CronoGamer posted:

Maybe they got mad that the Boston marathon took everyone's attention away from them and we all forgot to give a poo poo again afterward.

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

I kind of wonder how Hashimoto would react if somebody told him "Imperial Japanese soldiers needed comfort women...just like Japan needed to be nuked twice for its own good"?

"Bloomberg posted:

Sony rebuffs a proposal from hedge-fund investor Daniel Loeb for the company to sell off its entertainment divisions and focus on hardware.

Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai has 100 billion reasons -- the market value in dollars the company has lost since 2000 -- to consider the American’s plea to bring more focus to Sony’s disjointed businesses. Yet Hirai is unmoved. Why? Even though Loeb holds a sizable $1.1 billion stake in the company, Hirai knows a critical mass of domestic investors, the ones who really matter, are certain to support him against any brash outsider.

Japan Press posted:

The New Japan Women’s Association on May 8 submitted a statement to the government in protest against the plan to distribute handbooks dealing with pregnancy and childbirth as a means to encourage young women to have children.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo claims that the so-called “women’s handbook” is a key measure to tackle the low birthrate in Japan. The government plans to give out the handbooks that show the disadvantages of late child-bearing in order to persuade young women to avoid late marriage and delayed maternity.

The statement criticizes the prime minister for intentionally ignoring the real reason why young people are shying away from having children. It stressed that in order to stimulate the birthrate, the government should take measures to increase wages, create stable jobs, build more children’s daycare centers, improve the child-care leave system, and shorten working hours.

It also points out that the handbook is unacceptable from the viewpoint of women’s reproductive rights, the idea that women have rights to decide whether to have a child, when to get pregnant, and how many children to have.

The women’s group demands that the government immediately abandon the plan to distribute the handbook and take measures to help young couples to obtain decent work conditions that will enable a balancing of work and child-rearing responsibilites.

mai waifu posted:

And this is why Japanese women don't get married to Japanese men and have children.

Get out of Japan, Japanese girls! Your country's men are horrible, especially the government leaders.

Run!

ocrumsprug posted:

At least Abe stopped talking about Chinese and Korean women for a bit.

mystes posted:

On the other hand, Hashimoto held a really stupid 2.5 hour press conference about his dumb comments concerning the comfort women issue.

ocrumsprug posted:

I just cannot imagine a set of circumstances that would make me ever want my daughter to grow up or live in that country. I wonder how many Japanese men would actually understand why?

Protocol 5 posted:

Those kinds of stats are pretty normal for Japan, really. Whenever a new guy gets in he'll have lukewarm approval ratings closely rivaled by "Who the gently caress cares?" responses, eventually tapering off to somewhere in the teens/low twenties until he gets turfed out and the cycle starts over again. There are anomalous cases, but dudes who crater spectacularly before they can even get their business cards back from the printer are more common than guys who consistently stayed above 50%.

hitension posted:

2% of Japan are Communists?

hitension posted:

2% of Japan are Communists?

Samurai Sanders posted:

The only thing their posters ever say are "make Japan a great place!" and "protect article 9!" though.

ocrumsprug posted:

I am more stunned by how the population tolerates it.

Ganguro King posted:

"Let's stop being America's bitch" posters

Elec posted:

Japan had a sizable socialist/communist community after the war into the 70s, and a few writers who were arrested for it. I bring this up but of course I don't remember any of the authors' names, I just remember reading a few in college. Things weren't very pretty though; you may have heard of a politician named Asanuma, who was assassinated with a sword on live TV. Then of course there was the Japanese Red Army and other similar groups that caused riots, bombed some places, hijacked some planes, etc. It's pretty wild stuff to read about.

Sheep posted:

Samurai Sanders posted:

Huh, I've never seen that one. I don't suppose it's only found in Okinawa or otherwise near US military bases?

Sheep posted:

Don't ask me why there's a Shisa on it.

Womacks-JP-23 posted:

Shisa = solidarity with Okinawa which bears most of the US base burden
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Samuelthebold posted:

Remember that Kyle Bass talk from last March? If anyone is interested, here is another relatively recent video by Christine Hughes, a capital manager, that goes over basically the same points and draws many of the same conclusions. Unlike the Kyle Bass video, this has easily visible charts and graphs to illustrate the claims.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR3TyfKTeNE

Apologies if this has been posted before.

I've lived and worked in Japan for about six years, and somewhat recently I've changed most of my savings out of yen. Needless to say, hiccups like last Thursday aside, I anticipate that the yen will continue to lose its value. While I don't expect a sudden default anytime too terribly soon, I just can't imagine how the yen could move the other way anymore.

Does anyone feel otherwise?

mystes posted:

Well if you're 100% sure the yen is going to continue to depreciate, congratulations! You can make a lot of money!

Cliff Racer posted:

Well to be fair I don't think that plan is a good idea anyway, Sony's movies and music divisions shouldn't have a hard time turning a profit, even if times are a little rough for them currently. Any time a hedge fund manager suggests downsizing my mind always immediately goes to the thought that he wants a quick payday over long-term stability.

Samuelthebold posted:

Remember that Kyle Bass talk from last March? If anyone is interested, here is another relatively recent video by Christine Hughes, a capital manager, that goes over basically the same points and draws many of the same conclusions. Unlike the Kyle Bass video, this has easily visible charts and graphs to illustrate the claims.

Apologies if this has been posted before.

I've lived and worked in Japan for about six years, and somewhat recently I've changed most of my savings out of yen. Needless to say, hiccups like last Thursday aside, I anticipate that the yen will continue to lose its value. While I don't expect a sudden default anytime too terribly soon, I just can't imagine how the yen could move the other way anymore.

Does anyone feel otherwise?

Samuelthebold posted:

The 2nd half of that video is probably the most informative, so I recommend finishing it.

I can believe that the Japanese "home bias" will be significant going forward. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the BOJ sits on bond interest rates right through its promised inflation and the biggest institutions put up with it.

It's also worth mentioning that the recent growth and renewed strength in exports should help keep things going for a while as well.

But if that video is correct, the willingness of their institutions doesn't matter. With almost 30% of tax revenue going to debt interest payments alone (60% of revenue to total debt service!), even if their banks are willing to buy more bonds, the government shouldn't sell them because of how close they are to default.


There are a few inescapable factors that point to serious trouble, mostly linked to the population decline:

1. The taxpaying workforce is shrinking while the number of dependents is growing, both evermore rapidly. It's very hard to cut spending or raise revenues in this situation, so there isn't much hope for consolidation. Not to mention, it would be political suicide.

2. As of last year, banks and financial institutions are no longer growing, as the Japanese people are now net de-savers rather than net savers. There may still be leeway to buy bonds for now, but as more people withdraw their money, the banks will actually have to sell their bonds. So will the big pension funds.

3. The graph at 18:00 in that video is also the one that Kyle Bass was saying is the most important. It shows how even with interest rates going down, total bond interest payments are going up. To the best of my understanding, there really isn't any way to stop this without doing something truly extreme.

4. As long as the government needs more than they bring in through taxes, they either have to go deeper into debt or create new money. They're at the point where going much further into debt could easily bankrupt them (see above), but creating new money at the rate they are now is not sustainable either without causing heavy devaluation of the yen.


Here's my own gut feeling about the home bias: The general public will change their attitude if/when the status of bond profitability moves from "you make a little less money with JGBs" to "you will actually lose money with JGBs". But I do think home bias will prevent those in power from loving everyone over with a full default. Thus, whether or not they can control it, they're going to just print all the money they need and inflate the poo poo out of the yen, starting now.