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hobbesmaster posted:Japan controls its own currency so it can ride this for a long time, just look at South America. I think this just gives them the option to hyperinflate rather than to default. Who here thinks keeping assets in yen right now is a good financial strategy?
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Jul 22, 2013 15:25
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Yeah Japan always has the option of hyper inflating its currency (its happened before) but its deficits are so large and its demographics are so stagnant, I don't see them really leaving that type of spiral. Japan doesn't have to worry about foreign creditors breathing down its neck too much but it can't default without giant repercussions to its own population. Just think of what is happening to Detroit happened to an entire country? (Retirement savings are mostly investment in Japanese bonds.) I do think printing is the route of least resistance, any surge in economics growth won't last very long and wages probably won't rise that much. "Structural reforms" are traditional neo-liberal language for destroying worker rights or firing public employees (which usually doesn't save much money in the long run). That said, there are plenty of pensioners who are going to be enraged by their savings effectively being taxed but it is going to happen slow enough in the beginning the government might be able to "boil them" without them noticing.
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Jul 22, 2013 15:52
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Here's the clip I was talking about on Sunday night with the Komeito candidate Sasaki: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHhurRSLPkg A transcript: Ikegami: Congratulations! Sasaki: Thank you! Ikegami: In the last interview, with the voters that said they were supporting you, they said that they were hoping to get "Kudoku" by voting for you. "Kudoku" is Buddhist terminology, right? In other words, for Souka Gakkai members, supporting Komeito is essentially a religious practice. Is that true? Sasaki: I would like to express my gratitude to the members of Souka Gakkai for overwhelmingly supporting a Komeito newcomer such as myself. With regards to the supporting organizations, like Souka Gakkai, and their reasons for supporting Komeito, I am not in a position to comment. Ikegami: I see... the Souka Gakkai members claim that they get "Kudoku" from supporting Komeito, but Komeito will not comment on that. Is that the official position of Komeito? Sasaki: (repeats last comment) Ikegami: Ms. Sasaki, you yourself are a graduate (?) of Souka Gakkai, aren't you? Are you still a member of Souka Gakkai? Sasaki: Yes, that's right. Ikegami: I see. So, your fellow members, in Souka Gakkai, are supporting you as well, right? Sasaki: I am a member of Souka Gakkai, and the supporters are also members of the same organization. Ikegami: And, you are a lawyer as well, so you must be knowledgeable about laws and such. Well, we had a question from one of the viewers (hehe), and they wondered whether the relationship between Souka Gakkai and Komeito were in violation of the "Separation of State and Religion" section of the Japanese Kempo. How would you respond to that? Sasaki: The "Separation of State and Religion" section of the Japanese Kempo is to prevent the government and affiliated organizations from pressuring, etc the individual with regards to religion. Therefore, the supporting of Komeito by Souka Gakkai members is the same as any other support of a political party. Ikegami: I see. Once again, congratulations! "Kudoku" is some kind of benefit in Buddhist terminology. "Good favor", "wealth", something to that effect.
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Jul 23, 2013 04:18
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Lucy Heartfilia posted:It's the other way round. Lack of population growth is not the cause, but the result of bad economic policy and other horrible poo poo Japanese people have to deal with. I'd argue that it is population growth that is the problem, but not in the same sense that its being talked about here -- making babies. Japan looks the same as many other large economies when you factor in those economy's pop. growth. The thing that Japan has that's different though is lack of immigration. The US has had a falling birth rate for some years now and has similar marriage stats and birth-of-first-child. But it's padded the problem by allowing more people to immigrate. There is also a stronger "bootstrapping" mentality in America as well and you get some strong companies getting started with that, but Japan simply doesn't have that.
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Jul 26, 2013 21:09
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Abenomics is a ploy to finance Japan's industries through taxation and inflation, in other words, to finance the activities of the rich and the government at the expense of ordinary people, to extract surplus labor at the expense of purchasing power. The LDP is a party created by the CIA and the Yakuza to prevent Japan's independence from the United States and to keep power in the hands of its elite. Ultimately, its aim is to turn Japan into an authoritarian single party state without due process: http://japanfocus.org/-Lawrence-Repeta/3969 http://www.japansubculture.com/how-the-cia-helped-put-the-yakuza-and-the-ldp-in-power/ Komeito represents a kind of Pentecostal version of Buddhism which hopes to serve as such a state's ideology, similar to the function of Russian Orthodoxy under Putin. The JCP is the only real political party in Japan.
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Jul 27, 2013 03:39
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Shibawanko posted:Abenomics is a ploy to finance Japan's industries through taxation and inflation, in other words, to finance the activities of the rich and the government at the expense of ordinary people, to extract surplus labor at the expense of purchasing power. Your conclusion does not follow from your premises (and I suspect that neither Repeta nor Adelstein would agree with it).
