Samuri

Paulson Throws Bernanke Under the Bus, Backs Ken Lewis

Plutocracy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Oligarchy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Fascism: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

What's in a name? Richard Nixon or Tricky Dick, it's still the same guy.

On Apr 26 02:15 AM User 357705 wrote:

> Fascism is the melding of the interests of business with those of
> the government. Perhaps more accurately the oligarchs have have taken
> the first steps toward fascism.

Paulson Throws Bernanke Under the Bus, Backs Ken Lewis

I agree with Jim Carey. Fascism is when the government controls almost everything, including business. It used to be called corporatism in the United States (in the 1930's) and a lot of Americans liked it.

When business controls the government you don't have fascism but control by private, very rich individuals of the government. They usually go back and forth from their businesses to government. At some point in time however they might think being a high government official is preferable to being a businessman and then they might start moving towards true fascism.

Look at this article. (There are many articles like this if you Google for them): www.banned-books.com/t...

Also, communism is a system where the are NO private business at all. (Or only a few as in Cuba today. Only very small businesses are allowed in Cuba such as private home restaurants, etc.) The government owns and controls all businesses as was the case in the Soviet Union before its collapse. They aren't really businesses either unless you consider the U.S. Post Office a business ;)

We shouldn't argue too much about terminology however. I agree that whoever these guys are and whatever you call them, they've got too much power and are quickly moving away from the country that was envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

Why not just call them dictators with totalitarian minds who don't care about personal individual liberty except for the very few who can afford them?

On Apr 25 02:07 PM Gary A wrote:

> Sorry Jim Carey, you are wrong. Fascism has always been the control
> of government by private business. Control of business by government
> is communism. Fascism is exactly what is going on here. Bernanke
> is appointed by the president but has absolute power. The 12 federal
> reserve banks are private entities. You can see that on hoovers and
> on wikipedia. We have a subtle but effective form of fascism here
> and people need to wake up. Read my website if you are really interested
> in understanding what is going on here.

The Worst Isn't Over Yet

The bubble phenomenon has been with us for a very long time.

A short description of various notable bubbles can be found here: www.caslon.com.au/boom...

The trouble is, as everyone knows, it is possible to get rich by just following the crowd and/or getting lucky.

After all, every year or so someone has 50 million dollars fall on his/her head by following the simple investment strategy of buying a lottery ticket.

Not to mention the luck of modestly intelligent people who flipped apartment buildings or bought dot com startups with nose bleed levels of margin.

One of the greatest minds that England ever produced, Sir Isaac Newton, scoffed at the absurd prices of tulips (one tulip could exchanged for one of the finest homes in Holland) as a demonstration of simple human irrationality.

But even Newton finally gave in, joined the crowd at the very top of the craze, and ended up losing his financial shirt.

If Newton couldn't resist, what's going to happen to us mere mental mortals?

New Bubbles Are Brewing in Shanghai and on Wall Street

Your data is impressive and well presented but I think it is the underlying, barely perceived political and historical currents that are more important.

I can't think of, for example, three cultures that are more different from one another than China, Japan and America.

Not to mention India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia and various European countries.

Clausewitz said that war is politics by other means and he might as well have said the same thing about economics.

But politics reflects underlying historical and sociological forces which represent human aspirations towards better (or worse) conditions.

We have to turn to world politics now in order to make sense of the economic tea leaves that you present us with in the form of your charts and data.

Eye on Financial ETFs this Earnings Season

Earnings Season is Upon Us.

But my love is bigger than a Honda
It's bigger than a Subaru
Hey man there's only one thing
And one car that will do
Anyway we don't have to drive it
Honey we can park it out in back
And have a party in your pink Cadillac

Earnings Season is Upon Us.

Some Preliminary Thoughts on the New Face of Demand

The fallacy here is to think the the Japanese will transform themselves into Americans internally as well as externally.

They will continue to dress like us and even do jumping jacks every morning before starting work but they will always remain Japanese.

Even if it means fishing the Blue Fin Tuna to extinction. (Sashimi is the Japanese word for Big Mac.) Without intervention from the West, whales would be as numerous as the California Condor.

I wonder how Americans would react to Japanese Think Tanks trying to find ways to make Americans eat raw crab and take up Sumo Wrestling to save their ailing economy?

It wont happen, obviously.

Recession Forcing Japan to Focus on Markets Inside Asia

The Japanese will never open their internal markets because, as you say, it would destroy their economic independence.

The Japanese have memorized Sun Tzu, Machiavelli and Clausewitz. They only pretend to be an American economic protectorate.

"The crisis has exposed the extreme export dependence of the (Japanese) economy."

It has exposed nothing that everyone didn't already know.

GroupThink didn't even bother to edit the above analysis:

"The universal nature of the current crisis has also <u>put paid to the hopes that Japan nurtured </u>in the early stages of the slowdown that emerging market demand in general, and from the Middle East in particular, would compensate to some extent for the collapse of US and European demand."

"put paid to the hopes that Japan nurtured?"

Group think reports that Japan is turning towards China.

Japan turned towards China in 1937.

Is history dead or just moribund?


