JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Financial Advisor
- Select Asset Management KK, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥100,000 ~ ¥999,999 Paid Training Commission Based
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- Corporate Business English Trainers
- ACT Systems, Inc.（株式会社アクト・システムズ）, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥269,500 ~ ¥280,000 / Month
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- 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
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GJDailleult
Yeah right. The New York Post is a Murdoch outfit, and the Drudge Report is, uh, the Drudge report. If you are going to post right-wing cliches can you at least stick to articles where they might actually fit.
Posted in: Shirtless images of Obama cause stir online
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GJDailleult
But Ponzi schemes are, and Nomura is the victim of a Ponzi scheme. Simple.
Posted in: Nomura: $306 million exposed in Wall Street Ponzi scheme
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GJDailleult
Seems from the posts here that many Obama supporters were unaware he was relatively young and inexperienced. Apparently their handholders in the MSM didn't tell them, and they weren't on the ball enough to notice for themselves. Well I am a bit surprised by all that. I thought the "Americans vote the way they do because they are stupid" argument was a sign of out-of-touch with the common man, left-wing, intellectual elitism, and/or general Euro-wussiness. Now I see Republicans are making the same argument. Did something change????
Posted in: Obama faces heady challenges, and they're growing
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GJDailleult
Nice to see you read the article before posting. "In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt." Great, insult all Iraqi men, yeah that will get them on your side! On the other hand, maybe he just couldn't find any flowers, so he used his shoes instead.
Posted in: Bush dodges shoe protest during visit to Iraq
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GJDailleult
He has no experience of running anything. Obviously running a campaign to get yourself elected president of the USA is nothing compared to the challenges of sitting in a box seat watching baseball games night after night. However, on the bright side, he has no experience of running anything into the ground either.
Posted in: Obama faces heady challenges, and they're growing
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GJDailleult
A cynic would say the Senate knew this was coming.
Posted in: White House readies rescue for U.S. auto industry
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GJDailleult
smithinjapan- Two separate issues here I think. One is long term, how to rebuild the US (and Canadian!) car industries. If that is the issue then SuperLib and others have some good points. Two is short term, you have two companies who say they need billions in the next few months to survive, and a third in almost as bad shape. And if one goes under, they all will, because one bankruptcy will likely wipe out their parts suppliers. Fixing issue one is not going to happen in time to affect issue two. Whether they should be allowed to go under or not, that's another question. But the solutions talked about here will be too late in any case.
Posted in: U.S. auto bailout deal collapses over union wages
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GJDailleult
Been a lot of "government should not interfere in the markets" comments on this site recently. Well, you got your wish. But as they say, be careful what you wish for, it might come true.
Posted in: Japan stocks tumble on failed U.S. auto bailout
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GJDailleult
I don't disagree SuperLib. You could even argue that the financial pressures led to more short-term thinking, like producing the gas guzzlers that had always made money in the past and so were safe. I am just saying that now the problem is much more than just the cost structure. Fix that and you still have the main problem. Doesn't matter if you pay your workers $5 an hour or $50, if nobody wants what you are selling you will go bankrupt, just a question of how fast. (And I don't mean that NOBODY wants their products, that is just to explain what I mean).
Posted in: U.S. auto bailout deal collapses over union wages
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GJDailleult
Even if you got rid of all wage and other disadvantages that posters above are talking about, you would still have the much bigger problem of falling market share for the Big3. And that is caused by other factors. Even if the UAW caved in and the playing field was level with Japan, how does that solve the problem of getting more people to buy their products?
Posted in: U.S. auto bailout deal collapses over union wages
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GJDailleult
Not much choice when they are now down to 8 teams and 16 cars. Have to have cars on the track.
Posted in: F1 plans to scale back spending
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GJDailleult
Good article on NYT website "$73 an Hour: Adding It Up". Key points are that the cost of benefits for retirees are $15 an hour (as part of the hourly wage), and that labor costs make up only 10% of the cost of producing a vehicle. Writer concludes the Big3 in their present form are pretty much toast with or without a bailout package.
Anyways, it will be interesting to see exactly what demands the UAW refused to accept. As it stands now, the decision doesn't look too bright.
Posted in: U.S. auto bailout deal collapses over union wages
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GJDailleult
herefornow-good points about equal footing. Add to that health care costs, which are said to be about $1500 a car for the big three. Americans can blame whoever they want - the companies for entering into such disadvantageous labor contracts, or the bad, evil people at the UAW (what's with this getting paid to make things nonsense anyways, why weren't they out there doing a real job like flipping real estate or trading credit-default swaps?). And I don't care if they are for universal health care or against "socialized" medicine. The point is the don't have it, and so health care became part of the pay package. The Japanese government never put the Japanese automakers in a position where they could make the same mistake. And how much you want to bet Mr. Welch is against "socialized" medicine?
Posted in: Angry Ford dealer in South Carolina blasts Japanese imports in ads
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GJDailleult
What a surprise. Another obsessive anti-government nutter. Wouldn't mind some tax incentives though. Guess he missed a few sermons at the Church of the Holy Free Market. Incentives would distort the market! Blame the Congress, blame Japan, blame car buyers, blame everybody except Ford and the guy stuck with a Ford dealership in 2008 because he didn't see any of this coming.
Posted in: Angry Ford dealer in South Carolina blasts Japanese imports in ads
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GJDailleult
I smell a trap!!! Don't fall for it.
Posted in: Bush defends his record of using military might
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GJDailleult
HeathenCabin- you may be surprised that I agree with your last comment, but don't quite get how you think the US government was to blame. Clearly it was the management of the financial and mortgage companies (ie. Countrywide) who were taking advantage of the credit expansion to cook their books and boost their stock prices, and then cash in their shares and stock options. Relevance to this topic being that the Big3 were also in on the game, their business model becoming based on financing car sales rather than making and selling cars, and when the bubble burst they had to go begging for handouts. The government allowed and/or, as you say, induced the bubble in order to create the illusion that all was well with the economy. If you are right and it was induced, seems you should be arguing for better government not less government. Just because government is bad, it doesn't logically follow that having no government is good.
Posted in: Congress sends White House auto industry bailout proposal
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GJDailleult
And you have nothing to back that up except your ideology. But hey, it is your country, too bad you are not in charge. Having the US government do nothing would be a fun experiment.
Posted in: Congress sends White House auto industry bailout proposal
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GJDailleult
You mean it can get more horrendous than this??? As usual on JT, people making the point that government intervention is bad for a free market economy. Well, the idea that excessive intervention and damaging policies are bad is accepted by everybody, the difference is in how you define excessive. But I fail (as usual) to see how all that is relevant to this issue. The idea that government intervention can damage a free-market economy has nothing to do with the question of what a government should do when companies have screwed themselves all on their own, and the free-market economy itself has been damaged. Not saying the "No" side is wrong, just how about some better reasons for saying no.
Posted in: Congress sends White House auto industry bailout proposal
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GJDailleult
rgetty-you could add the health care subsidy and the unpaid overtime subsidy to your list of advantages that the Japanese companies have over the American companies.
I have no idea what to say about the Krugman reference though!!!
Posted in: Obama suggests some auto execs should lose jobs
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GJDailleult
Considering that the USA elected a president of German extraction just eight years after D-day (for which he was the Supreme Allied Commander of course) you have a point. Don't think much was ever made of his being a German-American, while 67 years later a point is still being made about someone being a Japanese-American. Of course, that might just be because the USA-Japan relationship is a lot more complicated than the ones with Germany and Italy, and has a lot more baggage. Germany never attacked Kansas for starters.
And for what it is worth, I am with Timorborder on this one. Brilliant execution isn't much good if it is part of a strategic failure. I also think that thinking of WW2 as a strategic failure from the start helps to explain a lot about Japanese actions and attitudes, both then and now. But I am not daft enough to try and explain what I mean by that on Japan Today!
Posted in: Pearl Harbor ceremony focuses on U.S. response to Japan's attack