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Jul 27, 2013 03:50
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Shibawanko posted:Abenomics is a ploy to finance Japan's industries through taxation and inflation, in other words, to finance the activities of the rich and the government at the expense of ordinary people, to extract surplus labor at the expense of purchasing power. The first sentence has a lot of truth to it. The rest of it mostly incoherent nonsense (in particular the thesis of the second article is such an absurd exaggeration as to be almost comical).
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Jul 27, 2013 04:07
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Silver2195 posted:Your conclusion does not follow from your premises (and I suspect that neither Repeta nor Adelstein would agree with it). All of the parties in Japan are fronts for some ulterior motive or other, either promotion of some or other private interest, sect or the benefits of its own politicians. The JCP, except for perhaps some honest DPJ people and independents, is the only exception that I'm aware of, in that they seem to actually want to improve things for all Japanese.
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Jul 27, 2013 04:14
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Shibawanko posted:All of the parties [...] are fronts for some ulterior motive or other, either promotion of some or other private interest, sect or the benefits of its own politicians.
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Jul 27, 2013 04:29
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Sheep posted:You just described every major political party since the conception of politics. Including the JCP. No, I disagree with that. There is a meaningful difference between simple cronyism and (admittedly flawed) idealism.
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Jul 27, 2013 05:40
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Shibawanko posted:No, I disagree with that. There is a meaningful difference between simple cronyism and (admittedly flawed) idealism. He said, "major".
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Jul 27, 2013 05:46
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I have to say, the title of this thread was really misleading.
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Jul 27, 2013 06:09
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Pope on fire posted:I have to say, the title of this thread was really misleading. Now I wonder if there's an Ichiro Ozawa-lookalike JAV release out there.
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Jul 27, 2013 07:48
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Considering there are something on the order of 20,000 mainstream JAV releases each year (almost twice as many as the American porn industry releases each year), the answer is a completely serious "probably".
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Jul 27, 2013 08:54
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http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNZO57891250Q3A730C1PP8000/ Taro Aso is a dumb motherfucker
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Jul 30, 2013 04:52
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LimburgLimbo posted:http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNZO57891250Q3A730C1PP8000/
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Jul 30, 2013 05:37
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Samurai Sanders posted:Did he say "The Nazis suddenly snuck in a bunch of constitutional reforms right before the war, we should learn from them" or am I misunderstanding? The quote from him in the article basically reads: "Germany's Weimar Constitution had changed under everyone's nose. It had been altered without anyone noticing. We must learn that tactic." The article then adds he further stated "[It] should not be decided in times of disturbance" and that constitutional reform should occur in a peaceful environment. The impression I got from this is that he meant "Constitutional reform should occur when things are settled down and everyone's rational. The Weimar Constitution was altered during chaotic times and changes were snuck in under radar, and we must learn from that [lest we repeat the same sort of mistakes]." He worded it unbelievably poorly though.
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Jul 30, 2013 05:50
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Vagabundo posted:The quote from him in the article basically reads: It probably doesn't help when the person reading it is actively looking for ways to compare the speaker to Hitler.
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Jul 30, 2013 06:02
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It doesn't matter how many times I read it, that second quote doesn't mesh with the first one at all for me. Maybe he realized what the gently caress he just said and backpedaled in a very unclear way? edit: even the wannabe facists on 2ch's news forum also largely can't see it any other way. quote:文脈何度か読んだが edit: but then we also have quote:ナチスがやったことの中にも学べるところはあるから、そこから学ぼうってだけだからなぁ Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Jul 30, 2013 |
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Jul 30, 2013 06:25
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Yeah I'm having trouble reading "あの手口を学んだらどうか" as anything but saying 'yeah we should do that' and then backpedaling when he realizes what he said. Plus, frankly, it's Aso saying it, so I'm inclined to believe it's as dumb as it sounds on the surface.
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Jul 30, 2013 06:29
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There's not enough context in the article to provide a clearer picture, but the wording of the first quote in a vacuum is "we need to do learn that tactic." The second part muddies it up and creates an impression that he either let something slip, or realised it came out all wrong and tried to clear up what he meant to say.
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Jul 30, 2013 06:43
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This new article which supposedly contains the complete speech seems to support the idea that he was arguing AGAINST the Nazis' way of doing things. It's really just about that one "how about we learn from their methods" line. It seems to be the complete opposite of everything else he said in the speech. It's not like he started talking about how awesome the Nazis were and then suddenly changed tack, he was talking about how they don't want to mess with the constitution that way, then that one line, them back to the previous topic. Weird old Aso. edit: the netuyos definitely think it's a left-wing (or Korean) media conspiracy, but honestly I don't know enough about the loyalties of Yomiuri and Asahi to know if that's true or not. Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Aug 1, 2013 |
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Aug 1, 2013 04:25
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Vagabundo posted:The quote from him in the article basically reads: The question I think should be: does his supposed intent really matter? By daring to make the comparison between his own government and the Nazis at all, no matter the context, he is attempting another sanitizing of history. Nazi Germany wasn't some miscalculation by well-meaning people, it wasn't something you "learn from" in any form, and treating the holocaust in that way (even if the "real" intent was something like "we should learn from their mistakes") is a vulgarity.
