JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
-
- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
-
- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
0
Brunobear
jhk: The official Australian unemployment figures have just come out and they are 5.7%.
My strategies have assisted Australia to the success it achieved over the past 17 years and find its way through this current world financial crisis with minimum impact on Australians and their standard of living. As I write to our Federal Treasurer today, I am conveying that it seems we are through it without going into negative growth and the countries 11.5 millions workers can concentrate on their aspirations for the future. Our budgeted use of public debt of up to $300 billion will not now occur, though we will use some of it, perhaps $100 billion at worst.
I was not bragging about Australia's situation at all. I was stating facts that we have been able to manage money better than other countries because of an intrinsic understanding of how it really works. Most countries sadly live in financial fantasyland which impacts on the the people we both are concerned about, those lower down the pecking order.
I don't get paid for the advice I give the Australian Government and never have. No one knows who I am except a few. I don't seek honors, remuneration or public acknowledgment> If you know something others don't and you can assist in the public good, you should pass it on.
As I said in my first blog, I learned several things in a vital trip to Tokyo in October 1990, that assisted Australia in 1991 develop a strategy that steered us away from an economic valley of death to be the world's most prosperous country.
I am not asking Japan to pay me, I was just putting out I would help if asked. No one even knows my name jhk just my blog name.
You obviously don't know the Australian psychology. Australians will help anyone that is down.
Those CEO's who have no downside risk, that is they don't put their wealth on the line, but take salaries and bonuses of millions of dollars to screw there workforce for short term profit gains, make me sick too. They usually ride on someone elses good work, like mine as the Australian Bank CEO's did for the past 18 years.
I am a very modest living and humble person.
Posted in: Japan can do without preaching on how to fix its economy
0
Brunobear
ihk. Australia's unemployment has risen from 4.7% to circa 5.5%. No one is collecting bottles because we have unemployment benefits. Our economy is turning back up again because our Government acted correctly.
It is not hard to fix an economy. There are some basics that once you stray from them, things start going wrong. Get them right and Japan's 60 million industrious workforce will do the rest. We don';t want anyone having to scavenge to survive in the world's second biggest economy.
Posted in: Japan can do without preaching on how to fix its economy
0
Brunobear
jhk. I don't understand your first point. Australia is still in positive growth, albeit modest. It's housing market remains strong and rising. Its resources are back in demand and prices rising. It may run a modest budget deficit but has effectively no public debt - all the other countries are drowning in it. Our four major banks are strong and four of only ten in the world with a AA rating. Lets get the facts right!
Secondly, know one is knocking on Japans door pushing their economic remedies. Some good souls who understand the importance of a strong Japan and share concern with its people, extend an offer of a helping hand. Japan can accept them or ignore/reject them. In Australia, we have other things to do, like working hard and making it more prosperous than it is. At the top of the ladder. We were down but not quite out in 1991 too.
Posted in: Japan can do without preaching on how to fix its economy
0
Brunobear
Henry: Australia was in a diabolical financial position in 1990/91. I came to Tokyo in October 1990 and met with a number of business and financial leaders to get an understanding of the prospect of them investing in Australia at the time, they seemed to be overflowing with wealth. They gave me valid reasons why not, and I accepted them and returned to a financially collapsing Australia.
Eight months later our Government told me the economy was flat and no one in Treasury, Finance, our Central Bank, or their own advisor's new what to do. I surprised and panicked them by disclosing that was just part of the problem, that two of our four major banks where about to collapse. One of the four wouldn't because it was Federal Government owned, but the third might within a year. All our State Bank's had already fallen over and the streets of Australia's main business centre, Melbourne were like a ghost town.
Partly from the information the Japanese businessmen had given me and partly from my own experience and knowledge I was able to provide a solution. They adopted it the next day on 1 August 1991.
The outcome: All our major banks survived and now are four of only ten AA rated banks on earth. We have had 18 great years of growth and even in 2009, we are still growing, albeit modestly. None of our banks are at risk. Melbourne is booming and can easily be demonstrated to be the most advanced society on earth. Australia in 2009 is the most prosperous country on the planet. It has until recently, had no Federal Public debt and is running up a relatively small debt for financial stimulus reasons, just for caution. It will not go as high as targeted - 15% of GDP.
