(From a high-speed train running north of Tokyo)A Bone so Loved Waits for a Dog Trotting About
(Un chien peut trouver un os par la miséricorde de Dieu.)
Now, the US NPR broadcast is reporting interviews conducted in China in the wake of the Great Earthquake over the Internet.
We are extremely and gravely sorry for more than 50,000 people, including Han people, Tibetan Buddhists, and other local respectable tribes, so innocently fallen in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Sichuan_earthquake
Five million people lost houses. More than two million tents and temporary housings are yet to be provided.
And, in a certain town of the devastated area, a thousand or so local peopled clashed with the police over poor distribution of foods and emergency supplies.
We hope that Chinese agencies will safely recover more than ten containers of radioactive materials still being buried under rubbles at unidentified spots near collapsed nuclear development facilities, as soon as possible, since the Russian President now visits Beijing.
Now let me check around on some useful information-presenting sites on the Internet, since some might be waiting.
(Aid and emergency supplies from Japan have arrived at an earthquake-hit disater site in China: http://www.news.janjan.jp/world/0805/0805230751/1.php )
PART I: EEE REPORTER on Friday, July 27, 2007
Strangely, in order to find an article among past EEE Reports including a specific word, I have to first type in the keyword, such as “Nomura,” into a keyword field at the upper left corner of the EEE-Reporter blog's front page.
Then I have to push [CTRL] + [F] keys together to invoke a pop-up window for search to again type in the same keyword, such as “Nomura.”
Then I can get the article I wrote on July 27, 2007.
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2. Handwriting on the Wall
Nomura Holdings, Inc. has reported on its after-tax profit during the second quarter of 2007 as 76.7 billion yen (640 million dollars).
(http://www.nomuraholdings.com/policy/privacy_hd.html)
However, it lost 72.6 billion yen (600 million dollars) due to adverse effect of US housing loan slumps, during the first half of 2007.
Nomura purchased claimable assets on US housing loans and integrated them into financial commodities to sell to corporate investors. Specifically, Nomura started to deal with US sub-prime loans in August 2005.
No other major Japanese financial companies are reportedly involved in transactions leveraging the US housing loan credit obligations.
Now, the dollar is getting weaker; the NYSE index is expected to go down but not further up; Chinese export might be suppressed through adjustment of monetary rates and due to product contamination; and the gasoline price has never shown any signs of going down.
Nomura's loss, though covered by its profit, may be handwriting on the wall for those involved in Wall Street. It is time we are going to enter another cycle of the world economy, since even Russia has recently paid off due to the energy boom.
Maybe you had better have another way of investment.
But who guides you? So, choose a right one.
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As you know, now everybody knows that it was a big mistake that the Japanese media and the Japanese Government last July announced that “no other major Japanese financial companies are reportedly involved in transactions leveraging the US housing loan credit obligations.”
Many Japanese financial institutes were in fact dealing with financial products in which US subprime loan securities were embedded.
According to a recent media article, the total loss linked with the US subprime loan problem Japanese financial institutes have incurred has reached almost one trillion yen ($10 billion).
It is August 2007 that parties concerned came to realize the sheer scale of a possible loss related to the emerging subprime loan crisis.
But, in July 2007, no Japanese financial institutes, government agencies, and media companies could grasp the real state of this huge financial crime, while merely announcing that only “Nomura Holdings, Inc. lost 72.6 billion yen (600 million dollars) due to adverse effect of US housing loan slumps, during the first half of 2007.”
I don't know if they are making sincere efforts to get over this lack of ability to estimate the on-going situation, though you may be doing it diligently eliminating wasting time.
Anyway, we have to trot around other informative sites on the Internet.
PART II: http://www.realtytrac.com/ContentManagement/pressrelease.aspx?ChannelID=9&ItemID=4586&accnt=64847
The above titled site is introduced in a Japanese site which also presents a chart everyone will appreciate, since it shows the scale of financial devastation around US houses:
http://www.financial-j.net/blog/2008/05/000551.html#more
(Click for a larger view.)This Japanese site on economy reported that the number of houses foreclosed on was between 70,000 and 120,000 per month from 2005 to the first half of 2006.
But, it jumped up to 200,000 houses per month in August 2007.
Specifically, "230,000 houses foreclosed on per month" are translated into "one of 500 houses" to be confiscated.
The worst situation is found in Nevada with one per 146 houses to receive a foreclosure filing.
The second worst, California with one per 204; the third worst Arizona with one in 224; and the fourth worst Florida with one per 242.
(Mrs. Clinton, if elected as the next President or not, should be engaged more in these states to help poor Americans, in my humble view...)
PART III: http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeqrguz/housingbubble/
(Click for a larger view.)According to the titled site,
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The above chart estimates the market value of today's median-priced house over a 20-year period.
The red line represents real house prices. For those unfamiliar with economic-speak, "real" prices are prices that have been adjusted for inflation. The blue line represents nominal house prices.
Notice that in the 13-year period from 1987 until 1999, real house prices stayed roughly within the range of $125,000 to $150,000. Only since the year 2000 have real house prices risen above the top of this range.
The United States median price was at approximately $206,200 as of the fourth quarter of 2007. This is 38% higher than the previous housing boom peak of an inflation-adjusted $149,300 in 1989.
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It is as if the American Dream had a price tag of $206,200.
Your American Dream must not have such a price tag attached.
Your American Dream must be spiritual.
Its price tag should be only read in Heaven by Angels.
Now, forget about a house, since five million people recently lost houses in China and also hundreds of thousands in Myanmar.
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Yesterday or a day before, I got into a Seven-11 shop in my town north of Tokyo.
They had a tiny plastic transparent box set up as a collection box for fund-raising to help Chinese victims hit by the Great Earthquake.
In it, there were a few 1,000 yen bills (US$10) in addition to many coins.
I asked a part-time sales assistant who had put the bills into the box placed before a cash register.
She said, “A gentleman, minutes ago.”
As I knew she was an honest young woman, I said, “Might have been drunken,” making a donation of some humble coins into the box as my second or third time contribution in Seven-11 shops in these days.
In convenient shops in Japan, they should also set up a collection box for fund-raising to help Myanmar victims hit by the recent Great Cyclone.
They should do so, since many Japanese gentlemen seem to be trotting around convenient shops, though unlike a dog for a bone.
(I saw many girls who suddenly started to laugh or act like whores as they thought they discovered that the king of the society was the Devil.
That is why I often go and buy things at convenient shops.
Have a happy Sunday and sometimes work in a convenient shop, since Tokyo and the Pacific coast lines can be hit at any time or in the second and the third quarters of the year nowadays by, say, the Angel in charge of the terrible power of the nature!)
1Ch 5:24 And these were the heads of the house of their fathers, even Epher, and Ishi, and Eliel, and Azriel, and Jeremiah, and Hodaviah, and Jahdiel, mighty men of valour, famous men, and heads of the house of their fathers.
1Ch 5:25 And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them.
1Ch 5:26 And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgathpilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day.