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Aug 1, 2013 13:50
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Get off your high horse. The Hitler's Germany is gone and isn't coming back, there's nothing wrong with peaking through the wreckage and seeing if any of their various schemes were successful.
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Aug 1, 2013 17:49
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Cliff Racer posted:Get off your high horse. The Hitler's Germany is gone and isn't coming back, there's nothing wrong with peaking through the wreckage and seeing if any of their various schemes were successful. / 
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Aug 1, 2013 21:00
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Shibawanko posted:The question I think should be: does his supposed intent really matter? By daring to make the comparison between his own government and the Nazis at all, no matter the context, he is attempting another sanitizing of history. Nazi Germany wasn't some miscalculation by well-meaning people, it wasn't something you "learn from" in any form, and treating the holocaust in that way (even if the "real" intent was something like "we should learn from their mistakes") is a vulgarity. But nothing in his speech even goes near the holocaust. So why did you go there? Just trying to godwin it up? If he was saying "we should learn from how Nazi Germany dealt with undesirables/immigrants/etc" then you would have something, but when he is specifically talking about constitutional reform its a huge stretch. And saying you can't "learn from" Nazi Germany is a pretty stupid statement as well. Sure you wouldn't use it as a good example to do things on the whole. But as a example of things to not do, and to watch the pathways they followed to ensure you don't travel down them, its perfectly valid. In fact to not learn from Nazi Germany just makes the Holocaust even worse, as it means the millions of people lost their lives, and millions of others suffered horrific experiences, all for nothing. That's pretty good drat stupid. A good example is modern day exposure suits and cold water survival techniques are all pretty much based on the experiments by Dr Sigmund Rascher at Dachau, and he was found guilty of war crimes at Nuremburg even though he was already dead. But the data and research was used and is still the basis of the salt water survival tables (as its pretty much impossible to do ethical testing on this, but obviously it has been improved upon like all science). Now you can get all high and mighty and claim "fruit of a poison tree" and all that, but the fact remains that the data is saving lives today, and to not use it demeans the suffering of its victims.
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Aug 1, 2013 22:05
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Shibawanko posted:The question I think should be: does his supposed intent really matter? By daring to make the comparison between his own government and the Nazis at all, no matter the context, he is attempting another sanitizing of history. Nazi Germany wasn't some miscalculation by well-meaning people, it wasn't something you "learn from" in any form, and treating the holocaust in that way (even if the "real" intent was something like "we should learn from their mistakes") is a vulgarity. Why would citing the actions of the Nazis as a lesson in how things shouldn't be done be an attempt at sanitising history?
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Aug 1, 2013 23:00
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Wibbleman posted:And saying you can't "learn from" Nazi Germany is a pretty stupid statement as well. Sure you wouldn't use it as a good example to do things on the whole. But as a example of things to not do, and to watch the pathways they followed to ensure you don't travel down them, its perfectly valid. Learning from the things that led to the rise of the Nazis yes - if you're saying something like "we should be careful not to make the same mistakes as were made in the Weimar republic and allowed fascism to appear" who wouldn't agree? You would be referring to different actors - the failure of the Weimar financial system, the failure of the German Communist party to directly attack the Nazis instead of the "bourgeois" and so forth. But that's very different from wanting to learn from the Nazis themselves. What Aso said reeks of statements like "The Nazis did bad things, but at least they made good motorways" or "Hitler was a bad guy, but at least he was a strong leader". Nazism and Fascism are pathological phenomena, they should be seen in their totality as phenomena and you cannot cherry pick "good parts" and "bad parts" from them. Shibawanko fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 1, 2013 23:58
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Shibawanko posted:Learning from the things that led to the rise of the Nazis yes - if you're saying something like "we should be careful not to make the same mistakes as were made in the Weimar republic and allowed fascism to appear" who wouldn't agree? You would be referring to different actors - the failure of the Weimar financial system, the failure of the German Communist party to directly attack the Nazis instead of the "bourgeois" and so forth. And that's pretty much what he is saying. That studying how the German constitution was changed under the noses of everyone, to ensure that it doesn't happen that way in japan. Now there may be a Freudian slip there in that they really want to see how to change the constitution without anyone noticing. But I am not sure how you are conflating that to the Japanese government making a mockery of or ignoring the holocaust (or sanitizing its existence). Shibawanko posted:But that's very different from wanting to learn from the Nazis themselves. What Aso said reeks of statements like "The Nazis did bad things, but at least they made good motorways" or "Hitler was a bad guy, but at least he was a strong leader". Nazism and Fascism are pathological phenomena, they should be seen in their totality as phenomena and you cannot cherry pick "good parts" and "bad parts" from them. Except you can cherry pick the good things you want, because political systems are very complex and have multiple parts in them. You can be fascist and not have death camps (Italy for example). That's not to say fascism is a desirable path to travel down. But you seem to be stripping everyone of all agency, and implying that by studying the rise of the Nazi's your doomed to repeat it.
