Asian Flu
In the past few days we have received confirmation that our thesis regarding Asia is playing out rapidly. The data come from Japan and Korea - both heavily industrialized exporters and relatively open societies. While we have been very bearish on Asian economies here at Financial Jenga, the rapid pace of the implosion even surprises us. Japan will soon report 4th quarter GDP and the estimates are moving fast - an in a really frightening manner. Bloomberg reports that Barclays now is estimating that Japan's economy contracted at over 12% annualized in Q4. This would be the worst result since the Arab oil embargo of 1974. Korea reported a similarly disastrous result for November industrial production. The YoY decline of 14.1% was the worst on record - with data going back to 1970. Understand that the textbook definition of depression is a 10% fall in GDP - and both Japan and Korea are already on pace to do so in a year or less. We do not yet have any numbers this bad from China bu