Japan

[noddy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers

a quadrillion is 10^15 so it will be a while yet before the japanese government gets sued for copyright infringment by google - 10^100.

for must of us it will be a metric buttload of debt, i spose the americans will stick the imperial.

[Apollonius]

Expect to be lied to in Japan - Ian Buruma, New York Review of Books, 8 November 2012
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... tion=false


Review of:


Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World by John W. Dower (New Press)

Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan’s Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster by David McNeill and Lucy Birmingham (Palgrave Macmillan)

[Typhoon]

Expect to be lied to in Japan - Ian Buruma, New York Review of Books, 8 November 2012
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... tion=false

Review of:

Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World by John W. Dower (New Press)

Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan’s Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster by David McNeill and Lucy Birmingham (Palgrave Macmillan)

I read the review, but my question is exactly what points[s] is the reviewer trying to make?

[Apollonius]

Not really sure myself, Typhoon, and I don't think I'm the person to judge.


I posted this because I thought you and others might be interested. I hestitated, because I thought you might think that I think badly of Japan, which is not at all the case.

[Typhoon]

Not really sure myself, Typhoon, and I don't think I'm the person to judge.

I posted this because I thought you and others might be interested. I hesititated, because I thought you might think that I think badly of Japan, which is not at all the case.

No obligation to think well of Japan.

It would neither be fair or reasonable to tolerate criticism of other nations in their sections or threads and not do the same here.

[Crocus sativus]

.


Fitch has cut the credit ratings of Sony and Panasonic to junk

Fitch justified the cuts – which made it the first big agency to strip either company of their investment-grade ratings – by citing a long list of challenges, including loss of technology leadership in key products ..

This not Sony or Panasonic exclusive .. Japan as a whole must refocus, to China .. drop US and climb in bed with China .. instead, confronting China and in bed with US

Energy cost not key for Japan, innovation the make or brake


.

[Typhoon]

.

Fitch has cut the credit ratings of Sony and Panasonic to junk

Fitch justified the cuts – which made it the first big agency to strip either company of their investment-grade ratings – by citing a long list of challenges, including loss of technology leadership in key products ..

This not Sony or Panasonic exclusive .. Japan as a whole must refocus, to China .. drop US and climb in bed with China .. instead, confronting China and in bed with US

Energy cost not key for Japan, innovation the make or brake


.

[Typhoon]

.

Fitch has cut the credit ratings of Sony and Panasonic to junk

Fitch justified the cuts – which made it the first big agency to strip either company of their investment-grade ratings – by citing a long list of challenges, including loss of technology leadership in key products ..

This not Sony or Panasonic exclusive .. Japan as a whole must refocus, to China .. drop US and climb in bed with China .. instead, confronting China and in bed with US

Energy cost not key for Japan, innovation the make or brake

.

Okay, I get it. You don't like the US and the Pax Americana.

The problems of Sony | Sharp | Panasonic have nothing to do with geopolitics and everything to do with the rapid advance of technology.

Sony completely missed the boat, post Walkman, with regards to portable music players [re iPod]

All these companies, by focusing on the incompatible Japanese standard, completely missed the train with regards to the global mobile phone, esp the smartphone, boom.

The biggest problem is TVs [that's televisions, not cross-dressers]. While these companies may still produce that highest quality TVs,
the image quality to eye of the typical consumer is no different than a lower priced model. Large scale LCDs have become a commodity business.

A structural problem is that such, now traditional, companies have valued hardware engineering over software.
One can spend hours uninstalling the infuriating crapware that often comes with a computer purchased in Japan.

Whether they can respond and change their situation is an open question.

China has it's own set of problems:

1/ a liquidity fueled bubble reminiscent of the Japan Bubble Economy - with all the associated problems of mis-allocation and mis-pricing;

2/ rising wages - companies are already moving factories to SE Asia;

3/ a rapidly aging population - the challenge for China is to get rich before it gets old

4/ a rampantly corrupt oligarchy

[Crocus sativus]

.

Fitch has cut the credit ratings of Sony and Panasonic to junk

Fitch justified the cuts – which made it the first big agency to strip either company of their investment-grade ratings – by citing a long list of challenges, including loss of technology leadership in key products ..

