JAPAN-US Trillion Dollar Cooperation Project
(JAPON-Amérique milliards de dollars de projets de coopération)
Japan is the only country in the world, except China, that has $1 trillion foreign reserves.
(Japan has the external net assets reaching $2.1 trillion, as of the end of 2006, which is the world largest as Japan has secured this No.1 position for 16 consecutive years since 1991.
Japan’s foreign asset balance is about $5.5 trillion based on a dollar as 100 yen.
( http://www.chosunonline.com/article/20070526000003))
So, it is natural that the exchange rate against dollar gets stronger.
However, it is well known that for so many years or two decades the yen has been appraised lower except in a limited exceptional period.
And, Japanese export has been supported by this exchange rate or the weaker yen favorable for Japanese manufacturers.
But, the success of Japanese products in the global competition, of course, lies in its quality.
The weaker yen together with higher quality of Japanese products eventually has produced $1 trillion surplus in international accounts.
It also means too much reliance on foreign demand rather than on domestic demand.
By putting them in order, we may get the following explanation:
(1) The Japanese consumers come to buy less, especially compared with Americans, though their living space is full of home electric appliances and other humble commodities made in China, thus restricting growth of domestic need.
(2) The need for export gets stronger for survival of companies...
(3) Quality and technical sophistication of products have been further enhanced.
(4) The exchange rate or the value of the yen is set intentionally weaker.
(5) Export and foreign demand have become key factors to bolstering Japanese economy.
And, as I once mentioned,
(0) The Japanese land and its nature cannot accept any more development and destruction caused by industrial activities and people’s greed, so that the Japanese spirits have worked on people’s minds to stop their material desire-driven economic activities as much as possible, resulting in spending downturn after the burst of the bubble economy.
So, it is not CO2 but the whole nature that we should focus on in curbing consumption of crude oil, coal, natural gas, and other fossil energy, though Japanese industry has now the most advanced energy-saving technology in the world which the EU does not like to humbly and heartily admire for some reasons.
Anyway, we can logically analyze and trace the economy in a given time window by correctly taking in consideration the nature of human beings.
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As I wrote yesterday Japan has 8 trillion dollars national debt and the U.S. had 9 trillion dollars national debt, Japan and the U.S. must together take measures to avoid the possible global great depression.
And, just refer to a certain opinion on the state of pre-crisis in the U.S.:
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America’s $9.3-trillion-and-growing national debt rightly has been blamed for many economic ills that lurk on our nation’s horizon, but it also had the stealth effect of further eroding Americans’ waning belief in the benefits, efficacy, and trustworthiness of government. many other, oft-mentioned factors – Vietnam, Watergate, anti-government rhetoric, and a 24/7 cycle of Washington scandals and blunders – have played a huge role in turning post-World War II pride in our government to present-day disdain for it.
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Opinion research by Public Agenda and others has found the public to be livid about Washington leaders so unaccountable and irresponsible
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Financial mismanagement and lying, indeed, go a long way toward diminishing public esteem for political leaders. But that is only part of the story.
The major drivers of growing national debt, aside from arguably too low taxes on some, are the voracious appetite of entitlement programs and interest on the debt itself. Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and smaller entitlement programs, plus interest payments account for about 63 percent of federal spending, up from 33 percent 40 years ago. In a Newtonian budgetary world of equal and opposite actions, as such mandatory spending has soared since the 1960s, discretionary spending — what Congress and the President actually have control over – comparatively has wilted like an unwatered plant.
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Thus, as a “tsunami” of debt threatens to sink our economy and government, that same tsunami is also feeding a rising sea tide of cynicism and mistrust of America’s central democratic institutions. If leaders and government are to be respected again, a big part of the solution lies with fiscal reform and debt reduction.
Andrew Yarrow is Washington director and vice president of Public Agenda.
By Public Agenda
http://blog.thehill.com/2008/04/24/how-national-debt-is-contributing-to-public-disenchantment-with-government/#more-5869
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As US citizens proved that they could not even coolly and effectively judge and act in the wake of the 9/11 Terror in 2001, compared to the level and standard of the school of Sun Tzu, a notable ancient strategist, I do not expect Americans can solve the problem alone.
They need help from, say, Japan.
But, as I mentioned above, Japan needs cooperation with the U.S. to fix its economic problem.
The two countries have a trillion dollar scale problem, respectively.
So, mutual efforts worth trillion dollars are needed.
(But, of course, it is Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution that has allowed Japan to concentrate resources, namely excellent and diligent workers, on the industry of every size and government office central and local, and eventually win esteem from the world, including American consumers.
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is worth thousands of trillion dollars, though your love to Japan might be worth Mt. Fuji or a Cherry blossom.
CHAPTER II. RENUNCIATION OF WAR
Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. )
Indeed, my teaching to soldiers is that the best way to get prepared for war is to renounce the war.
Truly, you had better listen to a peaceful sound in between calmness and a clash, since we may leave today forever at ease like one who has no tomorrow...
(http://utagoekissa.music.coocan.jp/utagoe.php?title=kyounohihasayounara )
1Ki 4:25 And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.