On Apr 08 03:24 PM Mark Bern wrote:

> Japan really needs to change its attitude toward consumers inside
> its own borders. The have consistently charged higher prices in
> Japan for products sold more cheaply as exports. This a disguised
> form of subsidization that is not subject to international trade
> scrutiny. They get away with such strategies becuase of trade barriers
> constructed to keep foreign competitors out of strategic markets.
> The barriers aren't so much in the form of tarrifs or quotas. They
> are smarter than that. They have erected very complicated rules
> (not always by the federal government) regulating everything, including
> distribution and property laws, that make it difficult for foreign
> companies to compete locally.
>
> They are afraid that if they open up trade like the U.S. has that
> they will lose control and jobs in strategic industies. Well, they
> may be right.

How to Increase Consumption in an Aging Japan: It's the World's Problem

When Japan is convinced she needs more babies, it will only take a few years to make them.

No one forgets how to do that and nobody finds it boring.

They aren't convinced yet, obviously.

As far as spending money and becoming a consumer society, Japan will never reach the levels seen in the United States. Even Britain can't match, and certainly Europe can't, absurd levels like that.

The Economist represents the British view which is almost as insular as the Japanese view. After all, they are both perverse enough to drive on the wrong side of the street and yet believe that everyone ELSE drives on the wrong side.

It would never occur to the British that any other country's traditions and habits are worth adopting, and especially the Japanese. Let's not forget that after almost two hundred years in India the British persisted in calling the Indians niggers.

It never occurs to the British that their traditions are not eternal and universal. But economics is a British invention. The Economist and the rest of the world need to be reminded of Hamlet's advice to the all-too-rational Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'

Japan will go it's own way and the British had better learn to pay attentions to ghosts before it is too late.

Protecting Currency from Wars

First, Kim Jong's chance of hitting California with a missile is about as likely as Batman running for President of the United States. (Which, admittedly, is more likely than most people now believe.)

The Cuban missile crisis was a crisis because the missiles were Russian and Cuba was only 90 miles from Florida.

One Korean missile does not Lex Luthor make.

Japan would like to declare a military crisis because she would like to have an excuse to rearm. (I'm not talking about those who are in power now, of course, but those who represent the thousand year militaristic tradition which still dominates the subconscious psyche of Japan.)

Rearmament would do wonders for the Japanese economy. The Japanese navy was once one of the greatest navies on earth. A new Japanese navy could be used to open up the North Korean market, for example.

Don't forget that it was the stunning and surprising defeat that Japan gave to Russia in the 1905 war that launched Japan on its military conquest of the far east and, after its alliance with Germany in 1936, of the world.

In one generation, Japan emerged from its status as an inconsequential third world country to one that threatened to take over the entire world.

The Japanese have keep the yen weak as an economic strategy. When they believe it is in their interest to see the yen rise in value, it will rise. Otherwise, it will fall.

It's as simple as that.

Deepening Japanese Crisis Sinks the Yen

In 1990 Japan was finished.
In 1980 Japan was going to take over the world.
In 1945 Japan was finished.
In 1935 Japan was going to take over the world.
In 1903 Japan was finished.
In 1913 Japan was going to take over the world.

And so on.

As Mark Twain said about Wagner's music, it (the news about the Yen) is not as bad as it sounds.

Bank of Japan Interest Rate Decision Today

Everyone and his grandmother can predict future moves of the yen but almost nobody is right about when the moves will occur.

Huge drop yes, but when?

Japan Stock Market Finally a Buy

Japan has a trump card called China.

It has a very adaptable, intelligent and unified work force.

It is able to reinvent itself quickly, as it showed in 1853, 1905 and 1945.

It has been a virtual economic colony and protectorate of the United States since 1945. That could change quickly.

Japan has a long history military rule which lasted a thousand years. This tradition, Bushido, is still strong in Japan. It does not accept defeat easily, whether military or economic.



On Apr 03 10:06 AM Mad Hedge Fund Trader wrote:

> Even a blind aquirrel occasionaly finds an acorn. Japan’s closely
> watched tankan report was released this week, a quarterly report
> of business sentiment, showing its sharpest drop in history, cliff
> diving from -24 to -58. Japan is the one nation that has profited
> the most from globalization, and is therefore the most severely punished
> now that it is in retreat. Exports have dropped by half, industrial
> production plunged 9% in a month, and unemployment is soaring. Q4
> GDP shrunk an unimaginable 3.2%, double the fall seen in the US.
> The last time the numbers were this bad, two atomic bombs had just
> been dropped on Japan and it lost WWII. Prime Minister Taro Aso’s
> government is embroiled in multiple scandals, taking his approval
> rating down to 23%, so the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s half
> century long hold on power is in doubt. Elections are due in September.
> Perversely, a hurried unwind of a decade long accumulation of yen
> carry trades has pushed the yen up just short of a 20 year high of
> ¥87 in January, making the country’s essential exports even less
> competitive, and vaporizing the foreign earnings of Japanese companies.
> Toyota Motors (seekingalpha.com/symbo...) has been reduced
> to begging for bail out money from the government, GM style. The
> government has passed four bailout packages in the past year totaling
> 13% of GPD, none of which have so far been spent. Japan has little
> choice but to wait for a US economic recovery, and then grab hold
> of its coat tails for dear life.