That brings us to one peculiar feature of the US economy today. It is the runaway growth of stock values which has, via the "wealth effect" caused people to feel richer, and thus spend more on consumption. The growth in personal credit has added fuel to the fire, taking away the need for people to save. The net effect is that the economy responds to the stockmarket, not the other way around. The expansion in consumption has been sustained by the willingness of the rest of the world to pump in money into the USA. Merrill Lynch has forecast a current account deficit which will need to be financed by foreign capital at the rate of $1 billion per working day in 1999. So long as money continues to pour into the US markets, the bullrun for the Dow should continue. Although many people talk fearfully of a Brazil-induced puncturing of the bubble, any turbulence in markets other than the US should send investors scurrying back to the safe haven, driving markets even higher. The US consumes 89 per cent of what it produces, and global markets are not that important for it. According to this logic, what will slow down the US markets is not bad corporate performance, (price-earnings ratios are already twice their historic levels), but a recovery in the rest of the world. Japan is the mirror image of the US.