Foreign aid.

The article informs that the Japanese investors have lost more than $20 billion in real estate in California and Hawaii. In downtown Los Angeles, where the Japanese own about 45% of all premium office space, values on office buildings have dropped 40% to 50% since the Japanese bought them in the late 1980's. In many cases the Japanese made investments without the benefit of a pro forma, an analysis of the leases or even a study of competing projects. They ignored cash flow analyses, believing cash flow to be irrelevant because the properties were certain to appreciate dramatically, just as they had in Japan.