This not Sony or Panasonic exclusive .. Japan as a whole must refocus, to China .. drop US and climb in bed with China .. instead, confronting China and in bed with US

Energy cost not key for Japan, innovation the make or brake

.

Okay, I get it. You don't like the US and the Pax Americana.

The problems of Sony | Sharp | Panasonic have nothing to do with geopolitics and everything to do with the rapid advance of technology.

Sony completely missed the boat, post Walkman, with regards to portable music players.

All these companies, by focusing on the incompatible Japanese standard, completely missed the train with regards to the global mobile phone, esp the smartphone, boom.

The biggest problem is TVs [that's televisions, not cross-dressers]. While these companies may still produce that highest quality TVs, the image quality to the typical consumer is no different than a lower priced model.

China has it's own set of problems:

1/ a liquidity fueled bubble reminiscent of the Japan Bubble Economy - with all the associated problems of mis-allocation and mis-pricing;

2/ rising wages - companies are already moving factories to SE Asia;

3/ a rapidly aging population - the challenge for China is to get rich before it gets old

4/ a rampantly corrupt oligarchy

.

Love the US .. AND .. Pax Americana served it`s purpose, assisting confronting communism worldwide

but, now

different world shaping up

Look,

China, in a generation, will be number one in pretty much everything .. including, science, technology, market size, purchase power and and and, basically unbeatable in any aspect and respect .. and .. China is an ancient culture and civilization, material progress will be backed by 1000s of yrs culture and civilization, unlike US.

World moving towards economic, cultural and military multi-polarity (with racial undertone)

Does Japan, belonging to same race, want China of next generation as friend or as foe

A wrong choice would be catastrophic for Japan


.

[Typhoon]

Linear extrapolations into the future rarely, if ever, turn out as expected.

[noddy]

yeh its the japanese fault for not investing in china and taking that market seriously ermm, yeh, umm.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cecf3b7e ... abdc0.html

[Crocus sativus]

.


Between a dysfunctional democracy that seeks to return traditional parties showing little innovation,
an economy that is losing competitiveness with every passing day,
a demographic time bomb and prickly relations with its neighbors,
Japan as we know it may simply cease to be a major functioning economy over the next couple of decades.


CS , you not listening

Japan must let go of west, and, revert again to traditional Japan .. might need a cultural revolution



.

[Crocus sativus]

.


Beijing may be thinking seriously about trying to kick away a key prop of the US initiative - a vital, but weakened and vulnerable ally : Japan

Is the People's Republic of China (PRC) trying to implode the Japanese economy ?

It is starting to look that way.

Where is Japan going to find the market it needs for prosperity

not in America

not in Europe

in China

so

why the 歌舞伎 (Kabuki), Colonel


.

[HAL 10000]

(Due to the fact that I am the black sheep of my family and that I don't deserve to rely on my Ottoman grandfather's accomplishments or his picture as my avatar, I have reverted to my computer identity. But this time I am HAL 10000, which is the successor to the old derelict computer HAL 9000.)

In this message (which should also apply to the China thread), I will argue that both Japan and China have something important in common.

Both Japan and China are in danger of losing a significant part of not only the EU, but even the United States as their export markets. Certainly the exports to the EU and US cannot grow anymore; on the contrary these numbers are likely to decline.

But both China and Japan have a net trade surplus against the EU and US.

For China, in 2011, the trade surplus against the US was $295 billion, and against the EU, China had a trade surplus close to $150 billion. Thus China has a combined approximate annual trade surplus of well over $400 billion against the EU and the US.

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html

For Japan, in 2011, the trade surplus against the US was $63 billion.

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5880.html

I don't have the figures for Japan's trade surplus with the EU, but it is safe to assume that the Japan and China have a combined annual trade surplus against the US and EU, in the order of $500 billion.

However, we must note that in 2011 China had a net trade surplus of less than $250 billion:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 24706.html

Furthermore, Japan does not have a significant net trade surplus:

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/balance-of-trade

Thus, it follows that even though China and perhaps Japan will definitely expand their overall trade with the world (especially in Asia), they will probably run a net annual trade deficit in the future because they are likely to lose a significant portion of their export markets in the US and EU, which have currently been providing them with a trade surplus to offset the rising cost of raw materials. In other words, I would argue that even though China (and in the future perhaps even Japan) currently has considerable success in importing raw materials by bartering finished goods to raw materials producing countries (instead of using money), without the current combined annual trade surplus of $500 billion from the EU and the US, China and Japan will not be able to import enough raw materials to survive, unless they find a different method to obtain the raw materials.

