"Parliamentary vote in Japan becomes test for new leader; Prime minister backs off talk of increasing taxes" by Malcolm Foster, Associated Press | July 11, 2010
TOKYO — His popularity dented, Prime Minister Naoto Kan toned down his tax increase talk on the eve of parliamentary elections today that are widely considered a referendum on the Democrats’ 10 months in power.
Candidates traveled in campaign vans, speakers blaring and aides waving out of windows, stopping here and there to give speeches throughout the country yesterday.
The balloting, in which half the seats in the 242-member upper house are up for grabs, will not directly affect the ruling Democratic Party of Japan’s grip on power because it has a hefty majority in the more powerful lower house that chooses the prime minister.
But recent polls show Kan’s party will probably lose seats in the upper house, which could complicate its ability to pass legislation and force it to find new coalition partners.
Promising to cut wasteful spending and bring more transparency to politics, the Democrats swept to power in lower house elections last August that ended 55 years of nearly unbroken rule by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party.
Yeah, the Japanese thought they were getting change and the U.S out of Okinawa.
Wrong.
So far, they have delivered mixed results. They have put the brakes on many large public works projects considered wasteful, but their first prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, disappointed voters by breaking a campaign pledge to move a US Marine base off the island of Okinawa and by getting mixed up in a funding scandal.
Kan, a plainspoken former finance minister with a grass-roots activist background, enjoyed an initial surge in approval ratings when he came to office just a month ago after Hatoyama’s resignation.
See: Japan's New Man
Kan has argued that Japan needs to take aggressive steps to tackle its ballooning public debt as its population ages and declines. If it doesn’t, he has warned that the world’s number two economy could face a Greece-like fiscal crisis — a comparison that experts say is a stretch because most government bonds are held by domestic investors.
Why must all leaders and politicians engage in lying fear-mongering?
Why is that?
But his suggestions that Japan should consider raising its sales tax from 5 percent to as high as 10 percent in coming years has weakened public support for his Cabinet and his party....
Oh, THAT is WHY in THIS CASE!
Wants to TAX YOU MORE so "investors" can get paid!!!
So who won?
"Exit polls show Japanese rejecting tax hikes; Loss of seats may mean gridlock as economy stalls" by Eric Talmadge, Associated Press | July 12, 2010
TOKYO — Japanese voters handed a stinging electoral defeat to the ruling party yesterday, exit polls showed, rejecting a proposal to increase taxes and handicapping a fledgling government struggling to keep the world’s second-largest economy from financial meltdown....
A bit of a stretch, but I'll leave the lie alone for now.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has warned that the country could face a Greek-style meltdown if it does not get its finances in order....
Uh-huh.
The liberal Democratic Party of Japan was on its way to losing its slim majority — a stark contrast to the landslide victory it scored last August to end a pro-Washington, conservative party’s nearly 50-year grip on power.
Yeah, no one likes the tax talk as they are taking it in the chops.
Official results were expected today, but exit polls conducted by Japan’s public broadcaster and major TV networks projected the Democrats would end up with 106 to 110 seats in the 242-member chamber.
Amazing how exit polls are so reliable except for the 2004 AmeriKan presidential election (as if it would have mattered).
The election will not directly affect the Democrats’ grip on power because they control the more powerful lower house of parliament. But it does raise the serious prospect of gridlock....
I view that as a good thing here in AmeriKa. Lock them government looters up so they can do no harm.
Of course, it is the public getting caught in that as the wars plunge endlessly forward.
Many economists have slammed his analogy with Greece as alarmist — primarily because most of Japan’s government bonds are held domestically, meaning investors are less likely to bolt — and analysts said voters recoiled from the idea of paying more taxes....
Yeah, because when you see your tax loot being stolen you don't want it going there anymore.
At least the Japanese investors are not BOLTING BANKERS, huh?
Must be where the term TAKE the MONEY and RUN came from!
Now Kan will have to seek a coalition partner to avoid parliamentary gridlock. But the Democrats will face an emboldened opposition led by the Liberal Democratic Party, which governed the country for most of the post-World War II period....
Why does the MSM repeat itself?
Already told us that above, but....
--more--"
Of course, now that the empire has secured Okinawa against the will of the people that live there the agenda-pushing Globe coverage has receded to politics.
Not even a whale sighting in print.
