Christopher Lingle - The Japan Times

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Christopher Lingle

For Christopher Lingle's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 17, 2003

A weak dollar for a strong economy?

GUATEMALA -- Since mid-March, the dollar's value measured by a trade-weighted index against a basket of currencies has declined by 6 percent and by 9.6 percent for the entire year. Some economists, businessmen and politicians in America believe that a weaker dollar will be "good" for the U.S. economy.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 17, 2003

Bubbles feed on more than irrationality

GUATEMALA CITY -- Government officials in China and South Korea are confronted with the troubling prospects of a real estate bubble evident in soaring prices in parts of Shanghai and Seoul. After all, it was the bursting of the asset bubbles in Japan that set the stage for a lost decade of sluggish economic growth in the Japanese economy.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 1, 2003

Currency interventions prove to be both fruitless and costly

GUATEMALA CITY -- The weakening of the U.S. dollar accelerated after finance ministers from the Group of Seven issued a communique calling for market-oriented international exchange rates. Soon afterward, the Japanese yen set a two-year high against the American currency.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 26, 2003

Dollar peg undermines China's economy

As Beijing is pressured to halt currency intervention, arguments are generally proposed in terms of the possible benefits to other countries. Such an argument is less compelling than one that points out how China might benefit from an end to its peg against the U.S. dollar. In any event, China's fixed exchange-rate policy is based upon a misperception about the best way for economies to grow.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 1, 2003

Mess with the bull and you might get gored

GUATEMALA CITY -- At last, the Nikkei stock average has risen above 10,000 points for the first time in more than a year, rebounding from 7,600 in April. Much of the rally is due to the net buying of Japanese shares by foreign investors as global money managers increase their holdings.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 24, 2003

Enough nonsense about the liquidity trap

Tokyo's cutting interest rates was once the response to borrowing costs being too high or credit too tight. Despite no indications that the financial system is deprived of liquidity, the Bank of Japan and the U.S. Federal Reserve Board continue to hold or push down interest rates.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 8, 2003

Greenspan should quit while he's ahead

News that U.S. President George W. Bush intended to support the continuation of Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was greeted with wide support. However, if Greenspan cares about his place in history, he might be wise to decline the offer.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 12, 2003

S. Korea emerges from Japan's shadow

NEW DELHI -- Despite resentment against Japan for its colonial domination of the Korean Peninsula (1910-1945), South Korea followed Japan in its model of postwar economic development. In both countries, the central government established close links between commercial banks and companies while ensuring that an obedient central bank provided adequate liquidity. Behind all this were neomercantilist policies dressed up under the modern guise of export-led development.

COMMENTARY / World

May 14, 2003

Higher oil prices need not doom a nation to inflation

UBUD, Indonesia -- With high and volatile oil prices, it appears that a rough road is ahead for those countries with currencies that have become weaker relative to the U.S. dollar. Perhaps one of the biggest concerns is that Taiwan, as an importer of oil, may face a new wave of inflationary pressures that could exert upward pressures on interest rates and cause a slowdown in the rate of economic growth.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 12, 2003

Slash taxes and spending, not interest rates

UBUD, Indonesia -- Alan Greenspan denounced the recent round of tax-cut proposals by the Bush administration. As governor of the world's most important central bank, his words carry a considerable amount of gravitas.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 19, 2003

Market intervention not the right solution

GUATEMALA CITY -- Japan's Nikkei average is below 8,000 for the first time in 20 years, putting it 80 percent below its 1989 high. A fall in the Nikkei below 7,500 could mean that some Japanese banks would not meet their international capital adequacy requirements.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 18, 2003

Beijing can learn from Tokyo's mistakes

GUATEMALA CITY -- As Beijing develops a reliance on fiscal spending to boost economic growth, a mushrooming fiscal deficit and ballooning public-sector debt will weaken China's long-term economic prospects. This is because economic growth bought with increased government spending is unsustainable and creates distortions that will cause imbalances in production structures.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 6, 2002

Refer grim 'futurologists' to Adam Smith

GUATEMALA CITY -- It is both telling and disturbing that so many of those wishing to be regarded as "futurologists" seem to prefer Thomas Malthus to Adam Smith. For his part, much of Malthus' work was premised upon a view that world conditions are essentially static.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 18, 2002

China afflicted by illegal flights of capital

While China continues to attract much of the foreign capital that comes into Asia's emerging market economies, it appears these inflows are increasingly needed to offset capital flight. A flood of unregistered outflows from China has been compounded by the difficulty in tracking outbound movements of private capital and trade payments. At the same time, there is a massive amount of tax evasion and avoidance.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 26, 2002

China hardly a 'natural' regional leader

The Chinese economy seems to have performed remarkably well both during the "Asian financial crisis" of 1997-98 and the recent global economic slowdown. One might conclude that the present Chinese economy is robust and in a position to perform well over the course of the world business cycle -- that is, if you choose to believe official reports.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 13, 2002

Keynesian cheerleaders ignore failures

It is ironic that Joseph Stiglitz waited until he gained the credibility of sharing the Nobel Prize in Economics to become an unabashed cheerleader for Keynesian economics, especially when it comes to suggesting policies for Japan. Receiving the universally recognized accolade allowed him to come out of the closet to support a body of economic thought that had recently been thoroughly discredited by notable failures.

COMMENTARY / World

May 4, 2002

No end in sight to China's banking woes

While Japan's recession and its wobbly banks distract much of the world, the banking sector in China is in much worse shape. Xinhua News Agency has reported that central bank governor Dai Xianglong admits that nonperforming loans (NPLs) account for 26.6 percent of total lending by China's top four state-owned commercial banks. As of the end of September, NPLs held by these financial institutions totaled 1.8 trillion yuan ($217 billion).

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 23, 2002

Target nonperforming loans, not deflation

While there is good reason to be concerned about the state of Japan's economy, analysts wrongly target deflation as the main villain in this tale. Contrary to received wisdom, Japan's economic slump is not the result of price deflation. Nor are aggressive expansions of fiscal and monetary policies the best response to these conditions. Indeed, relying on just these measures in the past is at the heart of Japan's chronic economic slowdown.

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 25, 2002

Flawed theory, leadership thwart recovery

For many, the inability of Japan's economy to recover remains a mystery. This inability to assess the situation arises from misjudgments concerning the nature of the malaise and can be traced to the application of faulty economic theory.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 11, 2002

Populist politics behind Argentine crisis

Those who would blame Argentina's economic woes on free-market policies or pegging the peso to the U.S. dollar choose to be willfully blind to reality. Although the most evident and most disastrous results are economic in nature, the bases of the problems are political.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.

The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces

By Stephen Mansfield

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

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