JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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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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- 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*
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Seiharinokaze
Well, I believe Japan began to fight mainly to stave off the Soviets invasion of the Far East. As for Manchukuo, they had already grabbed Primorsky Kray from China and tried to expand it hadn't they. Shouldn't the pot call the kettle black.....or red?
I think Mr. Lavrov is sending a sign that they are willing to provide Japan with oil and LNG when the U.S. screws up Japan about oil embargo from Iran.
Posted in: Japan, Russia to boost economic, security ties
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Seiharinokaze
So they want to have Japan buy the bonds issued by the European Financial Stability Facility so that money brokers can continue buying and selling CDS (a kind of life insurance) to make more profits without killing the insured nor the insurers. Noda-san is an easy mark in beautiful contrast to the leaders of China and Switzerland.
Posted in: Eurozone crisis biggest threat to world economy, Noda tells Davos forum
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Seiharinokaze
Sorry, not delation but deflation. Though Japan's total public debt is estimated at 1,024 trillion yen, it has 500 trillion yen of assets, of which, except for 150 trillion yen of tangible assets that cannot be liquidated instantly, 130 trillion are securities and bank deposit and the remaining 250 trillion are loans and funds invested to quasi-government corporate bodies that can be liquidated to reduce the public debt substantially if you have the will to f*** the mind of bureaucrats. Is the IMF chief aware of it or does she say so deliberately? FYG Japan is also the greatest creditor nation in the world (563 trillion yens) as opposed to America the greatest debtor nation.
Posted in: IMF's Lagarde calls for Japan, U.S. debt cut targets
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Seiharinokaze
The FRB has decided to adopt an inflation target of 2%. And they will keep the zero interest rate policy for another two years and if necessary increase money supply through buying TB and RMBS. Whereas the BOJ has been shiftless being admissive of delation and the Finance Ministry also knows little more than hiking sales tax which will only dampen domestic demand and draw out deflation leading to a further drop in revenue.
Posted in: IMF's Lagarde calls for Japan, U.S. debt cut targets
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Seiharinokaze
Mr. Takahashi Yoichi, a dropout bureaucrat says referring to a chief economist of IMF that the job to set the national finance in order should not be a sprint game but a marathon, it will take more than 20 years to reduce national debts to a proper level. Slow but steady wins the race. It's senseless to urge Japan which has been plagued with deflation and slack economy for years and newly stricken by a natural disaster to raise consumption tax. It's like asking a seriously injured person to donate his blood. What Japan should do now is to increase money supply and raise the nominal GDP. Appropriate macroeconomic measures will increase tax revenues and as a result dispense with sales tax increase. At the same time dispose of those quasi government corporate bodies swarming with bureaucrats like termites that dissipate 12 trillion yen of tax money annually, which is just as much as will come into revenue by 5% sales tax increase. Don't be fooled easily out of our money by Noda and his mastermind the Finance Ministry.
Posted in: IMF says Japan should raise consumption tax to 15%
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Seiharinokaze
While being unsure how you can sort out bank notes according to how you got them, I wonder what kind of crime it constitutes if he has the money at hand which the prosecutors couldn't prove contains slush funds after all their in-depth investigation (now they know Ozawa's financial record in more detail than anyone else). Even though prosecutors had acquitted Ozawa two times, the prosecutorial inquest panel that consisted of citizens judged it proper to indict him "forcibly" based on the document the prosecutor prepared by asking Ozawa's secretary. But it was brought to light at the trial last December that the document included what was fabricated by the prosecutor himself. And also a former prosecutor Maeda testified at the trial what seemed to clinch the whole argument. He said that prosecutors didn't make an official document of any facts which didn't support their assumption and they stored them as "confession memos" in a word processor in their PCs and they didn't provide the inquest panel with those inconvenient data which might have altered their judgement on the appropriateness of Ozawa's prosecution. In other words, it's as if prosecutors let the inquest panel do what they could not legally by themselves. Maeda said that if he were a judge, he would acquit Ozawa. Why doesn't the mass media elaborate on this instead of emphasizing the unusualness of keeping one's own money at hand?
Posted in: Ozawa: Nothing unusual about keeping Y400 mil in cash at home
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Seiharinokaze
Bubble economy started as a result of the cheap money policy that the BOJ took as countermeasure for the strong yen recession that started after the Plaza Accord. Money was supplied in abundance and big companies began to invest their excess money or what they could borrow at low interest from banks. Everybody was at "zaitech". And the bubble burst and the huge speculated money vanished (er.....where?). To cover up the loss, Olympus consulted with stockbrokers who taught them the knowhow. And they paid some 3 billion yen by way of remuneration to the stockbrokers and another 3 billion plus to bankers of foreign banks which financed the investment funds they set up to buy the below par financial instruments from Olympus. And just the day before the former Brit president stepped down, Goldman Sachs sold short Olympus shares and gained 2 billion. So it seems financiers always have an eye to the main chance anyway. I hope the top-rated company will not be taken over when its stock price is sagging.
Posted in: Olympus sues 19 current, ex-board members for Y16.54 bil in damages
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Seiharinokaze
Viewers tend to pay attention to the last performer (Otori), but true, SMAP can make the air in the music hall warm and happy. Poor and awkward singers make us at ease and close to them.
Personally I was impressed by Yumin's stage. She looked strained(how could she have a stage fright?), but her singing "Haruyo koi (Roll on, Spring!)" with her bit quirky tremulous voice struck a tender chord I believe for many people, particularly those of my age. Her pink Yuzen kimono also looked good (it didn't look like a stage costume) and perhaps very expensive. Shiina Ringo was also impressive. I didn't notice that she is such a pretty singer (really the same person?) And Ishikawa Sayuri singing Tsugarukaikyo in a whirling confetti has almost become a fixture on the night sending off the old year. Yes, I also think it was one of the best Kohaku's.