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Aug 2, 2013 01:21
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Shibawanko posted:But that's very different from wanting to learn from the Nazis themselves. That's nice and all, but it's pretty loving obvious that's not what Aso meant at all, when the quote is actually viewed in the context of the entirety of the speech.
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Aug 2, 2013 02:21
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Maybe it's just because I'm a dumb Australian, but I don't understand exactly why one can't take motorway-building lessons from the motorway designers who built the motorways in Nazi Germany. Is there some kind of evil contagion that attaches to engineering knowledge and turns your based-on-Prussian-engineering road into a totalitarian regime or something? And before someone raises the human experimentation issue, well I guess it's possible to separate civil engineering works from vivisection, isn't it.
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Aug 2, 2013 02:34
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Vagabundo posted:That's nice and all, but it's pretty loving obvious that's not what Aso meant at all, when the quote is actually viewed in the context of the entirety of the speech. The context is that Aso is a high ranking member of a political party trying to change the Japanese constitution. Any interpretation where he's trying to warn against doing what is one of his party's main goals makes no sense. Extra context: he's a dumb old man with a history of making dumb gaffes.
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Aug 2, 2013 02:56
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Mr. Fix It posted:Any interpretation where he's trying to warn against doing what is one of his party's main goals makes no sense. He is in favor of revising the constitution, but is warning that it should be done in a level-headed manner, unlike what happened at the end of Weimar Germany.
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Aug 2, 2013 02:59
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Mr. Fix It posted:The context is that Aso is a high ranking member of a political party trying to change the Japanese constitution. Any interpretation where he's trying to warn against doing what is one of his party's main goals makes no sense. Extra context: he's a dumb old man with a history of making dumb gaffes.  He's not talking about not changing the Constitution. He's talking about discussing the content of the Constitution and any changes made to it in a rational, calm and coherent manner.
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Aug 2, 2013 03:03
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Vagabundo posted:
Do you even know who Taro Aso is? He's a hilarious gaffe machine. He says that he meant we should learn from the disastrous changes to the Weimar constitution, but given his history and his party's platform, the more sinister interpretation is all too plausible.
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Aug 2, 2013 04:06
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Mr. Fix It posted:Do you even know who Taro Aso is? He's a hilarious gaffe machine. He says that he meant we should learn from the disastrous changes to the Weimar constitution, but given his history and his party's platform, the more sinister interpretation is all too plausible. "憲法は、ある日気づいたら、ワイマール憲法が変わって、ナチス憲法に変わっていたんですよ。だれも気づかないで変わった。あの手口学んだらどうかね。 わーわー騒がないで。本当に、みんないい憲法と、みんな納得して、あの憲法変わっているからね。ぜひ、そういった意味で、僕は民主主義を否定するつもりはまったくありませんが、しかし、私どもは重ねて言いますが、喧噪（けんそう）のなかで決めてほしくない。" Feel free to point out to everyone where he's warning against changing the Constitution.
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Aug 2, 2013 04:33
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Mr. Fix It posted:Do you even know who Taro Aso is? He's a hilarious gaffe machine. He says that he meant we should learn from the disastrous changes to the Weimar constitution, but given his history and his party's platform, the more sinister interpretation is all too plausible. Except some of us can read Japanese, and it is pretty clear what he meant in the original speech. We don't have to speculate on circumstantial evidence. I'm open to arguments that I'm reading it wrong, if you can argue from the actual speech and not what the English press is saying is in the speech. Saying Aso is a dumbass, while true, does not change what he actually said.
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Aug 2, 2013 04:38
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Yeah I can't believe I am siding with LDP supporters on this but I think the newspapers smeared Aso. This time, anyway.
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Aug 2, 2013 04:44
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I just re-read the whole thing and I still think he's saying they should quietly change the constitution like the Nazis and that even the best written constitution can be bent to the will of someone with enough cunning. I did like the part where he called olds (in their 50s and 60s) a problem.
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Aug 2, 2013 11:40
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The Nazis did not quietly change the constitution. It happened in an environment of turmoil largely ginned up by the Nazis themselves.
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Aug 2, 2013 16:47
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