naked capitalism

Eddie Bravo says:

Stratfor's founder was also the guy that penned a book in the late 80s predicting Japan would become a military superpower and challenge the U.S. for dominance of the Pacific. Proof if ever required of the utter folly of forecasting and unfortunately that awful analysts can still go on to set-up firms like Stratfor that people actually bother listening to…

Richard Kline says:

While to me the mid-term scenario in the US is inflationary, or stagflationary due to pixelation of faux money, I don't see that as the outcome in Japan. They have excellent prospects of real deflation. They have wasted huge sums propping up dead banks for a very long time, which has sucked any oomph out of their domestic economy. Their consumers were always relatively poor and underfunded compared to other industrialized countries, certainly in relation to the cost structures there. Their population has to cover a larger share of retirement and health costs out of personal savings than in Europe, for example, which ties up much of what money they have. Their population is, in fact, declining now, and their prime working age population is steadily decreasing while their debt load increases. They spent tremendously on the putative bridges to nowhere, but got precious little stimulous out of it—because these were stimulus programs _for the zaibatsu_, not for the consumers. No one should be surprised at a demand decline there; their political system has been inimical to the demand base of their domestic economy for sixty years.

Japan has been the Sick Man of Asia for so long, in remission due to quantitative chemo, that we're conditioned to the notion that they will just muddle on through. We may all be no little surprised when the rivets pop out of the system there if such they do in the next ten years. They have a good chance to be 'stress tested' by reality at the level over that duration, to me.

—And yet we apply' the Japanese Solution here in the US as we speak. Question: Are we nuts, or simply run by a self-interested oligarchy of the few?

Gloppie says:

Haha: http://www.thismodernworld.org/arc/rar/TheNation/800Wide/Greenspanman.gif

ballyfager says:

Yves, I'm having a recurring problem opening your site. I mention it because maybe others are too.

Have you read M. Taibbi's article in Rolling Stone about Goldman Sachs ? Light needs to be focused on these people until something is done.