Seniority and Factional Fights

Seniority and Factional Fights



I went to bed last night after a TV news program informed Japanese audiences that they were still unsure if Mr. McCain would venture into an open debate with Mr. Obama, even ten hours before the schedule.

This morning, I have found they are holding it in Saint Louis.


* * *

Now I am checking the debate between Mr. Barack Obama and Mr. John McCain.

Apparently Mr. Obama is far younger than Mr. McCain.

Though ability and popularity are important, respect for an older and experienced person is more important in most cases.

For example, two years ago, current Japan’s Prime Minister Mr. Taro Aso was Foreign Minister subject to the then Prime Minister Mr. Shinzo Abe who was almost 15 years younger.

Mr. Taro Aso must have felt very uncomfortable or unhappy if not humiliated.

But, the political situation and interests forced Mr. Aso to serve Mr. Shinzo Abe until Mr. Abe quit his job due to illness, though Mr. Aso moved from the cabinet minister to the LDP Secretary-General in the last days of the Abe Administration.

This time Mr. Aso has been elected as prime minister of Japan with support from a faction Mr. Abe belongs to. But, it is former Prime Minister Mr. Yoshiro Mori who virtually controls the faction Mr. Abe belongs to.

So, when Mr. Aso was elected as prime minister early this week, he took some reprisals. Mr. Aso called Mr. Mori, the virtual boss of Mr. Shinzo Abe, to support the Aso Administration.

Specifically, Mr. Aso asked former Prime Minister Mr. Mori to take up a post as LDP Secretary-General.

It is extraordinary. The LDP Secretary-General is subject to the President of LDP who is also Prime Minister of Japan, as long as the Liberal Democratic Party holds power.

It is tantamount to humiliation if you ask a former prime minister to work again as LDP Secretary-General. But why did Mr. Aso say so to Mr. Mori?

So, it is a kind of revenge.

Mr. Aso must have felt being humiliated while serving Prime Minister Mr. Abe, 15 years younger.

So, this time, Mr. Aso asked Mr. Mori, there years older, to work under him.

It is a simple psychological game. Mr. Aso must know from the beginning that Mr. Mori would never accept the offer, since it was tantamount to humiliation.

But, this is a kind of harmless fight. By posing such a rude offer to the boss of the largest faction of LDP, new Prime Minister Mr. Taro Aso has actually declared that he is the head of all the politicians who belong to LDP; and Mr. Mori is not an exception.

Yet, in fact, Mr. Aso has taken some reprisals against Mr. Shinzo Abe who used Mr. Aso as his minister while Mr. Abe was 15 years younger, since Mr. Mori, the de facto boss of Mr. Abe, is three years older than Mr. Aso.

The same is true of Mr. Jyunichiro Koizumi who actually belongs to the same political faction as Mr. Mori and Mr. Abe.

In his case, the enemy was the then largest faction in LDP called Heisei-Kenkyukai.

What is worse, an economic policy Mr. Koizumi had been committed to was a kind of opposition to the economic policy the Heisei-Kenkyukai group was attached to.

So, in the case of former Prime Minister Mr. Koizumi, his pursuit of his economic policy meant not only a polemic over economic theories but also a factional fight.

Accordingly, some influential economists who were against the Mr. Koizumi’s economic idea were regarded not only as unfriendly third-party economists but also as political enemies.

As the faction Mr. Koizumi belonged to had been treated very badly by the then most powerful Heisei-Kenkyukai faction, he must have even held a personal grudge against LDP politicians who belonged to Heisei-Kenkyukai with some exceptions.

So, his grudge was reflected in the personnel assignment in Mr. Koizumi’s cabinet. He appointed an economist most disliked by Heisei-Kenkyukai to be minister in his cabinet.

For economists it is just a controversy on economic policies; but for Mr. Koizumi it must have been a matter of life and death in his political career, probably, with a bitter memory in his 30-year political life under dominance of rival Heisei-Kenkyukai until he assumed the office of Japan’s prime minister.

*****************************************************

This kind of issues are a matter of commonsense.

But, as some Japanese politicians were born and raised in a very rich family or an upper-class family, they lack this kind of commonsense.

Even some critics and pundits have enjoyed a privileged professional life too long, they have come to lose this kind of commonsense.

This is what I have felt recently while observing the political situation in Japan.

But, this can apply to the U.S. political community.

It is because now Mr. McCain is referring to Mr. George Shultz, Mr. Henry Kissinger, and Ronald Reagan as well as KGB, while Mr. Obama is relying on some political principles and detailed data domestic and international.

Yet, people sometimes find humiliation or discover their enemies in a public or political arena from a very human point of view or human emotion including pride.

