Looking Back to the Tokyo Station under Repair Work
Open Park Area
Cool History
One interesting theory about deployment of mankind along history is that native people in Australia had reached the continent earlier than native Europeans reached the western end of the Eurasia continent.
Original Europeans of modern mankind first appeared in Western Europe 42,000 years ago. But, the first native people appeared 50,000 years ago in the Australian continent.
Ancestors of native Australians and West Europeans must have departed from Africa about 60,000 to 50,000 years ago.
The first wave must have reached the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula and then moved to the Persian Gulf, South India, Indonesia, and finally to Australia. They moved just under the sun or to the east without moving north.
(In my theory, they travelled looking for environments very akin to the ones where they had lived in Africa. They moved greatly, but environments they encountered, lived in, and left again must have bee always similar, so that their physical and mental features did not much change from what they had had in Africa.)
But, the second or following waves must have opted for moving north or west avoiding the heat, or during 10,000 years, the climate in Europe must have changed to sub-tropical before entering the ice age.
Anyway, as native Australians seem to still preserve features of early mankind going out of Africa, we have to respect them more. It is just like direct descendants of early followers of Jesus Christ must be respected more, if there are such people preserving the spirits of the first Disciples who lived and followed Jesus Christ 2000 years ago.
The summer is also time to think about our ancestors leaving Africa or staying and watching others leaving.
(http://www.nationalgeographic.co.jp/news/news_article.php?file_id=90006&expand)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians)
SECTION I: Yen vs. Dollar/Euro
Some American politicians and economists once tried to damage Japan, pointing at a huge budget deficit of Japan.
American rating companies gave very lower scores to Japanese government bonds.
But, unlike Greece and other nations, 90% of the Japanese government bonds (JGB) are purchased and possessed by Japanese financial institutions, businesses, and wealthy people who have $15 trillion in total, though recently China has started to buy JGB.
So, the financial deficit of the Japanese Government linked with accumulation of outstanding JGB cannot be easily assessed and judged.
But, how much yen is evaluated in the exchange market reflects more clearly political and financial situations before and after the Lehman Shock as well as significance of the subsequent financial crisis.
Before 2000, American and European financial sectors realized that an interest rate in Japan was extraordinarily low. But, interest rates in the U.S. and the E.U. were not so low.
So, they came to borrow money in Japan in the form of yen with a low interest rate and exchange yen with the dollar and euro. The gap of the interest rates promised profits. The more they borrowed money in Japan to exchange it with the dollar and euro, the more they got margins in the American and European markets.
This transaction means huge selling of yen and huge purchasing of the dollar and euro. Accordingly, from 2000 to 2008, the exchange market evaluated yen lower and lower.
In America, there emerged a special condition: the 9/11 Terror and the subsequent War on Terror. Before it, the yen carry trade lowered the value of yen to 135 yen per dollar in early 2002.
From 2002 when the War was launched and to late 2004 when George W. Bush was re-elected, financial institutions were more concerned with special huge expenditures by the U.S. Government for the War. The yen carry trade was relatively less influential in this period. But, as the Bush Administration was authorized again by American voters and the war did not go out of control, the yen carry trade got momentum again. Yen became weaker again.
In 2006, the scale of the yen carry trade reached about $450 billion while 115 yen was exchanged with one dollar.
Then, the subprime-loan mortgage debacle started in 2007 and the Lehman Shock hit the financial sectors of the U.S. and the E.U. so badly. They needed to make the ends meet in their balance sheet. So, they decided to return borrowed yen to Japan. For this, they had to first get yen in the exchange market. They started to buy yen with funds obtained through selling of any financial instruments in any currency.
Today, one dollar is exchanged with 87 or 88 yen, as the yen carry trade has been cancelled in a large scale.
But, an interest rate in Japan is still low. At any time, the yen carry trade is started again.
Yet, it is deflation in Japan that makes the Bank of Japan take a low-interest policy.
Deflation is so potentially dangerous:
Deflation --> Low Interest Rate --> Yen Carry Trade
--> Need to Borrow and Exchange Yen with Dollar --> Weak Yen
--> Lehman Shock --> Cancellation of Yen Carry Trade
--> Need to Get and Return Yen --> Stronger Yen
There is a theory that this yen carry trade also spurred the subprime loan sales. As Wall Street had such a huge source of a low interest rate in Japan, it expanded its credit granting to American consumers, leading to expansion of a scope of possible damage.
In other word, as Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Summers could not understand this scenario in late 1990's, the yen carry trade was practiced so vastly influencing foreign exchange markets in the world.
This cycle can be explained in this way, but deflation in Japan is still going on.
Japan needs a 4% increase in GDP per year but not a 5% increase in tax.
(As for economics students in Harvard, I recommend them to try to explain all the major incidents in the world after 2000 with a key word of "an exchange rate between yen and the dollar/euro." The world can be so simply understood if it is explained with this single keyword "an exchange rate between yen and dollar/euro." However, it looks so complicated to those who get blind due to their desire.)
SECTION II: New Japanese Ambassador to China
For the first time, a non-bureaucrat Japanese ambassador was appointed to China.
But, he said, "Military expansion of China can be understood, taking into consideration that China is a big country."
It is said that he has 20-year long close association with China, since he was an elite businessman of a big Japanese firm.
Yet, his comment does not honestly reflect the stance of the Japanese Government and the Japanese people.
Japan wants China to adopt the same peace article as Japan has in its constitution.
Japan does not accept military expansion of China which might threaten independence of Taiwan and the Japanese security and economic interest.
But, if Chins is so bellicose now, it was so before WWII, very naturally.
So, China attacked Shanghai protected by the Marines of the Empire of Japan and other very moderate forces of the U.S. and European nations in 1930's.
History tells that China's attack led eventually to the preventive attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Navy in 1941.
China should stop increasing its military budget which has been multiplied by more than 20 times in the past 20 years.
*** *** *** ***
Some liberal or progressive people in Japan claim that America is evil, American military bases in Japan are evil, Japanese politicians going on friendly terms with America are evil, and thus the ruling DPJ and Prime Minister Mr. Naoto Kan are now evil, but ex-head of the DPJ Mr. Ichiro Ozawa is all the more great.
But, Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, last year after the regime change, took with him 140 DPJ lawmakers of the Japanese Diet to Beijing to greet Chinese President Mr. Hu Jintao while subsequently demanding the Imperial Household Agency to change a schedule of the Emperor so as to realize a metting between the Emperor and vice president of China who is however ranked No. 4 or 5 in the Chinese Communist Party.
I do not understand why those liberal or progressive Japanese critics do not call Mr. Ichiro Ozawa evil.
If they think they are wise, they are fools. If they think they are pretending to be fools for their true aim, they are still fools.
If they criticize China and Mr. Ichiro Ozawa as much as they do against America, they can be wise.
Anyway, they should not have criticized the Imperial Household Agency only because the Agency criticized Mr. Ozawa.
And, then P.M. Mr. Yukio Hatoyama should have protected the honor of the Agency at the time.
In this way, Mr. Yukio Hatoyama became unsuitable for presiding over the August 15 ceremony to commemorate the end of WWII for Japan.
(http://www.geocities.jp/kiyomius/chanson.html
Hot, hot summer! So, hot, hot midis.)
Mat 7:27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
Mat 7:28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
Mat 7:29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.