Just-in-time for just-in-case in Asia’s financial markets

ARTICLE: “Asian Currency-Reserve Pool Offers Clout,” by James Simms, Wall Street Journal, 7 May 2007, p. A2.

ARTICLE: “Asia Taps Thirst for Risk: New Deals From Firms Tarnished by 1997-1998 Crisis Lure Eager Foreigners,” by Tom Wright, Wall Street Journal, 7 May 2007, p. C1.

ARTICLE: “What China 4000 Means: Shanghai Index Slid After 3000; Where to Now?” by James T. Areddy, Wall Street Journal, 9 may 2007, p. C2.

Just like Africom is designed to help African regions self-police themselves through pooled assets, the ASEAN-plus collection of Asian economies that are pooling their currency reserves to police themselves are doing so pre-emptively, assuming that such capacity will inevitably make sense in a connected world where regions tend to sink or swim together in rough seas.

With this move, the World Bank and similar international financial institutions are made less important and relevant to rising Asia, thus freeing them--if only these IFIs had the imagination--to focus more on the future globalization crises centered in the Gap.

Besides guarding against local meltdowns (great idea given all the booms going on), the real purpose of this pooling is to give Asian states more confidence in self-investment (they already invest in each other heavily, but still run huge amounts through Western--and particularly--American markets, in many instances preferring the returns and the stability and the more efficient allocation of capital back to them through our markets.

Well, that’s going to end soon enough, and this development only portends that looming reality.

Yes, it will mean we can’t float debt so easily.

But it will also mean we’ll have an alternative soon enough, in both blood (SysAdmin source armies in India, China, and elsewhere) and treasure (investment behemoths) , to just the old, increasingly tired West (meaning Europe--which needs to save up for its old age).

I agree with Mark Steyn: Europe is screwed as a source of global power in the future. I just disagree with him that America should care.