Japan should have invested heavily in Australia when it had the chance in the eighties and even later but failed to do so. Virtually all the resources it needs are in abundance in Australia. The Yen has been heavily over valued for 25 years. Japan should have used its overvalued currency to pick up foreign assets cheaply. But Japan didn't.
Japan's over valued Yen destroyed your industry. Japan committed the sin of "Commercialism" when the Japanese banks sneakily lent money to its big trading corporations for 25 years to export cars etcetera at huge losses, just to keep up face and volume. Your banking system survives but is hopelessly insolvent. Your manufacturers uncompetitive. Your workforce is aging, tired and introverted. You have few natural resources. Your Federal Government (public debt) is 190% of your US$4.5 trillion GDP and will soon be 220%. twice anyone else, and they are broke at that level, e.g., the US. You undermined US manufacturing, as did the Chinese, thus killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Americans no longer have the money to buy your goods and services and the same applies to China. Like Japan the foolish US has run up massive Federal Government debt to 90% of its US$14 trillion GDP and will soon be 100%.
Australia only survived 1991 because one person understood what was wrong and had the balls to terrify the Government into sacking its then Prime-minister, and introducing a replacement, strong and intelligent enough to follow through with the changes needed. All these changes were said to be the direct opposite to the advice provided by the Australian Treasury, Central Bank and so on at the time. But they did it and it worked.
How ironic is it that Australia's economy prospered after 1991 and Japan's, the source of some of the solution, went into in decline and was followed by Europe and the US.
Just like there phenomena in electrical magnetic forces, weather and so on, so there is with money and you need to understand it. Japan needs a pied piper like Australia had in 1991, as does the US.
I am not busy!
Posted in: Japan can do without preaching on how to fix its economy
0
Brunobear
JP run this question every month it seems. I think the islands should go to the Palestinians as a homeland and both Russia and Japan surrender their claims. If Russia gives them back to Japan, it should be only on the basis they become a whale sanctuary. If the Japanese cannot stomach a whale sanctuary, what about a missile and nuclear testing ground for the North Koreans where they deposit their surplus hungry people. Maybe the islands could become a new education destination for disgruntled Indian economic refugees posing as students in Australia. Or maybe the US could use the islands as a haven for people who failed to make a payment on their sub-prime loans and issue them with a free tent. Maybe they could be leveled and used as a global warming crisis centre for those who like cooler climates. Maybe we just forget about them.
Posted in: Should Russia return the four disputed islands off Hokkaido to Japan?
0
Brunobear
WilliB. The US Navy is in fact intercepting shipping coming out of North Korea and checking cargoes. The cause of considerable anger and threats by North Korea. Obama is a practicable man and sees changes must be urgently made. He is a man who won't be too concerned what Israel or North Korea think, or the other hot'in tots you referred to. I am certain he is one man who values his own opinion and judgment over those of others, as I do my own. Your super-numerous rantings on JP let us all know what goes on in your head. I for one have more confidence in the choices of President Obama to ensure a better world for everyone.
Posted in: Obama hardens U.S. stance on North Korean defiance
0
Brunobear
This President is the best orator the US has ever presented and seems to me to have backbone. There is a warning in his message to States such as Israel and North Korea to obey UN Resolutions or there will be consequences. No he will not send the US Airforce into Israel but he will to North Korea.
Before your ignorant start criticizing former US Presidents let me remind them that the US Airforce ended the War with Japan in three days in August 1945, and minor wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and in parts of Africa minimizing or ensuring no loss of US troop lives. If they had have nuked the communist forces at Diem Bien Phu in Vietnam in 1954 as they wanted to, but Britain stopped them, America would not have lost 56,000 troops in their later 11 year and internally divisive ground offensive.
Harry Truman did not hesitate to use nukes on Japan and I expect Obama won't hesitate on North Korea, thus ending this 60 year problem and expense once and for all. The crazy North Koreans are playing a very dangerous game as are the equally crazy Israeli's. It will be left to some Moslem state to do the same to Israel and return Palestine to the Arabs. Israel is hardly the promised land for the Jews - as the Bible shows, it has been a curse to them. Their promised land is the US.
We are entering a new era when money in the US is not plentiful and nor will be their patience.
Posted in: Obama hardens U.S. stance on North Korean defiance
0
Brunobear
Inspirational and comforting to Moslems throughout the world. A wake up call to those who cannot commit to a genuine two state solution. A commitment to Israel but with a tone that suggests, don't muck me around.
