“Inflation is here big-time,” Mr Holliday told the Financial Times, adding that companies such as DuPont faced “tremendous cost pressures” and had the “obligation” to raise their prices to offset higher costs.

You apparently don’t remember the mass protest et and riots in Asia last month. “Bleak Time” ain’t my definition of good times.

Asia on the surface, looks fantastic, but the place is full of pitfalls and has real potential for generalized strife and crisis. You have to go beyond the propaganda and the current bull. A lot of these countries are also in a type of hyper speculative bubble. “Don’t believe the hype.”

Asian Economies Facing `Bleak Time,’ Aberdeen Says (Update1)

By Hanny Wan

June 24 (Bloomberg) — Asian economies are in store for a “bleak time” in the next 18 months as surging inflation erodes corporate earnings, Aberdeen Asset Management Asia Ltd. said.

“The majority of companies are facing rising costs: rising property costs, rising wage costs, rising raw material or energy costs,” said Aberdeen’s Hugh Young, who helps manage $47.8 billion in Asia from Singapore. “So margins are facing quite a squeeze this year.”

Economies across the region are under threat as spiraling food and energy bills sap household and business budgets, and stoke inflation. China last week joined India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan in increasing fuel prices and reducing subsidies, touching $139.89 a barrel on June 16.

“Our fear is this year you’ll be seeing more and more of the term that we started to use at the beginning of the year, which is `stagflation,”’ Young told reporters in Hong Kong. “We’re going to go through a period of far slower growth in Asia with a combination of far higher inflation.”

I read last week that European banks URGENTLY need to tap 400 billion Euros from the market. Not global you say ? Here in Canada, three months ago, the whole banking system almost imploded because of commercial paper assets filled with what else, CDO’s from the US real bubble.

China is not in recession true, but inflation is eating them alive and the stock market has imploded. As for Japan, the place is not in recession, it’s in depression. What can I say about a country with zero % interest rates for 10 years ? This is not my definition of a country just doing fine.