When money steers for Asia

On the heels of last week’s column on skyrocketing gas prices, and all the enduring bummers related thereunto, we’re left with two loose ends to tie up:

1). Is there any good news to this high gas price stuff?

2). Isn’t it cool that I got to use a pompous word like “thereunto?” It adds some much needed class to this column, even though I don’t know what it means.

I’m the decider here, so I elect to delve into the first issue.

I’m no hyperventilating optimist, but the fact for many of the Commonwealth’s business people is that high gas prices are just part of a bigger picture that holds opportunity.

Before we connect those dots, though, I’ll paint the basic canvas. The only economic opportunity offered by the Commonwealth is its fortuitous status as a crossroads of Asian and U.S. trade. The Commonwealth has a lot of disadvantages, of course, many of which have driven productive people away. Still, we’re still got genuine crossroads status between Asia and the U.S., and when money or trade is flowing in either direction, the Commonwealth can sometimes offer a useful intermediate point.

Furthermore, the Commonwealth has a lot of folks familiar with the Asian business realm, and this isn’t very easy to come by in the U.S. Trying to explain, for example, some of the opportunities offered by Asia to U.S. investors is like singing to a coconut tree. You’re just wasting your time and irritating the coconuts.

In fact, I may turn the tables on this fact this year and start looking for Saipan-based investors for my next project.

Anyway, back to gas prices. The recent run up in oil prices is not a demand-side issue, but is, rather, a sign that the West has stirred up a geopolitical tempest that has spooked the supply side silly.

The recent run up in gold prices also indicates that the smart money is getting spooked about something. By contrast, I don’t accept the fact that this is a normal, cyclical “bull run” in commodities. Nope. There’s more to it than that.

All of these spooky somethings probably point to the time where Asian investors are going to take a sober look at the U.S. economy and start repatriating their capital.

And do you know what follows capital? Brains. I’m already seeing bright Americans starting to look towards Asia for a place to live, work, think…and even marry. They know that U.S. standards of living have fallen over the past three decades; I remember when one parent could support a household, now it takes two. And running a small business, once the very backbone of American culture, now marks one as target for bureaucrats, regulators, and lawyers. Why bother?

Although industrial Asia is nominally more hurt by high oil prices than the U.S. is, the real story is that it’s Uncle Sam that is in debt to the tune of $8.3 trillion, with a snowballing deficit, a long term decline in the dollar, and a housing bubble formed atop the world’s largest credit debacle, which is going to make Japan’s legendary real estate crisis look like a light and lively round of spin the bottle.

Would you expose yourself do all those risks just to earn a lousy 5 percent on U.S. Treasury Bills? It’s inconceivable that Asia will keep stashing its money in that fashion, instead of funding its own growth at home.

Unless Asia somehow self-destructs, we are eventually going to see a tide of money flowing back to Asia when it repatriates its savings. Some new intellectual, entrepreneurial, and even artistic talent will follow it. Asia will then offer some more opportunities, more new businesses, more new faces bringing more new ideas. Saipan will be a good place to address that action…and all the opportunities thereunto.