An 'AsiaZone'? Sounds good! We can follow the EU idea and open the borders to all members, and TRIPLE our population in a year. OC
Is this the precursor of such 'AsiaZone'?? http://www.gpilondon.com/index.php?id=294 http://www.asean.org/afp/115.htm
My opinion only: I don't believe the China problem would be as large as what the Eurozone and Amerozone are facing. The government will try to control it as much as possible (no congress sitting on their hands) and the structural shift in the economy (increased living standards, financial/services industries) will drag it through the slump. With the US/EU, they've literally exported all their efficiencies and in a way a lot of their innovation to Asia - growth will be that much harder in the future. We are very lucky to be in Australia to be able to capitalise on the Asia growth + have high living standards.
Haha, how did you guess? Well, I'll give you a clue - the greatest Prime Minister the UK has ever had. That should be easy.
Ha! I was only tongue in cheek when I said 'Asiazone' but looking at those references it has already begun : The ten members of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) plus China, Japan and South Korea a group referred to as ASEAN+3. I would never have thought that such a diverse set of nations could get together to talk at all - but there you are - already happening! If SHTF China would suffer for a while but would probably be the first to rebound - anyone who has visited China will know that in some things they are miles ahead of the west and much more astute in business and forward thinking. They probably have contingency plans already in place to cope with it. While our governments are in denial of the coming crisis, they are probably preparing for it!
The Greek situation has no good ending, regardless of whether they stay in the Eurozone or not. If there is even an inkling of Greece leaving the Euro, and inflating their new currency, then there will be a a major bank run on Euro cash in Greece before that happens. Greek govvie wont be able to bail its banks out (as its broke), and the banks will go bust, taking with them the savings of the Greek people. Suddenly, you don't just have a Greek sovereign debt problem, but a Greek bank debt problem. This will flow on to other Eurozone banks (that hold Greek bank debt), possibly causing bank runs europe-wide, not to mention a likely revolution in Greece. - Euro fuc*ed If the French/ECB plan goes ahaid, and Greek Govvie debt is 'voluntarily' rolled over, the situtation will be no better. Fitch Ratings has said that even a voluntary roll-over will be classified as a default event, trigerring the CDS's that have been written over Greek debt, as well as removing Greek bonds from the pool of collateral that can be posted with the ECB for overnight loans. Fitch and S&P have also said that the major French banks will likely be downgraded as they are large holders of Greek debt. Again, this will lead to a liquidity crunch, possible bank runs, unrest, etc... The design of the Euro itself has led to this - permitting multiple fiscal policies to operate alongside a single monetary policy, not to mention that Greece was admitted to the European economic region (pre euro days) to counter Russian influence, means that short of Germany annexing Greece and fixing it up like East Germany, there is no happy ending to this. Sources: yesterdays fin reveiw, bloomberg, the UBS credit desk, and my personal analysis
