Posted on 08/25/2009 12:27:04 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
There are queues at expensive oyster restaurants and the housewives are once again trading foreign exchange — signs that Japan’s return to economic growth has restored its confidence. The world’s second-largest economy is expected to grow 1% next year after contracting 3%. The recession has led to Japanese firms shedding 100,000 jobs since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, pushing unemployment up to 5.4%. ...Now the apocryphal “Mrs Watanabe” and her fellow traders have ventured back to the Tokyo Financial Exchange, according to brokers who report that transactions are up by more than half on a year ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at business.timesonline.co.uk ...
ping!
The linkeage is pretty significant, yes. Still, I would see the linkeage is less than maybe 20 years ago, and there is a lot of intra-Asian talk of mitigating matter. Whether that is do-able shall be interesting.
What about Asian markets expanding into other markets, and visa versa, like Canada, Europe, Mexico, India, South America? Why would that fade?
Watanabe Wannabes?
A few hours ago there was a story that China had... finally... surpassed Germany in the value of its annual exports.
We’re talking about countries with wildly disparate geographic and population size here. Is it only because the vast majority of China’s exports go to America that it seems so mighty to us?
This is another debt financing without fundamental restructuring. It is not sustainable. It will only make China join the rank of countries under mounting debts. With state not only pumping money but also play a major consumer, they are effectively nullifying market mechanism. A kind of things Obama and Krugman could envy. It will create huge mal-investment, that is, bubbles not backed up by fundamentals. This will end as badly as U.S. bubble.
End of Chimerica.
They have been going through deflation.
What we see today is the highly exaggerated version of China. Global business media did their part to pump up China's image. Global business benefited handsomely from outsourcing to China. Hyperventilating coverage for more than a decade gave us quite distorted view of China. Just as many had distorted(charitable) view of U.S. economy.
Would be interesting to compare number of working people in Germany vs. China. If their yearly exports were similar, the efficiency in man-hour vs. dollar’s worth of export must be vastly lower for China. And China is concentrated on exports, unlike Germany. Germany probably only has a minority of its workers dedicated to exports.
Here in the USA, we have somewhere between US$12 and US$17 TRILLION in American-owned liquid assets socked away at offshore financial centers located around the world to keep them out of the reach of the IRS; I can confidently say that rich Europeans from various countries in Europe are doing the same thing, in my estimation socked away probably at minimum US$19 TRILLION outside Europe or in smaller countries of Europe with tight bank secrecy laws to keep those assets out of the reach of European tax authorities, and it's likely happening in Asia too.
This is economic madness, to say the least. Governments around the world need to realize liquid assets owned by their own citizens sitting outside their own country for tax avoidance reasons ends up hurting the local economy since this hurts the local flow of liquidity needed to open loans and lines of credit needed to keep businesses running. If they realize that by changing their tax laws to encourage keeping personal savings and capital investment from fleeing the country, much of the world's economic ills would come to an end, especially we save ourselves the enormously expensive process of everyone looking for any place with the lowest tax rate to keep their money.
From what I understand, the age demographics in Japan are horrendous, and they are stuck importing workers for a high percentage of their jobs. My question is: in Japan, do these immigrants pay taxes? Is it as rigid a working/class structure as in the Middle East, where even “middle class” Anglos are viewed as servants? Or do the Japanese embrace them as partners?
I recommend to everyone a book written by an Indian immigrant to America called "The Venturesome Economy." He takes on Krugman, Friedman, but also Buchanan and the tariff-barrier people. Too much to get into now, but it's a challenging perspective.
If, or when, that flow stops, it would say a lot about those perceptions.
Excellent posts!
USA was in a consuming frenzy and most people can understand that it’s fun to consume Chinese/Asian made electronics, automobiles, computer components, all that Home Depot and Walmart stuff. And run up your credit card doing it. Borrow money (that you can never pay back) to finance this consumption.
CHINA was in a manufacturing frenzy. This was very exciting to them just the same as our own industrial revolution was. Peoples incomes were rising. They were working in new factories not shoveling manure and hoeing cabbages back on the farm. Very modern! And you look good on the world stage. You can have pride in China. You don’t live in some backwater like the Philippines
Shanghai is in a frenzy of construction and a by product of China’s manufacturing frenzy that paid for it. It’s exciting to talk on your new cell phone and have new trendy restaurants to eat in. More unattached and available women too
There is an upside to unsustainable production same as there is an upside to unsustainable consumption
Immigrants are next to nothing in Japan
They (illegal ones) might be found in construction and restaurant kitchens
Japan does not import people in to work there
Instead they establish factories etc in low cost Asian nations like Thailand
And their 3rd world colonies like America (automobiles primarily)
Japan is for the Japanese and they will keep it this way
I wish we had the same pride and xenophobia
Convincing the retards we have running our country into the ground is another thing.
They will hold onto the income tax because it gives them power over the lemmings every election cycle.
We need to abolish slavery once again. Abolish the income tax and demolish the IRS!
Well, no. They are rapidly aging and old societies are completely unproductive societies. A 1% GNP growth after years of decline is hardly encouraging. The fact is, you either have more kids, or you allow immigration. There is no other way to have younger, more productive workers.
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