So, if not a fight between the poor and the rich, a true state of a political situation can be sometimes an acute private war accompanied by personal grudges, instead of controversy in economic theories, political principles, social value systems, or even judgement on ability or popularity of politicians.

Therefore, it would be wiser for Mr. Barack Obama, though with excellent ability and popularity, to eventually concede to Mr. McCain rather than prevail his senior rival, if Mr. Obama wants to have a safe and comfortable life after retirement from politics.

(Mr. McCain has proven ability and popularity; but he belongs to the Republican Party that is at least technically responsible for the max. two-trillion dollar wrongdoing case in Wall Street.)

Having recommended so referring to the recent cases in Japan, if somebody with more authority than simple seniority or dominance requests American voters to elect Mr. Barack Obama as U.S. President, he should be elected so.

That somebody can be the poorest man or the most pious man in the U.S. society, according to the teaching of the Gospel.

* * *

That is all for today as their debate is coming to the end with a discussion over missile defense and respect for veterans as being heard through the Internet in Japan.



Joh 9:26 Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes?

Joh 9:27 He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples?

Bye Bye Mr. Koizumi; Hello Mr. Aso and Great Depression?

(Northern Extension of Tokyo Metropolitan Area & Shinkansen Express Train)



Bye Bye Mr. Koizumi; Hello Mr. Aso and Great Depression?



Yesterday I went to an old pond nearby to take some evening pictures. When I was running back home, I found the sunset glow to be unusually impressive though not so holy, as I had seen an old couple humbly chanting some on a bench by the pond and a young, nice but humble woman walking with her dog that never bothered me when passing by.

******************************************************

According to AP Radio news broadcast this morning from a U.S. military station in Japan, Mr. Barack Obama reportedly said that Mr. Paulson did not understand the policy for Wall Street and Mr. John McCain reportedly said that without deal there would be no debate.

Whether Mr. Obama can understand what is going on in Wall Street or not, it is the fact that it is under the Republican Administration that Wall Street people, since September 2001, has taken and executed the Mafia-like policy to worship money and huge money so blindly and selfishly without shame and conscience, though, under a bad influence of AlQaeda terrorists.
* * *

In Japan, last night, former Prime Minister Mr. Jyunichiro Koizumi made clear his will to resign as national lawmaker. He reportedly said that he would not run for the coming general election. Instead, one of his sons is expected to seek the seat in the Lower House of the Diet Mr. Jyunichiro Koizumi now holds.

This is big news. Indeed, every media has been reporting and commenting on this surprise announcement. It is because in the last general election, held on Sept. 11, 2005, Mr. Koizumi could put in 80 new candidates among almost 300 then-elected LDP Lower House members. There is no denying his feat and contribution to the present superiority of the ruling parties, holding a critical two-thirds majority, in the Lower House of the Japanese national assembly.

Just before this surprise message for the planned retirement, the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington for the first time arrived at the Yokosuka Port, situated at the entrance to the Tokyo Bay, to make it its home base, though it is exceptional for an American aircraft carrier to have an overseas home port.

Yokosuka is the main city in the electoral zone for Mr. Jyunichiro Koizumi.

It looks very symbolic, since North Korea is yet to show any sign of its policy change for releasing Japanese citizens abducted by them in these decades, though Mr. Koizumi as prime minister could take back some from Pyongyang four years ago.

Maybe the era of negotiations between Mr. Jyunichiro Koizumi and Mr. Kim Jong-Il is gone.

* * *


Now a big focus and a spotlight are on new Japanese Prime Minister Mr. Taro Aso.

Japanese voters are also expecting the general election to be called within a month or so.

A poll rating indicates that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has currently a little edge on its arch rival the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

(According to the latest Kyodo survey, LDP is supported by 34.9% and DPJ by 34.8% of voters expected to vote in proportional-representation constituencies.)

Mr. Taro Aso of LDP might lose his premiership if he resolved the Lower House at this moment; but what has drawn my attention is not Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, the head of DPJ, often described as old-fashioned and proud.

It is Mr. Richard Koo, an economist and long time friend of Mr. Aso’s.

----------------------------------------------------
Richard C. Koo joined Nomura in 1984 and is now the Chief Economist of Nomura Research Institute, the research arm of Nomura Securities.

Prior to that, he was an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1981-84) and a Doctoral Fellow of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1979-81).

http://www.nomura.com/europe/about_nomura/bios/richard_koo.shtml
----------------------------------------------------

Apart from his career and family background, his recent article attracted my attention. Mr. Koo claimed that he discovered new truth in the Great Depression of 1929.

