12 Mar 2013
Arguing on austerity, Paul Krugman, Guy Verhofstadt, Matthew Hancock
Kyle Bass On Japan and Two Key Slides
I was listening to Kyle Bass' forecast of what he sees as the coming
financial collapse of Japan. A link to that presentation at the Booth
School is included below.
Herein are two key charts that I obtained from Wikipedia that weigh on the economic situation in Japan. They are a bit particular to that country.
Japan has a largely homogeneous population sharing a common racial heritage and language. There is little immigration other than a few guest workers, and a shortage of natural resources. It does have a strong store of intellectual human capital, a highly motivated and capable work force, and a remarkably strong central planning structure. The public is unusually cohesive and oriented towards the common good.
I think that although it is packed with facts, Kyle Bass's analysis is a
little overly simplistic, and not completely fungible to other
countries as he implies in the Q&A as indicated in the talk below.
I am a little disappointed that Mr. Bass deals with the externalities through the numbers, but never discusses the structure of Japan's economy and the keiretsus, which is very important, and far from incidental. He also gives a nod to Japanese culture and then dismisses it. That also is an error, but it is a very common Western error, and he has plenty of company. After all, inside every foreigner is a greedy, self-serving American style plutocrat just waiting to get out, right?
Herein are two key charts that I obtained from Wikipedia that weigh on the economic situation in Japan. They are a bit particular to that country.
Japan has a largely homogeneous population sharing a common racial heritage and language. There is little immigration other than a few guest workers, and a shortage of natural resources. It does have a strong store of intellectual human capital, a highly motivated and capable work force, and a remarkably strong central planning structure. The public is unusually cohesive and oriented towards the common good.
I think that although it is packed with facts, Kyle Bass's analysis is a
little overly simplistic, and not completely fungible to other
countries as he implies in the Q&A as indicated in the talk below.
I am a little disappointed that Mr. Bass deals with the externalities through the numbers, but never discusses the structure of Japan's economy and the keiretsus, which is very important, and far from incidental. He also gives a nod to Japanese culture and then dismisses it. That also is an error, but it is a very common Western error, and he has plenty of company. After all, inside every foreigner is a greedy, self-serving American style plutocrat just waiting to get out, right?
Let's Stop Fooling Ourselves: Americans Can't Afford the Future
By Adam Taggart: The American spirit is rooted in the belief of a better tomorrow. Its
success has been due to generations of men and women who toiled,
through both hardship and boom times, to make that dream a reality.
But at some point over the past several decades, that hope for a better tomorrow became an expectation. Or perhaps a perceived entitlement is more accurate.
It became assumed that the future would be more prosperous than
today, irrespective of the actual steps being taken in the here and now.
And for a prolonged time – characterized by plentiful and cheap energy, accelerating globalization, technical innovation, and the financialization of the economy – it seemed like this assumption was a certain bet.
But these wonderful tailwinds that America has been enjoying for so many decades are sputtering out. The forces of resource scarcity, debt saturation, price inflation, and physical limits will impact our way of life dramatically more going forward than living generations have experienced to date.
And Americans, who had the luxury of abandoning savings and sacrifice for consumerism and credit financing, are on a collision course with that reality. Like the grasshopper in Aesop's fable, they have partied away the fair seasons and winter is now on the way, which they are not prepared for.
The prudent thing to do here would be to have an honest, adult-sized conversation with ourselves about our level of (un)readiness and how best to use the resources and time we have left while the system still works more or less the way we're used to. There are certainly strategies and steps we can take in the here and now to best match priorities to needs, and meet the future as prepared as possible.
But you won't find this discussion in the national media.
But at some point over the past several decades, that hope for a better tomorrow became an expectation. Or perhaps a perceived entitlement is more accurate.
It became assumed that the future would be more prosperous than
today, irrespective of the actual steps being taken in the here and now.And for a prolonged time – characterized by plentiful and cheap energy, accelerating globalization, technical innovation, and the financialization of the economy – it seemed like this assumption was a certain bet.
But these wonderful tailwinds that America has been enjoying for so many decades are sputtering out. The forces of resource scarcity, debt saturation, price inflation, and physical limits will impact our way of life dramatically more going forward than living generations have experienced to date.
And Americans, who had the luxury of abandoning savings and sacrifice for consumerism and credit financing, are on a collision course with that reality. Like the grasshopper in Aesop's fable, they have partied away the fair seasons and winter is now on the way, which they are not prepared for.