[Apollonius]

This morning I posted some art from the Northwest Coast. I've always been struck by some of the similarities you find in their art and that of the Maoris in New Zealand, but another group which has developed a style vaguely similar to Native North American art are the Ainu of Japan.


These photos were taken by a good friend of mine who visited Hokkaido earlier this year:

Ainu dancers

Ainu Dancers.jpg (87.71 KiB) Viewed 1897 times

This sculpture doesn't strike me as particularly authentic Ainu art, but does give some impression of their physical appearance:

Ainu statue

Ainu Statue.jpg (105.43 KiB) Viewed 1897 times

[Crocus sativus]

.


Philippines Backs Rearming of Japan

"We would welcome that very much," Albert del Rosario told the Financial Times in an interview. "We are looking for balancing factors in the region and Japan could be a significant balancing factor."

The unusual statement, which risks upsetting Beijing, reflects alarm in Manila at what it sees as Chinese provocation over the South China Sea, virtually all of which is claimed by Beijing. It also comes days before an election in Japan that could see the return as prime minister of Shinzo Abe, who is committed to revising Japan's pacifist constitution and to beefing up its military.

Colonel, don't fall into trap


.

[Typhoon]

.


Philippines Backs Rearming of Japan

"We would welcome that very much," Albert del Rosario told the Financial Times in an interview. "We are looking for balancing factors in the region and Japan could be a significant balancing factor."

The unusual statement, which risks upsetting Beijing, reflects alarm in Manila at what it sees as Chinese provocation over the South China Sea, virtually all of which is claimed by Beijing. It also comes days before an election in Japan that could see the return as prime minister of Shinzo Abe, who is committed to revising Japan's pacifist constitution and to beefing up its military.

Colonel, don't fall into trap

.

I'll be sure to mention it to PM Noda over drinks the next time we go out to a hostess bar.

[Azrael]

Interview with Shii Katzuo

[Typhoon]

It's election day in Japan in less than one hour.

Interview with Shii Katzuo

Is it by design that he looks like he's wearing a dunce cap in that image

chindit13 - Thu, Dec 13, 2012 - 10:38 PM

Since 1989 Japan has killed more investors than any market, and it has killed both longs (Nikkei, TOPIX) and shorts (JGBs, yen).

Since you're talking equities, Japan has had a number of called bottoms since '89. One was around '92, when the government decided to become self-servingly paternalistic and push KAMPO and YUCHO money into stocks. That resulted in a 50% index surge that coincided with zero real growth. A second one occured somewhere around '96, with the Nikkei experiencing about a 30% run owing to nothing more than a "contrarian play".

There have been others. All have ended in tears.

This latest run has been about 12%, and has coincided with a about a 7% fall in the yen. Is Japan back this time? Sharp, Panosonic, Olympus and Sony say "no", though the market might want to predict otherwise (again).

Someday Japan will bottom, but it remains to be seen whether that is at 8000 or 8. The country, on balance, spent so much time trying to paper over its problems, rather than attempt to create real value, that the world may have passed them by (with the exception of certain firms).

There is a new book out by the former CEO of Olympus. Anyone who wishes to begin to understand what Japan is really all about should give it a read.

Japan's own Grover Cleveland (Shinzo Abe) might want to print Japan into prosperity, but whether or not he can do it without further exacerbating Japan's debt and demographic dilemma remains to be seen.

Abe might be able to convince the world that yen will be easier to acquire than tickets to a re-union of Pink Lady, but he can't make Japanese women produce babies (though like most Japanese politicians he is probably willing to try), he can't turn Sony into Apple, he can't make a nuclear-fearful Japan energy independent, he cannot insure the comfortable retirements of an aging population whose "savings" were invested on their behalf in Nikkei 20000 to 22000 during the 1990's "price keeping operation", and he cannot make disappear all of the unconsolidated, offshore-booked losses that still hamstring the Japanese financial industry (most are "crossed" futures contracts where the "winners" were booked in the parent's account and the "losers" booked into a non-consolidated subsidiary).

Japan might be, or have been, a trade, but before anybody dusts off those 1980's tomes on Japan as Number One, one should adopt some perspective.

The two main parties, the incumbent DPJ and the longest ruling LDP, can be best described as dumb and dumber.

Cutting off a pinky is an attractive option compared to voting for either of these two main parties.

The JCP may be an option worth considering - at least as a protest vote.

[noddy]

i haz an idea!

we can push for one world governance via the un and put all the leaders and their oppositions into this structure and the new headquarters will be israel/palestine.
their first task shall be fixing the newly created country that they rule from and all the rest of us will just have to make do by ourselves in the interim.

[Typhoon]

The natural perma-ruling party, the LDP, was returned to power with a solid majority.



To quote Mr. P., "STPN, baby."

[Azrael]

The JCP may be an option worth considering - at least as a protest vote.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

[Azrael]

The natural perma-ruling party, the LDP, was returned to power with a solid majority.



To quote Mr. P., "STPN, baby."

What is your view of the LDP's partner New K?

I heard that they are controversial and that there are temple/state issues.

[Azrael]

It looks like Abe and the Bank of Japan may have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to monetary policy.

The Japanese Yen looks pretty over-valued when compared with the Dollar. Twenty years ago, early on in the "lost decade", ¥123 to US$1. As time went on, in spite of the fact that the Japanese economy has done poor relative to the U.S. (especially during the 1990s), the exchange rate is now about 84 Yen per Dollar.

Before the Plaza Accords, when Japan's economy was growing strongly, the exchange rate was 239 Yen per Dollar in 1985.

Abe believes that the Yen is overvalued. To me, the evidence that he is correct looks pretty strong.

I'm not saying that they should go back to the 1985 exchange rate; but they should definitely head part of the way in that direction.

Yen in the early 1980s

During the first half of the 1980s, the yen failed to rise in value even though current account surpluses returned and grew quickly. From ¥221 in 1981, the average value of the yen actually dropped to ¥239 in 1985. The rise in the current account surplus generated stronger demand for yen in foreign-exchange markets, but this trade-related demand for yen was offset by other factors. A wide differential in interest rates, with United States interest rates much higher than those in Japan, and the continuing moves to deregulate the international flow of capital, led to a large net outflow of capital from Japan. This capital flow increased the supply of yen in foreign-exchange markets, as Japanese investors changed their yen for other currencies (mainly dollars) to invest overseas. This kept the yen weak relative to the dollar and fostered the rapid rise in the Japanese trade surplus that took place in the 1980s.

Effect of the Plaza Accord

In 1985 a dramatic change began. Finance officials from major nations signed an agreement (the Plaza Accord) affirming that the dollar was overvalued (and, therefore, the yen undervalued). This agreement, and shifting supply and demand pressures in the markets, led to a rapid rise in the value of the yen. From its average of ¥239 per US$1 in 1985, the yen rose to a peak of ¥128 in 1988, virtually doubling its value relative to the dollar. After declining somewhat in 1989 and 1990, it reached a new high of ¥123 to US$1 in December 1992. In April 1995, the yen hit a peak of under 80 yen per dollar, temporarily making Japan's economy nearly the size of the US.

[Alexis]

Japan's Shinzo Abe prepares to print money for the whole world

The LDP plans what some have dubbed a "currency warfare fund" to weaken the yen with a blitz of foreign bond purchases, copying Switzerland’s success in capping the franc.

The effect of Switzerland’s unlimited bond purchases has been to finance most of the eurozone’s budget deficits for the last year with printed money. If Japan tries to do this - with a vastly bigger economy - it would amount a blast of quantitative easing for the world.

(...)

Stephen Jen from SLJ Macro Partners said the Bank of Japan is right to fret that a return to inflation could set off a spike in debt costs and a flight from Japanese government bonds (JGBs).

"Any meaningful sell-off in the JGBs could trigger a serious problem in Japan’s banking system. The holdings of JGBs by Japanese banks account for 900pc of their Tier I capital," he said. Better the Devil you know.