During the Great Depression, American businesses did not borrow money from banks who were offering a huge amount of funds to those suffering companies.

American companies were busy paying back loans. They wanted to make themselves look financially sound and healthy amid the tempest of the economic crisis.

According to Mr. Richard Koo’s theory, American businesses in 1929 and 1930’s were busy getting their balance sheets back into shape while avoiding borrowing money from banks even at near-zero interest rates.

Mr. Koo found that the situation was similar to that observed in Japan in 1990’s.

( http://bizplus.nikkei.co.jp/colm/koo.cfm?i=20080311d8000d8&p=3 )

The Japanese-speaking Taiwanese economist, Mr. Richard Koo, has written that his new theory could not be easily understood by first-rate economists in New York when he first presented it to them.

Yet, Mr. Koo’s theory tells what mind-set the companies involved in the Great Depression would have.

If banks are trying to supply businesses with plenty of funds to put the economy on track for recovery, the ailing companies would not take the money while they are making every effort in payment of their debts.

Nonetheless, Mr. Richard Koo born in Japan as a child of a prominent Taiwanese clan made a mistake common to every economist: misunderstanding of true causal relation along with a time series.

Such behaviors and efforts of businesses to get their balance sheets back into shape, while a slump is going on and banks are generously offering money, are a result of a more profound factor.

As I wrote yesterday, it is a matter of consumers including the super rich, the middle class, and the poor.

The wide gap between them in terms of assets and incomes was a core of the causes for the Great Depression.

It is because being rich means making others poorer. It is because the richer you become the more you try to protect your wealth by sacrificing others and even the whole economy. It is because the poorer you become the less you can buy.

Consequently, if a big recession starts, the rich will not try to prevent it from getting into a real economic crash by sacrificing the value of stocks and bonds they must, ideally speaking, continue to possess, while the poor have no money to sustain the economy by purchasing goods.

Finally, businesses without any hope of the sale of their goods and services will start to keep their own value at least by getting their balance sheets back into shape thorough paying back debts regardless of a prospect of selling itself.

That is why American businesses in 1929 and 1930’s avoided borrowing money from banks even at near-zero interest rates just like Japanese companies did during and after the burst of the economic bubble in 1990’s.

*******************************************************************

That is all for today.

A Japanese Prime Minister changes so often.

But, it is good for the media, since its role will become all the more important.

A minority person or a female politician will be elected as U.S. President sooner or later.

But, it is good for the media, since its role will become all the more important.

Nonetheless, the word of God never changes.

The love of Jesus Christ never changes.

EEE Reporter never changes.

And, the sun will rise again just like the first morning for mankind.

Have a nice weekend!

Choose a nice dog if to walk with.



(Since Mr. Koizumi performed well in the house of the late Mr. Elvis Presley, President Mr. Bush followed suit in the public before cameras. Did you realize it, honey?

http://www.menziesera.com/midi/cruel.mid

Source: http://www.menziesera.com/media/music_jukebox.htm)




Mat 9:26 And the fame hereof went abroad into all that land.

Alarming Data Invoking New Great Depression

(North Edge of Tokyo Metropolitan Area Observed from Miles Far)


Alarming Data Invoking New Great Depression


If you can stop the possible occurrence of another Great Depression, you can deserve the title “Hero of the 21st Century.”

But, it seems to be necessary to start this great contribution by making the top 0.1 percent in the economically stratified American society repent so much as to cry before the Christ.

That is why I am writing this way even if you are loved by the top 0.1 percent or the bottom 0.1 percent.

May you try to be loved by the God!



SECTION I: Great Depression to Pearl Harbor Attack

It is well known that 80 years ago a great economic catastrophe was set off in Wall Street, New York, hitting the whole American economy on a scale never observed.

This Great Depression led to strong adherence of the Empire of Japan to the Chinese market relying on its military capability and superiority, which in turn provoked some American elites into taking a hard measure against the Empire.

Consequently, 12 years after the debacle in Wall Street in 1929, the U.S. Government virtually forced the Empire of Japan to attack the Pearl Harbor naval bases by implementing an oil embargo and freezing Japan’s assets in the U.S. while requesting all-out withdrawal of the Imperial Army from mainland China, so that the U.S. could join the war in Europe against Nazi Germany, as the Empire of Japan had mistakenly allied itself with Germany.

So, it is important to review the Great Depression that started in 1929, in order to keep peace in the world, especially in the Era of the War on Terror.


SECTION II: Main Causes of the Great Depression

People were enjoying new products in 1920’s: cars and radios.

However, cars and radios are not the main causes of the Great Depression, but the glitter of new products based on new technologies really made people blind against an approaching crisis and the ever expanding gap between the poor and the rich in the U.S. society after WWI.