Posted in: What did you think of U.S. President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world?
0
Brunobear
A brilliant speech from one of America's best ever orators. I felt he was indeed sincere and not going to be mucked around in resolving the Palestinian State issue. He has gently but firmly told the parties to shape up or else. If Israel wishes to prosper and blossom it is going to have to stop the plaintive "everybody just picks, picks, picks, on us". As Jesus, the first Christian by choice, said in the Lord's prayer, "Thou shalt be done as it is in Heaven". It is not that hard!
To have a friend, you have to be a friend. That applies to all sides with a stake here. Strangely, if the could co-operate, they would all be far better off in every sense.
It seems that under Obama, America is not going to just discriminate in favor of one side as it seems to have for decades. That policy did not work. In Australia we have 180 different nationalities including many Jews and Arab Moslems living in peace and prosperity. Why not in what we formerly knew as Palestine?
Posted in: Obama's Islamic homage wins praise
0
Brunobear
Japanese people should welcome the new opportunity to fly direct to Salt Lake City. It is a beautiful safe City centrally situated to many of America's best natural feature: Grand Canyon, Zion, Monument Valley, Yellowstone National Park, The Grand Tetons, and the Rocky Mountains. I have visited there a number of times from Melbourne, Australia for skiing, at Alta (Gold Miners Daughter Lodge) where you get the best dry snow in the world. Of course Japanese skiers are going to want to go there if they know anything about skiing. They may even value going to listen and see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on Thursday afternoons or Sunday mornings - it is a memorable experience.
55% of the population is not Mormon, so it is not just a Mormon City.
I feel safe there. People are friendly and it is a very clean City.
They also have top Universities, such as Westminster (Ivy League), Brigham Young, University of Utah etc.
Salt Lake City is also driving distance to Las Vegas and that is an experience. Buy a house there (Las Vegas) now for US$30,000.
When I hear the Mormon choir sing the "Battle Hymm of the Republic", I does give me the feeling of closeness to God and spiritual. And I'm not religious! To walk out of a Supermarket and see towering snow covered mountains as a backdrop is also an experience. As I recall Delta Airlines is based in Salt Lake City. If the fares are reasonable, go and have a look. America is not expensive to visit.
Posted in: Nonstop flights from Utah to Tokyo begin
0
Brunobear
Thinking about it or talking about it?
Posted in: Marie, at AIDS awareness concert, says she has sex five times a day
0
Brunobear
Disdash: I like your comment. I don't want to be a finger pointer, but has Hollywood been "racist" in focusing on beating the Germans in WW11 and not Japan? Both Germany and Japan committed unspeakable attrocities but Hollywood only only concentrates on the white Germans. Who controls Hollywood and why would they do this. Is it "anti-germanic" racism. Should the US pass a law making it mandatory that they portray both countries defeats and attrocities equally. Perhaps they may feel that because Japan got the two atom bombs that they got an advantage so they seek the new "equailty of outcome". I think it has something to do with getting even, and an eye for an eye, over the holocaust. Lets call a spade a spade: Some say you won't win an Oscar in Hollywood doing a movie without a Jewish slant. Not enough Jews in Japan in WW11 or even today. Is Japan Racist in this respect? The hatchet between Americans and the Japanese was buried at the end of the War thank goodness. America made one modest claim for compensation for those prisoners of war that suffered in 1954. America got on helping rebuild both countries immediately the war finished and what success they had. The fact is the major war was fought in Europe where 50 million died and that is why Hollywood might focus on it. I look forward to seeing this film
Posted in: Bridge over troubled waters
0
Brunobear
WilliB. I appears your references are matters involving Sydney not Melbourne. If it comes to Israeli economic and Jewish population history in Israel may I refer you to Nadav Halevi, Hebrew University article on the internet 'A Brief Economic History of Modern Israel'. Helter Skelter as much as we all might wish Israel economic success, lets be realistic, only 40% of its population are in the workforce, it has enough oil for about nine years and natural gas 15 years. It is a high production cost country remote from its major markets. Only 15% of its mere 20,000km2 land mass is productive and being arid it relies heavily on irrigation. The Palestinian per capita income was good in the seventies but has dropped to a mere US$900 now, about 5% of Israel's which is less than half of that in the US. Most of the mere 150,000 Palestinian workers allowed into Israel work on manual tasks in agriculture and building construction. There is little chance of Netanyahu agreeing to an independent Palestinian state where Palestinians can regain their former economic success. Few of its technological advances have turned into products the world markets demand. It still relies heavily on the US for its military hardware and spends 25% of GDP on defence. It has somewhere around 300,000 displaced Arab refugees in northern Israel and a legion of hostile Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza as well as neighbouring Arab as distinct from Moslem countries. Turkey with a population of 65 million for example is not hostile to Israel.
