Now the Far Eastern Economic Review has come up with their own unofficial index, purported to predict recessions. Some bright spark, Alkman Granitsas from Hong Kong, has analysed government's propensities to build skyscrapers in the past and has found that the erection of a "world's tallest building" is usually followed by a recession.

He sites the Singer Building (1908) and the Metropolitan Life Building (1909) in New York, both "tallest buildings in the world" followed closely by a two year depression. 40 Wall Street, the Chrysler Building, and the Empire State followed between 1929 and 1931, all planned in the boom time preceding the stock market crash and the Great Depression. In more recent years, the World Trade Center's twin towers (1972-74) and the Sears tower in Chicago (1974) predicated a major depression on Wall Street.

Today, the newest world's tallest building, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, was completed just in time to welcome in the Asian crisis.

Nothing magic about this of course, though we are grateful to Alkman Granitsas for reminding us. Pride always comes before a fall. ..And the time between waking up to the fact that there is a lot of spare cash around to build a monument of face and an always inevitable crash to follow a boom (which is just God's way of levelling the playing field) is just enough time to plan and build a world's tallest building.

Indonesia's Sukarno, predecessor to Soeharto, was always building monuments. That is why driving around Jakarta today you see so many of the bloody things. Sukarno was a well know stud, with a linking for the ladies, and even without the Viagra was able to sire quite a stable. His last monument in Merdaka Square, his tallest, is known in "not very polite circles" in which the Rat circulates, as "Sukarno's last erection". This erection was his last as he was overthrown fairly quickly afterwards.

So where does that leave us now?

Well, as Granitsas points out.. the next tallest building in the world will be the Shanghai World Financial Centre, slated for completion in 2002.

While China is going well now, the savvy investor may be smart not to ignore the "Great Erection" index. ..As always.. we will keep you posted....along with our other informal indices. Maybe there's a nice job with lotsa perks waiting for the Rat at the IMF soon...