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Main Causes of the Great Depression

Paul Alexander Gusmorino 3rd : May 13, 1996

The Great Depression was the worst economic slump ever in U.S. history, and one which spread to virtually all of the industrialized world. The depression began in late 1929 and lasted for about a decade. Many factors played a role in bringing about the depression; however, the main cause for the Great Depression was the combination of the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade…

According to a study done by the Brookings Institute, in 1929 the top 0.1% of Americans had a combined income equal to the bottom 42%. That same top 0.1% of Americans in 1929 controlled 34% of all savings, while 80% of Americans had no savings at all…

The large and growing disparity of wealth between the well-to-do and the middle-income citizens made the U.S. economy unstable. For an economy to function properly, total demand must equal total supply. In an economy with such disparate distribution of income it is not assured that demand will always equal supply. Essentially what happened in the 1920's was that there was an oversupply of goods. It was not that the surplus products of industrialized society were not wanted, but rather that those whose needs were not satiated could not afford more, whereas the wealthy were satiated by spending only a small portion of their income. A 1932 article in Current History articulates the problems of this maldistribution of wealth:…

The U.S. economy was also reliant upon luxury spending and investment from the rich to stay afloat during the 1920's. The significant problem with this reliance was that luxury spending and investment were based on the wealthy's confidence in the U.S. economy. If conditions were to take a downturn (as they did with the market crashed in fall and winter 1929), this spending and investment would slow to a halt…

The speculative boom in the stock market was based upon confidence. In the same way, the huge market crashes of 1929 were based on fear…

The market crashes undermined this confidence. The rich stopped spending on luxury items, and slowed investments. The middle-class and poor stopped buying things with installment credit for fear of loosing their jobs, and not being able to pay the interest. As a result industrial production fell by more than 9% between the market crashes in October and December 192948. As a result jobs were lost, and soon people starting defaulting on their interest payment. Radios and cars bought with installment credit had to be returned. All of the sudden warehouses were piling up with inventory. The thriving industries that had been connected with the automobile and radio industries started falling apart. Without a car people did not need fuel or tires; without a radio people had less need for electricity…

http://www.gusmorino.com/pag3/greatdepression/
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Put simply, if the whole American wealth had been shared equally by all the citizens like distribution of cars and radios in 1929, there would have been no Great Depression that in fact led to WWII where tens of millions of people were killed all over the world, including those victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.


SECTION III: DATA ALARMING

In a long-term scope, the present age is getting closer to the danger of entering another Great Depression era.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Revised October 13, 2006
NEW DATA SHOW EXTRAORDINARY JUMP IN INCOME CONCENTRATION IN 2004
By Aviva Aron-Dine and Isaac Shapiro

…
- The top one percent of households (those with annual incomes above about $315,000 in 2004) garnered 53 percent of the income gains in 2004.
(Click to enlarge.)

…
- The share of total U.S. income that the top one percent of households received in 2004 was greater than the share it received in any prior year since 1929, except for 1999 and 2000.

Income gains were even more pronounced among those with the very highest incomes. The incomes of the top one-tenth of one percent of households grew more rapidly than the incomes of the top one percent of households. The share of the national income received by the top one tenth of one percent of households increased by 1.6 percentage points from 2003 to 2004; in other words, more than half of the increased share of income going to the top one percent of households actually went to the top one-tenth of one percent of households. (See Table 1.)

http://www.cbpp.org/7-10-06inc.htm
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The above figure is really alarming, since the share of total pre-tax income held by highest income one percent is now coming back to the level of 1929.



SECTION IV: OTHER DATA ALARMING

Related data since 1960 also show an alarming trend.

The focus is always placed on the top one percent or 0.1 percent in the hierarchy of accumulation of Mammon in this world.

We should not blame any super-rich men. But, as businesses are the major player in the U.S. economy and the largest machine to produce and harvest wealth in the society, we cannot neglect a trend of an increase in wealth American CEOs are accumulating.


The above figures are found in the following site:

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Wealth, Income, and Power
by G. William Domhoff
September 2005 (updated December 2006)

This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the United States, and explains how we use these two distributions as power indicators.

Some of the information might be a surprise to many people. The most amazing numbers come last, showing the change in the ratio of the average CEO's paycheck to that of the average factory worker over the past 40 years…

It's even more revealing to compare the actual rates of increase of the salaries of CEOs and ordinary workers; from 1990 to 2005, CEOs' pay increased almost 300% (adjusted for inflation), while production workers gained a scant 4.3%. The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage actually declined by 9.3%, when inflation is taken into account. These startling results are illustrated in Figure 7….