The facts are there were few Jews in Israel until Zionists started moving there in the 1880's and by 1920 just 56,000. A tiny percentage of the population. They maintained a separate culture and economy to the Arabs from the 1920's and still do. The Arab population has been swamped by various waves of Jewish immigration the latest being over 1 million from the former Soviet Union after its collapse in 1988.
Anyone with a dispassionate and perhaps enlightened view would question whether the future of 50% of a non-growing 14 million world Jewish population is there at the expense of several million Palestinian Arabs who maintained continuous occupation for the past two thousand years, long after Jews effectively abandoned the "holy land" for Europe and later the US.
Posted in: Netanyahu may endorse Palestinian state on US trip
0
Brunobear
Grafton. If they are prepared to put their allegiance first and foremost to Australia, then many would be welcome in Melbourne as they always have been. We are a city of 4 million with 180 different nationalities living in complete harmony. We are the fourth biggest University city on the planet and a world leader in medical research and technology.
It does not seen sensible to keep packing assimilated Jewish people from around the world into tiny arid, almost waterless Israel. Certainly, the strict orthodox should stay in Israel if that is what they want. But realistically, the majority who just want a peaceful, safe and prosperous way of life with opportunity for their families future the main choice has to be the young prosperous Protestant Christian countries that flowed from Britain, ie., Australia, the US, New Zealand and Canada or even Britain.
Israel is never going to be a technological superstate or even self sufficent. It is always going to have to be propt up by Jewish and protestant Christian supporters from those five countries, particularly the US.
It is time to get Israel and the Palestinians off the front pages.
Jews must see there best future is not tying there children to the historic holly land other than as occasional tourists like the rest of us. Mr Netanyahu, who has spent a lot of time in Melbourne must see there is a better way if you take race and religion off the front pages. Those Jews who do come here just must accommodate the patron Saint of the Jews, Saint Kilda. The Saints are ion top of the Australian football (AFL)ladder, with seven wins out of seven. That is the only religion on the front pages in Melbourne: AFL football. And its fun!
Posted in: Netanyahu may endorse Palestinian state on US trip
0
Brunobear
There appears to be some common ingredients the peoples who occupy arid, rocky or sandy desert areas have in common. Criminal gangs and despots that survive by preying brutally on others. Helter Skelter you seem to be on the right track.
I understood the Mujahideen in Afghanistan that successfully defeated the Soviets with US support, became the Taliban. Al Quaeda, a group of Arab wannabes, were never allowed into the fight by the Mujahadeen. That is why when that war ended they went with their now dead leader, Bin Laden, to places like Egypt to undertake terrorism to get attention and relevance, but were soon suppressed and returned to Afgahnistan/Pakistan where they could hide like mice in the remote rocky ground, ride around in threatening and crowded rear trays of standard Toyota utilities, indulge in gratuitous guerilla warfare and plan how they could irritate the world, but never be a Government because that meant responsibility. They are indicative of other small idealistic miscreants using faith in its various forms as a way of filling in their day while indiscriminately killing innocent people just trying to make a living and survive. That is why they resort to the illicit drug trade. Afghanistan a major producer and Israel, on its own admission, the highest user of illicit drugs on earth. Some Israelis say it is because of the high level of anxiety being permanently surrounded by hostiles which you can understand. In Afghanistan it seems more of a cultural opportunity for gain. At the other end of the spectrum in the lush US and Europe, illicit or recreational drugs seem to be just a very bad lifestyle choice. America tries hard to manage the drug trade because the damage is severe. The twelve who died in the school are part of the tragic price of being born into a lawless area. Illicit drug users are the fifth column that enables these terrorists to prosper and cause the West to waste money better directed on numerous other beneficial needs.
Posted in: U.S. missiles kill 12 at Islamic school in northwest Pakistan
0
Brunobear
No response from any Russians to my comment on surrendering the Chasima Islands back to their rightful owner Japan. None from Japan. Does no one really care about the Southern Kuriles? Perhaps it is my strategy?
