Japan Economy in BIG Trouble

Mish Shedlock from the Global Economic Trend Analysis Blog has sent me a link to his latest post showing a shocking one-two double punch whammy of extremely bad news for the Japanese economy. If you are interested in money and the economy, the Mish's blog is a daily must-read.

Yo Yo Hashi - Yo Yo's Pad

In his most recent posting: Japan Retail Sales Plunge Most in 13 Years; S&P Cuts Japan Debt Outlook to "Negatibe"; 30,000 Dead or Missing, How You Can Help, Mish writes up, and links to, articles and data that point to a very bad future for Japan.


Immediately after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, foolish Japanese politicians told the Japanese public that we should not be trying to live our lives normally. Shintaro Ishihara, the mayor of Tokyo, even told people that the traditional "Hanami" celebrations should be cancelled this year. 

Hanami is an old tradition whereby the Japanese go to park and eat and drink with friends under the cherry blossoms. 


Due to these sorts of short-sighted pronouncements, many famous Japanese festivals were cancelled and the country went into a sort of mourning like that of a funeral. Things still haven't gotten 100% back to normal. Now, because of these ill considered pronouncements, the Japanese people, businesses and the economy are paying the price.


The best thing the people could do is try to get their lives back in order as soon as possible as get back to work and get the economy back on track. In that way, with a strong economy, can we help those poor people who suffered in Tohoku in this terrible tragedy. But, no! The government wonks made their dumb announcements and now we are paying the price.


Japan prime minister Naoto Kan has announced his idea for reconstruction but he's not said how he will pay for it. The idea to raise taxes was floated but that died a quick death - especially after Kan's party got trashed in local elections this last Sunday. Now, ratings agencies suspect what I fear; more Japanese government debt.


That's the last thing we need. Mish writes:


Japan’s sovereign-rating outlook was cut to “negative” by Standard & Poor’s as the nation’s reconstruction needs following last month’s earthquake will likely add to what’s already the world’s biggest debt load.

The outlook on Japan’s local-currency debt rating, at AA-, the fourth-highest grade, was lowered from “stable,” S&P said in a statement today. The company had reduced the rating by one step in January in the first cut since 2002. Moody’s Investors Service said last month the disaster may bring forward the “tipping point” for the country’s bond market.

Today’s decision adds to pressure on Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who has yet to detail how the rebuilding will be paid for and how he plans to rein in longer-term fiscal deficits. As public spending increases, revenue will likely decline because of the economic hit from the disaster, with a report today showing retail sales tumbled the most in 13 years last month.

Moody’s today reported no change to its negative outlook for Japan's Aa2 grade rating, the third highest, after a reduction from “stable” in February because of political gridlock. Japan’s public debt will probably increase 5.8 percent to 997.7 trillion yen ($12.2 trillion) in the year started April 1, from a projected 943.1 trillion yen last year, the Finance Ministry said in January.


As I predicted in December of 2010, Naoto Kan will be gone by summer. That's the good news. The bad news? That will do nothing for Japan's political stability and our credit rating and economic outlook.


The only thing we can say for certain is that it looks to be a long hot summer in 2011.


Read the rest of Mish's post here: http://bit.ly/kOqL8i

Politician's Will Say Anything for a Vote - Letters From Iwo Jima

Politicians will say any stupid thing for a vote. Japan's current prime minister, Naoto Kan, is no different from any of the rest. I thought former prime minister Hatoyama was a clown, but this guy makes Hatoyama look like Freaking Einstein.



I am disgusted that these idiots would sell their souls for political votes. I more disgusted that people buy this crap.


I am even more disgusted that politicians can find more new ways to make me disgusted.


What is it that they want to say? "Vote for me and I will honor your grandfathers?"


These people make me sick. They will say anything in order to get votes.

The other day, Japanese PM, Naoto Kan actually had the balls (idiocy) to say in public that he was going to dig up the bones of the Japanese soldiers who died in caves defending Iwo Jima and give them a proper burial.


Yeah, right.

Letters from Iwo Jima. These people are from a different 

universe. They died the way they did because of their

beliefs. Leave them alone. Haven't they suffered enough?

What a dolt this Naoto Kan is. Hello? Mr. Prime Minister? You do know that the Japanese soldiers did not fight on the beaches, but fought in tunnels and caves? Some of those caves were tens of meters - hundreds of meters - underground. How in the hell are you going to dig these remains up, Mr. Clown? 





From Google:


Japan's prime minister vowed at a memorial ceremony Tuesday to find the remains of the estimated 12,000 soldiers who are still missing from the battle of Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest and most symbolic campaigns of World War II. Naoto Kan, who has set the ongoing search for Iwo Jima's dead as a top government priority, made the comments at a ceremony to inter 822 sets of remains recovered last year -- the largest annual figure in four decades. "There remain many fallen soldiers," he said. "We vow to find them as soon as possible. We will do all we can to facilitate searches for them."