The claims made in the previous paragraph need much further investigation. But they demonstrate the ideas and research directions that are suggested by looking at the wealth and income distributions as indicators of power.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
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Now we have plenty of data, figures, and graphs suggesting coming danger.

Honestly speaking, it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent of citizens that have the most influence on the situation posing just between the great recession and the sustained business.

If the wealthiest 0.1 percent of citizens lose confidence in market or the whole economy and think to sell stocks and bonds or pull out their investment to protect their own assets, their actions can trigger a great debacle in the financial market.

The U.S. Government must order them to hold stocks and bonds and continue investment if the situation worsens, since it is one of the most effective and simplest way to prevent it from further getting worsened and eventually entering a critical course to another Great Depression.

In other word, stop the wealthiest 0.1 percent from behaving like a terrorist.

************************************************************

That is all for today.

Respect old people who have still a memory of life after the Great Depression that erupted in 1929 from Wall Street, New York.

And, remember if you want to be richer today, while the data are showing such alarming signals, you are really accelerating the coming of another Great Depression.

If you have a car and a radio, be content with them.




(Oh, the summer has really gone. Yesterday it snowed in the Hokkaido Island, Japan. Yet, I know you love the summer song if you are in black or white…

http://www.fukuchan.ac/music/j-folk2/shiroisangosyo.html )



Mar 9:17 And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit;

.....

Mar 9:23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Mar 9:24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Mar 9:25 When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.

NATIONAL ASSETS AS OF 2000 OR 1960'S

(Tokyo)


NATIONAL ASSETS AS OF 2000 OR 1960'S



Without Mr. Sadaharu Oh, Japan could not have achieved such great economic success after WWII or specifically in 1960’s and 1970’s.

Without George Herman "Babe" Ruth, the Great Depression that started in 1929 must have been more painful to American citizens.

Indeed, without EEE Reporter this era might be felt unbearable to some pious viewers all over the world the number of whom might not be so small, since the key word input with "Japanese Trillion Dollar Reporter" in Google Search has returned “EEE Reporter” at the top of its reporting page.


SECTION I: HOME-RUN KING

Mr. Sadaharu Oh announced his planned resignation as manager of a Japan’s professional baseball team.

At the end of this season, he will put an end to his 50-year career in this professional sport business.

It is Mr. Oh who first adopted the flamingo-style batting various variations of which are now commonly observed in the Major League Baseball and the Japanese Professional Baseball.

-----------------------------------------------
Sadaharu Oh retired in 1980 at age 40, having amassed 2,786 hits (third after Isao Harimoto (Jang Hoon) and Katsuya Nomura), 2,170 RBIs, a lifetime batting average of .301, and 868 home runs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadaharu_Oh
-----------------------------------------------

However, Mr. Oh’s father is Chinese, though his mother is Japanese.

That may be why Mr. Oh never tried to compete with the pure Japanese baseball super-star Mr. Shigeo Nagashima, four years older than Mr. Oh, in terms of popularity, even today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeo_Nagashima

In addition, the key to the great batting performance of Mr. Sadaharu Oh is his great practice using a Japanese sword as I once wrote in the EEE Reporter blog.


SECTION II: NATIONAL WEALTH

According to a report in 2005, the national wealth of Japan and the U.S. as of 2000 is estimated as follows, respectively:

JAPAN: $34.5 trillion
USA: $39.5 trillion

Here the national assets consist of non financial assets, consumers’ durable, and net external financial assets.

(http://www.kojin.org/EcoSta/ecosta12_j.html )

Before the September 11, 2001, the War on Terror, the War in Iraq, and the subprime loan crisis, the total national assets of the U.S. excluding domestic financial assets were estimated to 39.5 trillion dollars while Japan’s were 34.5 trillion dollars.

Indeed, Japanese people had been working almost twice harder than average Americans in 1990’s, though U.S. population was then 2.5 times larger than Japan’s. That is why Japan had real national wealth that were equal to 88% of the U.S. national wealth.

Then, something strange happened since September 11, 2001.

Americans started to create false wealth in Wall Street like a mad man.

The U.S. Government also started to print dollar bills like a mad man.

And, the Mafia-like businessmen started to sell subprime loan embedded securities like a mad man.

Consequently, in September 2008, the U.S. has to face a money-market crisis of a scale of one to two trillion dollars.

Yet, as Americans do not look like working as hard as Japanese and other peoples in the world since 2000, America’s national wealth today should not be different from the level in 2000.

As Japanese do look like working as hard as in 2000, Japan’s national wealth today should not be different from the level in 2000.

