothing to prevent Japan, a year or two from now, from being in a boom. And Japan s recovery could destabilize the U.S. economy by raising global interest rates. They do seem to be accepting your recommendation, espoused in our last talk, that they should print money. You hear so many contradictory stories about Japan. The mechanism of recovery is monetary expansion plus reform of their banking system.