"As soon as possible"? What a screaming wanker this guy is. Yeah! And I'm going to rid the world of injustice and quit drinking too much "as soon as possible."


How is it that people are so stupid that they can sit there and listen to this crap at a public meeting and not want to throw rotten fruits at these clowns and strangle him?

Here's a good reason why this will never happen. This is a movie - merely a representation - but it does faithfully (I believe) represent just how many Japanese soldiers did not - do not want - to this day - to return to Japan.... ever!  

Right or wrong, these people felt that they let their countrymen and compatriots down. They didn't want to die, but that was the way it was. 

The ending of this movie. The ending of this video... So many letters. Yet they never were delivered. Yet, they will never ever be delivered. These people died an honorable - or at least what they thought was an honorable - death. 


Don't make them suffer anymore than they have already. Leave them alone!


Let them rest in peace. 


That you, Kan, would use these poor people as a tool to get votes disgusts me to to no end. Resign and do yourself the favor of not having to face he embarrassment of a total popular political defeat.

Three Short News Stories About How Messed Up Japan's Finances Are

Here's three news stories on Japan this morning that just made me roll my eyes. The first one shows how Japan's public debt hit new highs... This causes the incompetents in the Japanese government to panic and try to throw a budget together somehow....


From The Wall Street Journal: 


Japan's outstanding public debt hit a record Y919.151 trillion at the end of last year, the Finance Ministry said Thursday, likely fueling concerns over the nation's fiscal health and adding to a sense of urgency within the government to quickly formulate a tax hike plan. The ministry's quarterly data showed public debt rose 1.1% from the end of September, reaching a level equivalent to 194% of Japan's nominal gross domestic product for the fiscal year ended March 2010. Central government liabilities tracked by the data include government bonds, short-term debts called financial bills and other kinds of borrowed money. The picture of Japan's fiscal house gets even worse if the long-term debt of local governments worth around Y200 trillion is also taken into account.

Writer's rendition of Japanese PM Naoto Kan

Like I've written about numerous times, these idiots in the government never have the idea to cut the budget. All they ever think about is raising taxes. But the people are taxed out already. More taxes are not the answer. Cutting expenditures is and the Japanese people are starting to get fed up with high taxes. There is a movement afoot to do something about them too.


The Economist reports:


It was hardly a "mad-as-hell" moment, but still. On learning on February 6th that he had won a landslide re-election victory as mayor of Nagoya, one of Japan's biggest industrial cities, Takashi Kawamura put on a pair of black rubber boots while a small group of supporters threw buckets of cold water over his head. Hours later, with a nod to America's tax-cutting rebels, Mr Kawamura declared that a kind of tea party had been born in Nagoya. He sat alongside his political ally, Hideaki Omura, who on the same day thrashed his rivals for the governorship of the surrounding prefecture of Aichi, home to Toyota. It was hard to judge how serious they were, not least because, dressed in anoraks, they looked like the Two Ronnies, a 1970s British comedy duo. "This is a citizen's revolution," Mr Omura declared.


Finally, as a result of these problems, and how the government never tables any ideas as to how to cut expenditures and only raise taxes, I predicted how current Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan will be out of office by the end of June.


Bloomberg Reports:

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's inability to break a stalemate over budget legislation threatens to make him the fifth straight premier to last no more than a year and end efforts to rein in the world's largest public debt. Kan has been unable to persuade opposition lawmakers to agree on financing bills for his record 92.4 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion) budget that begins in April, 44.3 trillion yen of which must be funded by government bonds. Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda last week said Japan's economy faces "the risk of economic slowdown" if parliament fails to move. Sometimes I get complaints from readers saying that I don't specifically state what Japan's government should cut from their budget... My friend's, there are a million things that could be cut. I would begin with something like a 10% ~ 20% across the board cut. Here's is some information for you. Where should we cut? I think we could cut everything by at least 10% across the board and still be fine (10% probably would only buy us a year or two's time!) Where should we cut? You decide. Have a look:  I searched and found this in English for you. It is highlights of the Japanese budget of 2009 & 2010 from Japan's Ministry of Finance. Especially look at page 2: We can definitely cut military expenditures. According to Wikipedia as of 2007 Japan is #7 in the world for military expenditures.  (We spend more than 0.8% of GDP on the military) Spending in 2010:  ¥47,903,000,000,000 (at ¥80 to the dollar) that's about $58,680,000,000. When we have the US military umbrella and the USA spends more than the rest of the world combined, why is Japan spending all this money? How about cutting that into half? Cut military pensions too Overseas Development? ¥682,000,000,000  that's  $8,350,000,000... Yeah, 15.7 of Japanese are under poverty line according to NY Times but we're throwing money away to other countries. How about cutting that to zero?  Further down below, on the same page, you'll see ¥5,196,800,000,000  ($63,658,000,000) for "miscellaneous." Yes, this is the category that our politicians get into scandals about every year for having geisha parties and lighting up the town. How about cutting all politician's staff and budgets by 40%? I could go on and on. Check top of page 4. A ¥13,000 allowance for every child!? About $160.... Morons! Why don't they just cut our taxes rather than just giving us our money back? Remember when former US president Bush did this crap? A lousy $160 per child? I can get twice that for a kidon the black market! Of course, I am only joking. Too bad this debt problem here is Japan is not a joke. Thanks to News on Japan

What Did I Tell Ya? Here Comes a New Japanese Prime Minister

Well, we're not even into the 3rd week of January and it looks like one of my New Year's predictions (#6 to be exact) is coming true even sooner than I expected.


