Foreign Investment in the United States

After reading Catherine Collins’ May 7 Speaking Out column, I felt it was time to write. The public has recently been bombarded by a new genre of semi-fictional scenarios portraying the Japanese as the Alexis Carrington of the new world “Dynasty.”

There are a few fallacious points of the article that simply must be addressed. The comparison of the “consequences if the Japanese are forced to retreat suddenly because of economic difficulties at home, as the Mexicans did in the early 1980s” is laughable.

Juxtaposing the investment activities of the world’s second-largest economic power with those of Mexico’s “nouveau-oil riche” when their golden goose became just another victim of the spill as OPEC’s price tanker crashed upon the rocks, is even more preposterous than the above metaphor.

Certainly, the Japanese are not the only major property owners who might attempt to affect zoning policy.

If, as stated in the article, Tokyo land prices rose by 68.9% in 1987, are the Japanese investments that could be “dumped . . . plunging the (real estate) industry into an economic tailspin,” really that short term?

Does it not seem more sensible to assume that short-term speculators would stay in the Tokyo market, while investors seeking long-term stability would go abroad? Japanese investors lose the same as U.S. investors if prices fall.

As for price stability in Japan, in the nearly 45 years since the end of World War II, land prices have never dropped more than 10% in a year. Few if any regions of the United States can claim that.

Collins is correct that we are seeing a loss of sovereignty. But it is certainly not brought about by a bit of Japanese speculation in U.S. real estate. It is caused by our decade-long spending spree to “make America strong again,” coupled with our desire to pass the bill on to the next generation, that has us in hock up to our ears to the rest of the world.

BRENT BOULTINGHOUSE

Tokyo

Boultinghouse is a research fellow at the International Institute for Global Peace, established by former Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone.