Dog's past comments

  • 1

    Dog

    UpgrayeddMay. 22, 2013 - 12:33PM JST

    Perhaps you are confusing trade deficits with budget deficits

    He/she is confusing trade deficits with current account surpluses. Japan still runs the biggest current account surplus, no matter the trade deficit, of the G8 nations.

    Posted in: Japan's trade deficit expands nearly 70% in April

  • 2

    Dog

    tkoind2May. 22, 2013 - 10:29AM JST

    Now the politicians are starting to voice concerns. Hell those guys should start spending time on this website where we have been raising concerns since day one!

    Very true.

    Yourself, Globalwatcher and myself have been saying, even before Abe became PM, that no matter how cheap the Yen got, people were not going to bin their Galaxys and I-pods and start buying the often second rate Japanese technical equivalent.

    This is a different world from the 1970s and 1980s. An export driven reovery will just not happen

    Just got back from California and the worries among the Japanese business circles is that even such sacred cows as the motor industry is losing ground to its competitors and it has very little to do with price.

    Bad news for steel exports.

    Posted in: Japan's trade deficit expands nearly 70% in April

  • 8

    Dog

    if you do the math, which foreign businesses do, Abenomics does not match up to the PR and Japan has no chance of real long term growth, so why would foreign businesses invest in Japan?

    Because of the demographic problems of an aging Japan, economic growth will require even greater productivity growth than normal.

    Real productivity growth (as opposed to nominal growth due to inflation) is not something you can just dial up with government policies and quantitative easing. It is incremental in nature. If you want 3% GDP growth in a country whose population is shrinking by 1%, you need 4% productivity growth, give or take. That just doesn’t happen on a sustained basis in a developed country.

    Posted in: Little sign Abe can shake up Japan's inbound foreign direct investment

  • 34

    Dog

    British critic Geoff Andrew took to Twitter to deride “risibly overacted, overemphatic nonsense that constantly states the obvious cliche.”

    This just about sums up any drama on Japanese TV.

    Posted in: Miike's action film gets booed at Cannes

  • -1

    Dog

    DisillusionedMay. 20, 2013 - 10:42AM JST

    One has to be wary of a nation that relies on comics and cartoons depicting young girls to educate their adults and to promote products.

    It's the third arrow of Abenomics, you watch, there won't be much else to his economic restructuring.

    Posted in: 'Moe' madness: Gov't realizes selling power of cute 2D girls

  • 0

    Dog

    tkoind2May. 20, 2013 - 09:50AM JST

    Adobe should tread carefully. I do not want to be tied to an internet connection. Sometimes I work on the go, sometimes I work at home, sometimes away from the web.

    Exactly. A lot of my work involves Adobe InDesign and Illustrator and while I did buy the Creative Suite 6, because of the Epub application in Indesign and the return to Audition from Soundbooth, there wasn't a lot more in CS 6 from CS 5.5.

    Since I'm not involved in web design, I think I will stick with the CS 6, ignore CS 7 and wait for Adobe to come to their senses and return to the software pakage/download in CS 8.

    Posted in: Adobe changing its products to cloud services with monthly fees

  • 3

    Dog

    YubaruMay. 20, 2013 - 09:55AM JST

    Gasoline prices have jumped, food costs for daily consumption have risen sharply, the consumption tax is going up, income and reconstruction taxes are up, everything seems to have gotten more expensive and he wants me to spend more? Where is the money going to come from? Not my employer that's for sure!

    I couldn't have said it better. Just paid the bills and had to pay 10% more than last month. That's 10% less spending on the Japanese economy.

    Abenomics is hairbrained.

    Posted in: Weak yen helps drive Japan earnings, but no cure-all

  • -9

    Dog

    BurakuminDesMay. 19, 2013 - 09:50AM JST

    Maybe his food was pretty ordinary and these thugs refused to pay - however there is no reason to then attack a 57 year old. Rest in Peace, and may these killers be locked up for a very long time.

    My thoughts exactly if the local fare of 'fried rice with vegetables and beef' is anything to go by. Probably forgot to throw in the ketchup or mayo and without those how could it possibly be classed as Japanese cuisine?

    Posted in: German resort island shaken over Japanese chef's murder

  • 3

    Dog

    scoobydooMay. 19, 2013 - 09:39AM JST

    I mean I got a letter posted to me with my name and city on it only and it turned up safe.

    Now that was funny.

    So running is the best but where would you run in that case?

    North Korea!

    Posted in: Guilty and never proven innocent – every male train rider's nightmare in Japan

  • 4

    Dog

    MarkGMay. 19, 2013 - 07:49AM JST

    As a man if I see a perv sneaking a pinch I feel it is my responsibility to end it there. All to often people just mind their own business.

    As a foreigner in Japan, ithat's the surest way for you to spend 7 days in police cell and the perv to get Y200,000 of your money in compensation.

    Mind your own business and leave it to the locals, that's what they want you to do, so do it.

    Posted in: Guilty and never proven innocent – every male train rider's nightmare in Japan

  • -19

    Dog

    57 and in a nightclub!!!

    In Japan, he probably wouldn't have gotten through the door, guilt by nationality.

    Posted in: German resort island shaken over Japanese chef's murder

  • -1

    Dog

    nigelboyMay. 19, 2013 - 07:21AM JST

    Do you even know where the right wings groups are during those two dates and what they are protesting about?

    What are you smoking at this time of the morning, that's if you actually are in Japan? Where in my post do I even mention the right wing groups, fool?

    Posted in: Abe defends right to visit Yasukuni Shrine

  • -8

    Dog

    Rounding out the top 10 were:

    —No. 2, Sony, 43.2 % —No. 3, Honda, 39.5% —No. 4, Panasonic, 35.6%

    These three will be Chinese owned in the next 10 years.

    Posted in: Companies Japanese people are most proud of

  • -1

    Dog

    technosphereMay. 19, 2013 - 04:19AM JST

    Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Yasukuni shrine, so what? Many Japanese people do it every year, including my closest friend.

    I'm guessing here, but your friend is not a national politician of Japan and therefore not a representative of the state and of the collective people of that state, who by virtue of paying his salary, have a right to command certain behaviour, which is valid for the private citizen, is not acceptable by him/her, as long as they hold that public position.

    It's not rocket science.

    Posted in: Abe defends right to visit Yasukuni Shrine

  • 0

    Dog

    hidingoutMay. 19, 2013 - 01:50AM JST

    I've been in Japan a long time and I have never heard one person say anything remotely like that. This is precisely the kind of hyperbole that adds nothing to the discussion.

    Well, you're either living in a gaijin bubble or you don't speak Japanese, it's inferred all the time, especially on the annual Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing days. The whole ceremonial processes are about Japan living in the passive (things were done to Japan) and the active (Japan did things) is collectively forgotten.

    Because of this national amnesia we have the stupid comments from politicians, academics and institutions who should be educated to know better.

    Nobukatsu Fujioka, prof at Tokyo University. He co-authored The New History Textbook, which denies the Rape Of Nanking.

    Aso, the Deputy PM. 'The Japanese control of Korea was mandated by the League Of Nations, when the League Of Nations never existed and wouldn't for another 20 years.

    Yushukan, the museum at Yasukuni. 'Franklin D. Roosevelt had forced Japan to go to war in a calculated effort to lift the U.S. out of the Depression'.

    And what we dangerously have, if people don't tow the party line, thay are branded a traitor (for example the writer Katsuichi Honda) and they have to live their lives in danger of physical attack and constantly go around in public in disguise. The consensus of Japanese opinion on what the nation collectively did or didn't do between 1937-45, is so far off the radar, that there is not even the basis for any diaologue with anyone but themselves.

    Change should begin at Yasukuni. Either get rid off that monstrous excuse for a museum, Yashukan, or build a new national memorial for the war dead that does exactly what it should do, remember those who gave their lives for their country, and nothing else.

    Posted in: Abe defends right to visit Yasukuni Shrine

  • 1

    Dog

    KappNets2May. 18, 2013 - 10:33AM JST

    **You should realize that prostitution is born from poverty. **

    That's bull, look at Japan

    Posted in: Defiant Hashimoto says U.S. troops abused women during occupation

  • 7

    Dog

    kiyoshiMukaiMay. 18, 2013 - 10:22AM JST

    in the end Salaries were too high for exporting anything. Maybe now we can compete, now that we get 25% less money.

    40% of Japanese earn less than Y3,000,000 a year.

    14 million Japanese are employed on yearly contracts, with no benefits or bonuses.

    Salaries are too low in Japan, that's the real problem. 60% of the Japanese economy is domestic consumption and until the Japanese start to consume, exporting will resolve very little.

    Posted in: Abe outlines targets in latest growth strategy

  • -1

    Dog

    proxyMay. 17, 2013 - 10:06PM JST

    I know the world loves to dwell on Japanese crimes but how many men went to jail for sex slave trafficking in Bosnia?

    More than in Japan and they haven't, as yet, ended up being policymakers in the Bosnian ministry of education after the fact.

    Posted in: Defiant Hashimoto says U.S. troops abused women during occupation

  • 0

    Dog

    Thunderbird2May. 17, 2013 - 10:26PM JST

    American and French forces also gang-raped over 11,000 women in occupied Germany. ...............

    Personally I have always thought that there was something rather nasty about the US attitude towards the Japanese during the war, as if they saw them as sub-human. After all, US forces would call the Japanese monkeys for some reason, and the allied war effort was against Japan as a nation, unlike in Europe where the war effort was to defeat the Nazis.

    Advice, stick to Channel 2, they might understand your logic: Nobody else does.

    Posted in: Defiant Hashimoto says U.S. troops abused women during occupation

  • 1

    Dog

    Jordan LloydMay. 17, 2013 - 09:42PM JST

    Research it if you don't believe me

    That is HORRIFYING. Even a woman who had just given birth, they killed the child by throwing it. Throwing it. They also raped children. I don't want to have an outburst but I'm so enraged after reading that! How can the Americans claim to be innocent or "not that bad"?

    Sorry, but everyone quotes Dower as the Oracle and while I have a lot of respect for the guy and his previous work, War Without Mercy (by the way he really contradicts himself in both writings, by asking in 'War Without Mercy' why that such a brutal Pacific campaign had turned into such a paternalistic occupation? He concludes that the occupiers of the 3 main Japanese islands were not the same working class troops who had stormed Iwo Jima. The 3 main islands mainly got the Donald Keenes and it was only the Okinawans and Kyushans who had to accomodate the Pacific fighters), but 'Embracing Defeat' was his 'Stockholm Syndrome' moment for his wife.

    Posted in: Defiant Hashimoto says U.S. troops abused women during occupation

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