I wrote that current Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan would be booted from office by June... Well, it looks like I merely got the date wrong. This guy is toast. Give him until April. He's gone.


Xinhua reports:


Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan is going on the offensive with an ambitious tax plan that could see the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) sent further into a downward spiral and Kan exiting the same revolving door that whisked him in last year. A number of notable political pundits believe that Kan, with the public support rate for his Cabinet hovering at around 20 percent -- a perilously low level that has forced a number of Kan' s predecessors to throw in the towel -- is strategizing to stay in office with his recent aggressive bid to try to boost his ratings, take control of his fractious party and cajole opposition parties to help tackle policy problems in a divided parliament. ....


Support for Kan, who took office in June as Japan's fifth premier since 2006, and his ruling cabinet took a monumental hammering, leading to the DPJ's loss in July's upper house elections, after Kan previously floated the idea of raising its 5 percent sales tax to as high as 10 percent -- a move which Kan himself admitted was responsible for his party's defeat in the upper house election.


See? You really have to wonder about this guy. He thinks that he can increase his popularity with the public by raising our taxes!? He's only got a 20% approval rating as it is, and he thinks he can raise taxes without getting booted from office? 


What was it that Einstein said about insanity? Something about repeating a behavior yet expecting a different result each time?

"The strategy is inherently flawed and not without risk," political commentator and Shizuoka-based author Philip McNeil told Xinhua.

You call this "strategy"? I call it a drowning man flailing at straws. 

"Kan's lofty ideas of boosting Japan's 5 percent sales tax to offset social welfare costs and rein-in public debt twice the size of Japan's 5 trillion U.S. dollar economy will not impress the electorate," he said.

"Will not impress the electorate"!? Yes. Yes, indeed. It won't impress the electorate. Impress is not the word we're looking for.... Piss off? No, that's not journalistic enough...Infuriate! That's it. It will infuriate them.... 

Are you kidding me? Where do these newspapers find these mealy mouthed political commentators?

Conversely, they "have already annoyed not just opposition parties who are known set to cause havoc blocking bills at will now the DPJ don't control both Houses of Parliament, but members from his own party too," he added.

Throw on top of that, his party doesn't even control the Japanese Parliament. What a tool! No, not only does this fool need to get kicked out of office, he needs to have his head examined. 

Blogger's rendition of Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan

No. No. No. Not raising taxes!.... Cut spending and raise interest rates you clowns!

Proof That Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan is Not Fit For Office

This man is a complete and total buffoon. Japan had colonized Korea from 1910 until the end of World War II in 1945.

It wasn't a friendly colonization, either. Korean young men and women were captured and shipped off to be used as slaves; the Japanese military government of Korea tried to outlaw the Korean language.

There is an entire encyclopedia of the foolish things the Japanese military government of Korea did. Needless to say, there is still a lot of bad blood between the two nations about it.

Let's hope that time and peaceful cooperation will heal these wounds and bring these two nations closer together.

Yes. Let's hope. Let's also hope that Japan gets rid of her idiot politicians, like Naoto Kan, the current Prime Minister who actually is stupid enough to suggest that Japanese troops could be on Korea soil again! What a moron!

From Tehran Times:

South Korean officials on Sunday brushed off as ""unrealistic"" Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's remarks on a possible dispatch of his country's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to the Korean Peninsula in case of contingencies. In a meeting Friday with the families of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea, Kan was quoted as saying that his government plans to hold talks with South Korea on sending SDF to rescue the abductees in the event of a contingency in the region.

I think the wording of this article and comments by South Korea officials is spun to make them seem nicer than they really are. Most probably when they heard the mere mention of a Japanese Prime Minister even suggesting Japanese troops on Korea soil again, they probably blew their tops.

It seems these remarks caught the South Koreans off guard;

"I don't know in what context Prime Minister Kan's remarks were made," an official at the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said, adding that they may not have come after thorough consideration. 

Get that last sentence? "They (the comments) may not have come after careful consideration!?" Hee har! Duh! You think so? Kan is a buffoon.

Kim Jong Il would just love for Japanese troops to be running around South Korea. That would be the best thing that ever happened to him. He has always said that South Korea and Japan are US imperialist "tools."

Hell, even a broken clock is right twice a day.