Speaking of the Salinas administration's economic achievements, one foreign bank economist here said: "The problem is that nobody believes it's for real.

The ripples from the attacks were varied and widely felt, bank economists said.

"Today, however, the Bank of Japan does not perceive serious risk to the economy," the bank economist said.

I know of at least one ex bank economist who freely admitted that his primary role was as a PR person for the bank.

"If you act on the exchange rate now, everything you have done in the last 10 months is down the drain," one foreign bank economist said.

Some of the most important research on the resource curse has been done by bank economists.

But some bank economists in Tokyo calculate that Japan's bad loan total is more than 100 times that amount.

Their main responsibility is to keep prices stable, so central bank economists have long looked for extra benefits to low inflation.

Although the housing market remains strong, according to bank economists, there are now soft spots in financial services, manufacturing and commercial real estate.

"It looks like we are putting together a pretty potent brew for inflation," one bank economist said.