But, a disparity in financial assets between the two countries looks like one to three, since the total volume in the New York Stock Exchange is $22 trillion (2008) and that in the Tokyo Stock Exchange is $7 trillion (2007).

In other word, the U.S. financial sector has performed almost four times more actively than Japan’s.

But how can they perform it? With what means have they done it?

It is the subprime loan business!!

Therefore, any statistics or figures on financial assets or money beyond the level of 2000 must be a sign of abnormal activities, huge financial frauds, criminal behaviors, and anti-Christ worship of Mammon.

Americans must decisively apply control, regulation, and suppression onto Wall Street.

They have to do so, since the national assets of the U.S. must be just $39.5 trillion or so and Japan’s is $34.5 trillion or so in terms of net worth produced by hard working people in each country.


SECTION III: THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Let’s check two figures that tell the state of the past Great Depression.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

As you see, for two years after the debacle of the NYSE, the real industrial output in the U.S. continued to fall to half of the level of 1929, hitting the bottom in 1932.

To recover the level of 1929, the real economy took seven years till 1936, though other influences on wider aspects of U.S. economy and the American society persisted even after the end of WWII.

This is the issue Mr. John McCain or Mr. Barack Obama should tackle.

And, it is one of the issues EEE Reporter is trying to address, since he cannot stop feeling a shadow of Armageddon in it.

*******************************************************************

Now, TV live broadcasting from the Lower House of the Japan’s Diet has shown that Mr. Taro Aso, president of the Liberal Democratic Party, is appointed to the new Japanese Prime Minister.

He will soon fly to New York to deliver an address at the United Nations’ general meeting.

However, I wonder why a man cannot become a home-run king and a prime minister at the same time or in one life on the earth.

Indeed, you cannot serve at the same time both hard working citizens and Mafia-like workers in Wall Street, especially if you are President of the U.S. or Prime Minister of Japan.



(In 1962, Mr. Sadaharu Oh started to mass produce home-runs in the flamingo style. The same year a Japanese song started to appeal to a vast majority of American citizens. Have you ever heard it, if not in French?

http://www.menziesera.com/midi/sukiyaki.mid

Source: http://www.menziesera.com/singalong/sukiyaki.htm)


Dan 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

Dan 9:25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

Dan 9:26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Dan 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

PREDICTIONS AND ACTIONS

(The Diet Building in Beige, Tokyo)


PREDICTIONS AND ACTIONS


In 1990’s, Japan experienced a real-estate market crisis as its total real-estate value reached $20 trillion (2000 trillion yen) including all its territory.

( http://www.news.janjan.jp/government/0606/0606035429/2.php)

Compared with it, the present U.S. crisis can be more reasonably quenched down.

That is why American elite must listen to EEE Reporter and Japanese non-nonsense pundits as well as news reporters in addition to CEOs of Japanese banks and stock companies.



SECTION I: JAPAN'S REGIME CHANGE EXPECTED

American experts anticipate that Japan is going to lose political stability, according to a late-night TV news report in Japan.

(These American experts must be obtaining information on Japan from the EEE Reporter blog, directly or indirectly.)

It is because Japan’s new Prime Minister Mr. Taro Aso of LDP to be elected tomorrow is expected to hold a snap election within a month.

It is because his popularity is expected to be kept high only for a month after his inauguration, and every national lawmaker of the ruling parties, the LDP (with 303 seats among total 480 Lower House seats) and the New Komeito Party (31 among 480), apparently wants to save his or her own seat through the early general election, no matter how the ruling parties as a whole will lose their seats, since nowadays the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (114 among 480) is gaining more support unlike the past due to the economic downturn and the widening economic gap in the society.

So, even though the LDP and the New Komeito Party can stay in power after the coming snap election, the gap in the number of seats in the Diet is expected to become smaller between the ruling parties and the opposition parties.

Inevitably, it is forecast that this instability will paralyze the Japanese Government as the Upper House of the Diet has been under control of the Opposition since last summer; accordingly, another snap general election will be requested by the general public who clearly demand the regime change this time so that the Democratic Party of Japan will come into power.

The key driving factor for this change is the denial of following the American way of money business and the American way of respecting the rich and the super-rich.

A majority of the Japanese people have come to think that the LDP has too much absorbed the American way of respecting money and rich people, and has widened the gap too much between the rich and the poor in the Japanese society.

After all, the gravest fact may be that the Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is unable to understand that it is the time to stop respecting Wall Street, in order to make Japan richer and greater.

If the LDP cannot understand the need for this paradigm change, it will lose power sooner or later, even if this conservative party narrowly wins the coming general election.

The right decision for the LDP must be to change their paradigm and stop respecting Wall Street and then hold a general election.