The prudent thing to do here would be to have an honest, adult-sized conversation with ourselves about our level of (un)readiness and how best to use the resources and time we have left while the system still works more or less the way we're used to. There are certainly strategies and steps we can take in the here and now to best match priorities to needs, and meet the future as prepared as possible.
But you won't find this discussion in the national media.
Walmart Prison - Max Keiser with Gail 'The Actuary' Tverberg
The children of Eric Holder’s “We’re afraid to prosecute banksters” are awake and fighting back in Ireland
Syrian Girl - They Are Trying To Partition Syria + UK MIC Shill Government Feeding WAR in Syria
Morris: NATO likes to partition countries: Sudan, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Cyprus ....
LADY CLARE SHORT OPENS THE BROWN / BLAIR WAR CRIMES PANDORA’S BOX
The Slog: Lady Clare Short took the lid off the
Brown/Blair succession revelations last night, when she told the Sunday
Times of Gordon Brown’s personal career fears during 2003.She told The Sunday Times: “Gordon said that the Blairites were hoping for a quick and victorious war, after which they would be much strengthened. He would be offered a job which he couldn’t accept and he would be joining me on the back benches.”
The Slog exclusively revealed the timing of Clare Short’s Chilcot slot last week. There were hot denials from Labour MPs last night that Short was also the colleague to whom Robin Cook allegedly revealed during 2006 that he had radioactive information on Blair’s secret roles and agreements surrounding the Iraq war. (Another Slog exclusive in the last week)
Short was close to Brown in 2003. She claims Brown ‘listened sympathetically’ to her grave doubts about the War. It’s therefore not surprising that she has chosen to dump on Blair not Brown: she has always -like Sir Roderic Lyne – felt betrayed by Blair’s perfidy on the issue of the Government’s WMD dossier.
However, Ms Short knows perfectly well that – assuming she enlarges on this claim at Chilcot next Tuesday – she has done exactly what Nick Clegg’s cabal want: to get the Brown/Blair relationship firmly on the Chilcot agenda. For this could pave the way for Brown (along with several re-interviewees) to be questioned about what Iraq ‘sleaze’ may have been used by Brownites to oust Tony Blair as Prime Minister.
Staggering Bullish Indications for Gold - Jim Willie
Managerialism: Nazi-type eugenics introduced in the UK as ‘health service’ consigns patients – even babies –to death row!
If this were a story about National Socialist death camps, instead of the United Kingdom in the 21st century, people would shake their heads at the horrors of the past. Yet authenticated reports demonstrate that in some admittedly rare cases, patients who were not terminally ill found themselves on the Pathway, without their consent or knowledge. Moreover, in one just such distressing instance reported in the Daily Mail, a sick man was placed on the Pathway in exactly those circumstances. Despite the protests of his family, he was cut off from all medical treatment, food and fluids and unsurprisingly died rather horribly.
Quadruple Dip: 'UK must unfurl global bankers' grip on economy'
Hackers release financial records of first lady, vice president, att’y general, others
RT: Hackers are continuing to leak the alleged personal finance records
of US politicians and celebrities. The list of those supposedly exposed
now includes First Lady Michelle Obama, Donald Trump, Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Britney Spears.
When Gossip website TMZ first reported the leak on Monday,
without disclosing the hacking site’s name, the list contained
sensitive information for 11 prominent Americans: Celebrities Kim
Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Mel Gibson, Ashton Kutcher, Jay-Z and
Beyonce, as well as public figures Joe Biden, Robert Mueller,
Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and LAPD Chief Charlie
Beck.
The number of victims of the hacking has increased by 6 over the day, with Michelle Obama now topping the list. The site does not explain why these particular individuals had their personal data leaked.
The website in question is Exposed.su, RT has learned.
The ‘.su’ domain was country code for USSR for only a short period – from 1990 to 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. The hackers’ website is linked to a twitter account partly written in bad Russian, as though the messages were translated by machine.
When Gossip website TMZ first reported the leak on Monday,
without disclosing the hacking site’s name, the list contained
sensitive information for 11 prominent Americans: Celebrities Kim
Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Mel Gibson, Ashton Kutcher, Jay-Z and
Beyonce, as well as public figures Joe Biden, Robert Mueller,
Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and LAPD Chief Charlie
Beck. The number of victims of the hacking has increased by 6 over the day, with Michelle Obama now topping the list. The site does not explain why these particular individuals had their personal data leaked.
The website in question is Exposed.su, RT has learned.
The ‘.su’ domain was country code for USSR for only a short period – from 1990 to 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. The hackers’ website is linked to a twitter account partly written in bad Russian, as though the messages were translated by machine.