Posted in: Russia warns Japan against 'inflated hopes' in islands dispute
0
Brunobear
Someone suggested a "suspended sentence". Did you mean from the bridge?
If you carried those pictures into Australia you would be charged with a criminal offence, publicly ostricized, and gaoled. You cannot even take a picture of children playing sport in Australia with many sporting groups. 100 compromising photographs of children, even deleted but on your hard-drive memory in your computer and you would be prosecuted. It is considered bad manners to take public photographs, with identifiable people in them without their expressed permission. As for men who secretly photograph nude nine year olds, of course they know it is evil, that is why they do it sneakily. As for those who attempt to rationalise such behavior and blame the bathing child or parent, who is maybe unaware, that is a bit rich. The man who called the police and waited for their arrival to arrest the culprit is the good side of this tragic incident.
Posted in: 57-year-old Saitama tax chief arrested for taking pictures of naked 9-year-old girl
0
Brunobear
The Russian peoples main reason for wanting to hang on to the Chasima Islands (South Kurile Islands) is that they questionably claim they "won" them from Japan during WW11.
Given that the then Bolshevik led opportunistic Soviet Union only declared war on Japan when the war was "all but over" on 8 August 1945. The Bolshevik Soviets would have known their ally, the US was about to atom bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima to bring an immediate end to the war in a couple of days, on or about 10 August 1945. Who did the "mighty" communist (and largely US armed) Soviets actually fight and defeat on Chasima Islands over the next two days to claim a victory? The penguins! The Soviets would have hardly had time to even land land a sailor or hoist a flag. Did they even fire a shot?
Since 10 August 1945 Japan has become a model of democracy and non -aggression to the world which was the opposite to the Soviets who intimidated and threatened the free world until their empire collapsed from within in 1988 and many of the countries abandoned the Soviet Union taking their territories out of it and free of Russian hegemony.
It was the Soviet Union that claimed sovereignty after their "big" August 1945 victory in their two day non-contested war with an already defeated Japan over the Chasima Islands. Given that the Soviet Union ceased to exist as an legal entity, so Russia has made a substitutional or quasi subrogated rights claim over the Chasimas.
It is fortunate for Japan that it was the US and Australia that occupied the Islands of Japan up to Hokkaido; and not the Russians. The US, Australia and Britain worked assiduously to enable Japan to recover from the war and rebuild its economy to become the second biggest economy on the planet in just a few decades. They guaranteed the Japanese their freedom and democracy and provided a defence shield to give the people more than 60 years of comfort and security, and still do.
Russia's claim is therefore an international 'slight of hand' and spurious and should be immediately rescinded in favor of Japan.
Japan might think about showing some gratitude for its circumstances too, by offering to give up whaling as a concession to the US, Australia and Britain who have sacrificed so much in relation to Japan since 7 December 1941 and who detest whaling. It would also be a 'quid pro quo' to the world and an honorable and emotional gesture gaining multilateral world support to chorus to Russia, "its time". Time to hand the Island's back to Japan. I am sure even the Russians would find that an emotional offer, and one indeed hard to resists. A political solution is the only solution to the Chasimas and Whaling. It would be a genuine win/win.
Posted in: Russia warns Japan against 'inflated hopes' in islands dispute
0
Brunobear
The big problem is Russia has so little land. Its only as big as almost China, Australia and the US combined with a whole 15% of their aggregate population. If things weren't so squeezy they could probably assist Japan. Just as well the US didn't retain the Japanese territory it took in WW11 otherwise you Japanese would all be US citizens. At least with Mr Putin, you Japanese can talk to him eye to eye. Softly, softly is the best approach. Maybe your PM should say to Mr Putin that it is just as well the US did not adopt the same territorial approach Russia did in 1945. Where would we all live?
Posted in: Russia warns Japan against 'inflated hopes' in islands dispute
0
Brunobear
WilliB. My final comment on this matter is the Jews in Iran have far more freedom than the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank. There is no fool like and old fool, that applies to religions too. Cheers to all the readers for caring to read this article and comments on the besieged Californian Professor. UCSB is a respected University and not a kindergarten. If some students feel threatened by facts perhaps they are at the wrong level of education. A Uni can only be fun if it challenging. The Professor knows that.
Posted in: U.S. professor's Holocaust-Gaza comparison stirs debate