It is so, since the LDP might take a tumble from power in the coming snap election with a chance of 50% or more.

In that case, power in Japan will shift from the very pro-U.S. LDP to the moderately pro-U.S. Democratic Party of Japan.



SECTION II: JAPAN TO RESCUE WALL STREET

Japanese financial institutions are now busy trying to help, rescue, and take part in management of U.S. companies in the same trade:

---------------------------------------------
Nomura gets Lehman's Asia business
Clients query transfer of funds between European and U.S. arms
By Simon Kennedy, MarketWatch
Last update: 11:03 a.m. EDT Sept. 22, 2008

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Japan's Nomura Holdings said Monday it's agreed to take over the Asia Pacific operations of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers and will offer jobs to all of the group's 3,000 workers in the region.

Nomura (NMR: 13.05, +0.05, +0.4%) (JP:8604: news, chart, profile) didn't give a price for the deal, but a person familiar with the transaction said earlier that it would pay $225 million for the business.

The Japanese firm said Lehman ( LEHMQ 0.19, -0.03, -14.0%) has been a strong player in the region in investment banking services, including mergers and acquisitions, execution services and prime brokerage transactions…


http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/nomura-gets-lehmans-asia-business/story.aspx?guid={DC08792B-7E98-4AB5-B3B9-CD70B296638A}&dist=TNMKTW

Mitsubishi UFJ to buy up to 20% of Morgan Stanley
By Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch
Last update: 9:58 a.m. EDT Sept. 22, 2008

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group said Monday it has signed a non-binding letter of intent to buy between 10% and 20% of U.S. financial giant Morgan Stanley.

Mitsubishi UFJ (JP:8306: news, chart, profile) ( MTU, , ) , Japan's largest bank, said its total purchase would depend on the book value of the shares, as determined after conducting due diligence.

A subsequent press release by Morgan Stanley (MS: 27.09, -0.12, -0.4%) , however, said the letter of intent had the investment set to "eventually reach" the 20% level.

In its third-quarter earnings released last week, Morgan Stanley said its book value ran at $31.25 a share. This compares with its trading value, as of Friday's close, of $27.21.

A Dow Jones Newswire report said the Japanese megabank's investment would not be more than 900 billion yen ($8.4 billion).

Mitsubishi UFJ said that as part of the deal, it "would have the right to appoint at least one director to the board of Morgan Stanley."

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/mitsubishi-ufj-buy-up-20/story.aspx?guid={72D4C250-B658-4E87-A0C0-EBE26CBD39FE}

---------------------------------------------

Japan always helps the United States.

Japan has purchased U.S. treasury bonds as many as possible to help the U.S. Government in these decades.

But, this kind of facts has never been made public to the American society by the American power elite who always hinder American citizens from thanking, respecting, and loving Japan, for a special reason probably linked with a racial issue within the U.S. society.



SECTION III: NO GREAT DEPRESSION EXPECTED

Early this year, some American expert studied if another Great Depression would occur due to the subprime loan crisis.

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You see, Reinhart and Rogoff draw parallels between the current U.S. financial woes and five previous financial crises. All five of these were “associated with major declines in economic performance over an extended period:”
- Japan (1992)
- Spain (1977)
- Norway (1987)
- Finland (1991)
- Sweden (1991)

Of course, none of these are identical to the present 2008 USA, economically, culturally, or politically. However, when one takes a closer look, some of the major parallels are a cause for concern.

The Chronicle of Higher Education did just that. In reviewing the Reinhart and Rogoff paper, they focused on the parallels to the Japan crisis.

Like Japan et al., the United States has seen:
A steep rise in housing prices during the four years preceding the crisis. (The U.S. rise was more than twice as large as the average of the other five.)
A steep rise in equity prices. (Again, the U.S. rise was larger.)
A large increase in its current account deficit.
A decline in per-capita growth in gross domestic product. (In this case, the U.S. situation doesn’t appear as bad as in the five predecessors.)
An increase in public debt. (Here again, the U.S. situation isn’t as bad as in the historical examples – but Reinhart and Rogoff add that “if one were to incorporate the huge buildup in private U.S. debt into these measures, the comparisons would be notably less favorable.”)

The authors' conclusion:
“Given the severity of most crisis indicators in the run-up to its 2007 financial crisis, the United States should consider itself quite fortunate if its downturn ends up being a relatively short and mild one.”

(Click to enlarge.)

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/02/5-historical-ec.html?pagewanted=all

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The higher you fall from, the harder you hit the ground and the more you will be injured.

The above study was performed before this turmoil in Wall Street involving Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

However, parties concerned now all seem to comprehend that it is dangerous to rely on the principle of the free market under the current situation.

