What did you think would happen when you just let the printing pre$$es roll?
"Abe’s call for early elections in Japan prompted by fear" by Martin Fackler, New York Times November 19, 2014
IWAKUNI, Japan — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s call Tuesday for early elections was prompted by fears not only that his once-vaunted program for Japan’s economic revival is failing, but also that his popularity may also suffer, analysts said.
In a live broadcast on national television, Abe declared that he would dissolve parliament later this week, and then hold national elections for the more powerful Lower House on Dec. 14. He explained the move by saying he wanted to ask voters to approve his decision to postpone a scheduled increase in the national sales tax. He warned that such increases could further hurt growth.
Abe also framed the election as a broader referendum on his economic recovery measures, known as Abenomics. “There are divided opinions about the economic policies that we are pursuing,” Abe said. “There is also resistance. To continue advancing that growth strategy with the support of the people, we need to listen to the voice of people.”
We just had a guy and his party get his butt beat after saying that, and then he didn't listen anyway.
Political analysts said the call for an election was an admission by Abe that Abenomics, intended to pull Japan out of its two-decade slump, was losing steam. The program, a mix of more government spending and aggressive pumping of cash into the economy by the central bank, spurred an economic recovery, lifted the stock market, and won praise as a potential model for other developed economies. In Washington last year, Abe proudly proclaimed, “Japan is back.”
Now it appears that he spoke too soon. One problem, economists say, is that Abe failed to use the upturn as a chance to push through painful market-opening moves and structural changes needed to make the recovery last.
Abenomics’ weakest point has been its failure to end the long slide in wages earned by average Japanese citizens, especially families who did not benefit from the rally in the stock market.
In other words, as in AmeriKa, the top 1% of Japanese society benefited tremendously from artificially inflated stock prices. Everyone else was still mired in depression.
This problem was compounded when the central bank took strong action to end nearly two decades of a corrosive downward slide in prices known as deflation, replacing it with inflationary price increases. Suddenly, working Japanese people felt poorer, caught between rising prices and falling wages.
But believe in the banks and their $y$tem of $elf-$erving altrui$m.
What el$e is there, right?
But the biggest blow to Abenomics may have come from the increase this year in the national sales tax.
On people who are poorer.
Think they wouldn't notice?
The increase, which was written into law before Abe took office two years ago, was supported by many fiscal hawks in his governing Liberal Democratic Party as a way to rein in Japan’s enormous budget deficits.
The tax increase appears to have had a bigger effect on the economy than expected, reducing consumer spending and snuffing out the still fragile economic recovery.
And yet governments in AmeriKa are looking to raise fees and taxes (except for the elite who will receive more cuts).
The extent of the damage was not known until Monday, when official figures showed that Japan had fallen into a recession in the third quarter. That bad economic news, along with criticism of his policies by opposition parties, prompted him to call for early elections, Abe said.
Oooops!
Analysts said a prolonged economic slowdown could spell the end of a strong two-year run by Abe, who enjoyed high approval ratings and appeared destined to stay in office for several more years.
Poor Abe.
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Related:
Japan’s lower house dissolved for snap election
Moody’s cuts Japan’s credit rating
Japan doesn’t offer clear tax policy lessons
What a bunch of pu$$ies.
Is that why their economy is $tinking?
"Damage worse than thought in Japanese earthquake" Associated Press November 24, 2014
TOKYO — The damage from an overnight earthquake in a mountainous area of central Japan that hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics proved to be more extensive than thought.
Ryo Nishino, a restaurant owner in Hakuba, a ski resort village west of Nagano, told Japanese broadcaster NHK that he had ‘‘never experienced a quake that shook so hard.’’
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said no abnormalities were reported at three nuclear power plants in the affected areas. All of Japan’s nuclear plants are offline following a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami in 2011 that sent three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant into meltdown.
The hardest-hit area from Saturday’s quake appeared to be Hakuba, which hosted events in the 1998 Winter Games.
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Related:
"Japan slashed its whale-catch target in the Antarctic by two-thirds on Tuesday in a bid to resume its annual whale hunt, which an international court has ruled must stop."
Also see: Japan vows to resume Antarctic whale hunt for ‘science’ next year
Make sure you check the radiation levels in the blubber.
Can't even remember the last time I saw anything on that calamitous and continuous disaster that is Fukushima other than the brief mention above.
