RUST COMMENTARY: VISITING SON FROM JAPAN GIVES FIRST-HAND UPDATE ON ASIAN FINANCES

Son Gary II is visiting the United States from his home in Osaka, Japan. Since he's paid in yen, his purchasing power while visiting the U.S. has been reduced over 30 percent with the strengthening of the U.S. dollar. That's the effect on one person, and it decreases the attractiveness for the Japanese who travel to the U.S. while increasing the purchasing power of the dollar if you travel to Japan.

Most economists feel that Japan is the key to avoiding a global slump as its ailing economy threatens other nations and our own well-being.

According to a private newsletter ... That's why the U.S. came to the rescue by buying Japanese yen. A freefall in the yen could cause a worldwide recession due to threats by China to devalue its currency to compete with cheaper Japanese goods. That would spark a downward spiral abroad, perhaps spreading to the U.S.

It's strictly a quick fix, an attempt to stop the hemorrhaging of the yen. It's by no means a solution to Japan's financial troubles. Japan faces several more rocky years before it gets back on its feet.

Recent actions will steady things for awhile and buy more time.

But the solution has to come from Japan, not from outsiders.

It must follow through on promises to shut down wobbly banks, get bad loans and real estate assets off the books, open its markets to foreign competition, quit propping up businesses that are failing, end lifetime employment, deregulate, cut taxes and stimulate business. Tokyo has promised such things before but has yet to deliver on them.

Without action, the yen will relapse, the economy deteriorate ... the world's second-largest economy, accounting for 70 percent of Asia's output.

Problems there mean lower profit in the U.S. for manufacturers of semiconductors, aircraft, telecommunications gear, office machines and other equipment. Also engineering, construction and other services. U.S. firms will sell less there and face cheaper imports from Japan ... electrical machinery and chips, computers, film, cars, steel and more.

And contrary to what we do here in the United States, the Japanese people believe that saving more money is always virtuous, even though oversaving and its counterpart -- underspending -- have stopped the growth of most private investment and brought interest rates down to one percent.

However Japan is scrambling now because when it should have reduced the sales-tax rate from 3 percent, it chose instead to raise the tax to 5 percent. As a result, Japan's economy is going from bad to worse.

Surely ... some ought to copy the actions of President RONALD REAGAN when he got this country out of stagflation by lowering taxes.

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GARY II is working on his graduate degree as is his wife SUZUYO. He is the business manager of both a large international school in Osaka and a Japanese elementary-secondary school, while Suzuyo teaches there and has been asked to get her doctorate and teach at a university. Nice family with two children. I'm proud of all of them, and of Gary's efforts to improve relations and understanding between the Japanese, United States and other countries.

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I took the opportunity while Gary was in the U.S. to have an estate planing meeting with my wife WENDY and six children who now range in age from 28 to 39.

Setting the foundation to start to pass along one's life goals and business accomplishments is an interesting experience and quite necessary when UNCLE SAM can tax up to 60 percent of your estate if poorly planned.

What an unnecessary expense to set up trusts and the like to reduce taxes on the fruits of your labors and thoughts.

Wendy and I are blessed with six healthy and intelligent children and with 11 grandchildren. Our family plans are to have a Rust Communication-owned newspaper to serve Cape Girardeau and surrounding areas for many years to come.

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A quick trip to Chicago last weekend ended in St. Louis, meeting up with Wendy and some of the grandchildren.

RECOMMENDATION: Take time (minimum of two hours with children) to visit the new CITY MUSEUM on 15th Street in downtown ST. LOUIS.

There is a mixture of hands-on children's crafts, glass blowing, weaving and braiding machines on demonstration. There is a fascinating, work-of-love maze for the kids to walk and crawl through. And there is an unusual use of old architectural facades, stairs and banisters taken from downtown buildings in St. Louis and elsewhere which had been torn down for parking lots.

There also is a special MILES (designer of the Union Station fountain) exhibit of 30 of his works of sculpture.

Visit it (I believe it was $6 per person, child or adult), and you'll enjoy yourself.

If you're really out of these type of trips ... take along a book and after looking at the aquarium for a few minutes ... go to the on-premises St. Louis Bread Company site, or Hippy Bob's, and sip and read.

Another highlight where you can observe the smiles of children is the audience-participation Children's Circus.

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Messages to TRIPP jam Web site: Linda Tripp's appearance before a grand jury in Washington has caused fireworks in some online circles.

"Linda Tripp needs us now as never before," wrote Lucianne Goldberg on the Internet's FREE REPUBLIC Web site. "Let's let her know via replies to this posting how much support she truly has out here."

Within hours of Goldberg's call, the message boards became jammed with notes and emotes from readers sending personal messages to Tripp.

The action heated when word hit the boards that Linda Tripp herself was reading the responses. The size of the file collecting the messages soon crashed computers.

"It took me 45 minutes to download all of it," one Free Republic user e-mailed the DRUDGE REPORT.

Goldberg later tried to take control of the chaos.

She said in a posting, "The incredible response to our first alert for Linda Tripp has caused a bit of hard-drive trouble across the country. What we need now is every Freeper alive and their relatives to call their local media, radio, TV, newspaper, whatever and just say WE SUPPORT LINDA TRIPP. PLEASE TELL HER SIDE OF THE STORY. E-mail, fax, phone or march. We're on the move, my pretties, and we have four days to let this country know we are mad as hell and we won't take it anymore."

Battle of the Web sites, as http://www.stopstarr.org cranks the java and will soon claim victory with the release of Whitewater face Susan McDougal. What Starr has spent on furniture and equipment in his Whitewater probe, stopstarr.org says, could have provided "one year's Social Security benefits to 103 elderly widows."

FOOTNOTE: Starr still has plans to enter the Web wars. An official site devoted to Starr's Office of Independent Counsel will soon see launch, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. At issue is said to be questions over the amount of information that will be made available online. Building a foolproof firewall has also been a concern. "It should open in the next few weeks," a government source reveals. -- DRUDGE REPORT

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Summer can be the coldest time of the year in media. TV ratings crash and burn as viewers, who are bored with reruns of shows they really didn't even like the first time around, move outdoors.

Fewer than 500,000 viewers separated shows in the evening news wars: NIGHTLY NEWS with Tom Brokaw held on to No. 1 in total viewers with 8.915 million last week, according to A.C. Nielsen crunches. CBS's EVENING NEWS was second with 8.705 million, and ABC's WORLD NEWS TONIGHT was third with 8.365 million total viewers. Brokaw has now placed first in total viewers for 30 of the past 34 weeks, but all audiences are skeletons of past generations. ALL THREE BROADCASTS HAVE NOW LOST NEARLY HALF of their viewers in the past 20 years.

Todays averages:

NBC 6.8 rating/16 share

CBS 6.7 rating/16 share

ABC 6.5 rating/15 share

20 years ago (June 1978-79)

NBC 12.9 rating/24 share

CBS 15.3 rating/28 share

ABC 13.1 rating/24 share

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While in China: Bottled water for all! In addition to the four airplanes carrying President Clinton and his 1,000-person entourage to China, there will be three large C-141 military transport planes hauling back-up items such as 60 tons of communications gear, 10 armored limousines and tens of thousands of bottled waters ... Hydrate! Hydrate! On the biggest and longest state visit ever made by an American president to another country. "The entire operation is costing more than $45 million." -- INTERNET

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.