One request though: if this guy’s articles are so impeccably researched, can someone please summarise them at the top so I don’t have to grind my way through his intolerable writing?

Until the plunge in Japanese capital investment in early 1992, that was a very lucrative occupation, but for the next few years I had quite a lot of free time, and spent much of it reading articles in Toyo Keizai and Kinyuu Business about the aftermath of the bubble years. Although since 1995 I’ve been very busy as a systems software developer, I’ve continued to pay a modicum of attention to the Japanese economy.

To me, the quoted article rings true.

One of the side effects (I suspect intended) of the BOJ ZIRP (Zero-Interest-Rate Policy) has obviously been to force any organization or individual needing significant positive yield to invest overseas. So it’s likely that not only Japanese banks, but also insurance companies, pension funds, and individuals have invested in mortgage-backed toxic waste.

To keep the yen from rising despite the continual $100+ billion trade surplus, Japan has to have been accumulating that much in dollar assets every year. IIRC, they’ve not obviously been accumulating that much annually in US Treasuries in recent years. So the money has been going somewhere else. Considering the pressure on Japanese investors to reach for yield, and their past poor track record in overseas investment and supervision of traders, it will be surprising if a lot of the next shoes to drop are not Japanese.

The case in this relatively clean article is: ‘So far, Japan’s biggest three banks have admitted to just $4.7bn in total losses between them. The figure is rising. Mitsubishi, the biggest, has just raised its tally to 12 times the sum admitted in November.’ He switches from a hard statistic to an absolutely meaningless relative one and implies, by writing them in separate sentences, that they are independent occurances. My assumption is that 4.7 bn includes the 12x of Mitsubishi, the latter part, in fact, contributing nothing whatsoever to the argument. But the intended effect is achieved by giving the impression that the 12x is on top of the 4.7 bn.

A less fear mongering approach would have read, ‘…4.7bn, which includes xx bn of losses from Mitsubishi, 12 times what they had reported in November..’. What else need be said? Lots, apparently, if you’re this writer.

I would have thought, BTW, that you might have posted Tett’s more considered take on Spanish banks and the ECB…

Draghi says: banks in “Italy, Spain and Japan are the less exposed” to the US subprime crisis. Japan is also the only country to apply completely Bâle 2.

Draghi is governor of the Bank of Italy and president of the financial stability forum at the IMF.

Personally, I see more risks with the undwinding of the carry trade.

As for his earlier Clinton work, he was far from the only one pushing the Vince Foster “hit” theory; I was hearing that almost immediately upon his death. There have been quite a few anti-Clinton books; I question whether his had any more impact than the others. Christopher Hitchens also despised Clinton and regularly said bad things in his columns at Vanity Fair; is he also in the pay of the right wing?

And the fact that E-P has been harshly negative on the US economy would now favor the left, not the right.

If you want to know why Gore lost in 2000, I sincerely doubt E-P changed anyone’s mind; he just gave heightened the sentiments of those who already didn’t like Clinton. Gore had a very problematic relationship with Clinton during the race; he was trying to distance himself, which the Clintons took very badly. Clinton was damaaged goods and the dot-com bust staring in March 2000 didn’t help Democratic prospects either. And by all accounts (not just his stiffness but his organization) Gore’s campaign wasn’t as effective as it could have been.

Palast has the real smoking gun. Jeb Bush used the fact that convicted felons aren’t permitted to vote in Florida to scrub the voter rolls of at least 90,000 eligible voters who had names that bore a resemblance to felons and were clearly black (first names like Tyrone and Lakisha). Do the math. 90,000 x 30% turnout x 90% propensity of blacks to vote Democrat = 24,300 more votes for Gore, vastly more than the 537 vote official margin.