What they need is control, regulation, and suppression to be applied to Wall Street.

If control, regulation, and suppression become the norm in Wall Street and the crude oil market, another Great Depression can be avoided.

But, most importantly, the U.S. Government must always consult Japan for any financial or monetary issue of such a scale as one or two trillion dollars as Japan is the greatest stake holder for the U.S., in order to avoid another Great Depression.

**************************************************************

That is all for today.

News reporters in Tokyo are busy nowadays to follow the change in power.

Formation of a new cabinet is expected tomorrow.

But, depending on near future situations, the new cabinet and the new Prime Minister will have a very short term of office, say, a month or so.




(There was a Japanese news reporter in the headquarters of LDP looking like Sherry, a Spanish wine:
http://www.fukuchan.ac/music/oldies/sherry.html )


Dan 9:20 And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God;

Dan 9:21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.

Dan 9:22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding.

Dan 9:23 At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.




　

UNCHAINED FLOW OF WATER

UNCHAINED FLOW OF WATER




Yesterday, it was rain around Tokyo and thus not hot at all.

In this morning's newspaper issued in Japan, a Japanese scientist is claiming that there is a reasonable concern that the earth has entered a cooling course instead of intensification of warming.

Anyway, it was the last day for the campaign for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party; today the new president of a Japan’s ruling party will be elected who is promised to be selected as the next Japan’s Prime Minister.

Indeed, at around a railroad station near my residence, the five candidates came to appeal to the general public yesterday.

But, I did not go to hear them, though one of the candidates is the first female candidate for the LDP in its history, since nothing is personal at all.

I, instead, went to a museum after dropping at a postal office, though it was Sunday yesterday.


SECTION I: THREE RIVERS

Suppose there are three rivers flowing from the north to the south.

A river flowing on the west side is small but it is used for irrigation of vast rice fields.

A river flowing in the middle is not so small.

The last river on the east side is a big river.

In this topology, people once, namely 250 years ago in Japan, thought that water should be supplied from the east river to the west river in order to increase a volume of water for the irrigation and thus get a better harvest of rice.

But, whatever scheme they might take, the central river must have been crossed by a canal that was to connect the east one to the west one.

The point at issue was a flood.

If the new canal and the central river had been merged at a certain cross, a big and disastrous flood could have happened at the junction when a big rain fell in this region overflowing both the central river and the eastern river.

So, it must have been a kind of overhead crossing.

But, actually, people dug two deep holes on both the side of the junction and connect them through an underground tunnel as part of the new canal.

In this way, rice fields in the downstream of the small, western river were sufficiently irrigated with water increased through the new canal carrying plenty of water from the big, eastern river.

In addition there was no influence on the central river in terms of traffic and transportation.

This is what I learnt yesterday at the museum from a volunteer guide who looked like a retired man.



SECTION II: STONE BRIDGES IN EUROPE

There is an old and big stone bridge in Regensburg, Germany.

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From the early 6th century, Regensburg was the seat of the Agilolfa ruling family, and in AD 843, Regensburg was the seat of the Eastern Frankish ruler, Louis II the German. From about 530 to the first half of the 13th century, it was the capital of Bavaria. In 1135-1146 a bridge across the Danube, the Steinerne Brücke, was built. This stone bridge opened major international trade routes between Northern Europe and Venice, and this started Regensburg's golden age as a city of wealthy trading families. Regensburg became the cultural center of southern Germany and was celebrated for its gold work and fabrics.

http://www.answers.com/topic/regensburg
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But, it was not original engineering skills and technologies of medieval Germans that made possible the construction of this big and still useful stone bridge.

It was not even the engineering skills and technologies inherited from the Roman Empire.

They were the engineering skills and technologies imported from the Islamic world.

This is one example of the discontinuity in the European history and also the great influence of the Islamic world on the medieval culture of Europe.

Put simply, the medieval Europe was culturally behind the Islamic world without comparison with East Asia.

That is why we have to be cautions in praising the financial philosophy originated by Anglo-Saxons who were, indeed, rather a minor part of the medieval Europe.

*****************************************************

That is all for today, since this is Monday.

To make doubly sure, I have no right of voting for the LDP presidency.

Yet, as it is a public holiday tomorrow in Japan, the new Prime Minister will be elected in the Diet this Wednesday.

Indeed we have to elect a national leader who can build a canal and a bridge so smartly and scientifically even in Japan and the U.S.

That is why I think decent and smart female candidates should be respected even in Japan and the U.S.




Gen 9:22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

Gen 9:23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.

Gen 9:24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

Gen 9:25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

Gen 9:26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

Gen 9:27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

Gen 9:28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.