Posted in: SMAP garners highest audience rating during 'Kohaku Uta Gassen'
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Seiharinokaze
Economic sanctions can lead to war. Japan knows it. Sanctions on the central bank of Iran that makes them unable to export oil and get paid is tantamount to the ultimatum. Notwithstanding Israel's nuclear development with or without its membership to NPT, the U.S. and U.K. seem to be only ready to go to war with Iran. Being a proud nation with a remote memory of conquering the ancient superpower Babylonia and arduous fervor for the manifestation of Imam, Iran may take up the gauntlet though stupidly. It's more than just a jump in oil prices and inflation worldwide. They may also aim to bail out the sovereign debt crisis in EU by wartime economy. Looks gloomy indeed. Japan might as well say to them that the inevitable war should not become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Heck, you can do without Megiddo. But actually what Japan can do is just being noncommittal by wriggling out of any undertaking.
Posted in: Japan refuses to stop Iranian oil imports
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Seiharinokaze
The issue was a non-issue when the treaty of 1965 was concluded. But later South Korea began to say it's a sex slavery and demand for formal apology and compensation from the Japanese government. Actually the South Korean government paid money as "life support money" to South Korean comfort women who didn't (want to) receive money from the Asian Women's Fund which the Japanese government set up to compensate for the comfort women. But the money the Fund paid to the women was not disbursed by the Japanese government but donated by the people nationwide and abroad. So the Koreans regarded it as private donation and not formal compensation from the state of Japan. But the Japanese government cannot pay from its national coffer since they didn't pay anything to Japanese comfort women. Nor anybody has asked for it either. Does Lee Myung-Bak know the background and still pursue the matter?
Posted in: S Korean president urges Japan to compensate Korean wartime sex slaves
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Seiharinokaze
Sorry, should read, "be compensated" eaqually.
Posted in: S Korean president urges Japan to compensate Korean wartime sex slaves
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Seiharinokaze
It always puzzles me how nobody suggests that Japanese comfort women who accounted for 60 percent of the comfort women and worked almost in the same condition are compensated.
Posted in: S Korean president urges Japan to compensate Korean wartime sex slaves
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Seiharinokaze
Isn't what Albert Wedemeyer and Hamilton Fish (Tragic Deception) and Herbert Hoover (a new book on him Freedom Betrayed published recently) claimed in their lifetime as real witnesses worth listening to at least with an open mind?
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v11/v11p495_Manion.html http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Betrayed-Herbert-Aftermath-PUBLICATION/dp/0817912347
Posted in: U.S. marks 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor
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Seiharinokaze
The ambassador in Japan Grew sent a telegram to the Secretary of State on January 27, 1941. He mentioned the possibility that Japan would attack Pearl Harbor. FDR may have at least closely watched Japan's movements. Seeing as the radio communications between Tokyo and the Japanese Ambassador to the United States up to the war were decoded completely, I think America's surveillance capacity was far from crude.
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&id=FRUS.FRUS193141v02&entity=FRUS.FRUS193141v02.p0199&q1=Grew
Posted in: Did FDR conceal Pearl Harbor intelligence about Japanese attack?
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Seiharinokaze
As the U.S. kicked the Kyoto Protocol after signing it, Japan will perhaps leave the TPP in the end. Lifting the nontariff barriers means for one thing that the U.S. has the nerve in the name of it to ask Japan to provide ecological technology to the U.S. auto makers so that their cars can be put on the market here. Rhetoric of being on an equal footing sounds rather expedient. Don't be swayed by some honeyed praise and missing-the-bus mentality.
Posted in: U.S. praises Japan for entering Pacific trade talks
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Seiharinokaze
Well, I don't mind Yoshinaga Sayuri singing, say, "Yuki-arumono" on the stage, maybe not a bad song for this year. Getting a bit tired of Ishikawa Sayuri's "Tsugarukaikyo" every year. And I would be surprised if Fuji Keiko appears on the stage with her daughter Utada Hikaru as the singing match for Maekawa Kiyoshi instead of the conversation piece of Seiko, Sayaka and Go Hiromi. I like flumpool's main vocalist's voice that sounds unaffected and strong like Fujiwara Motowo's. But I prefer Megaryu to Funky Monkey Babies. FMB's song lyrics sound rather preachy.
Posted in: NHK announces lineup for 'Kohaku Uta Gassen' on New Year's Eve
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Seiharinokaze
I think people go to more chic hotels rather than love hotels on Christmas Eve. And what concerns Japanese, particularly women, is not if it's Christmas minus Christ but if it's not a "Christmas minus someone special." They self-deprecatingly call themselves "refugees on Christmas (Eve)" and "refugees on the New Year's Eve (Ohmisoka nanmin)" who have no one to be with on the year-end and new year season. Often they get together and feast themselves a hot-pot dinner to beguile their loneliness and while away the time. That's a Japanese rendering of Christian salvation.
Posted in: Christmas minus Christianity
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Seiharinokaze
Consumption tax hike is not for rebuilding Tohoku region. They already proposed a separate "restoration tax" on income for Tohoku. Consumption tax hike is nominally for pension and fiscal balance.
Ozawa criticizes the Finance Ministry and its puppet DPJ government after Kan's which try to raise sales tax on the pretext of the above two reasons when they never rethink about giving much subsidies (12 trillion yen) to numerous meaningless administrative corporations (4600 of them!) to which bureaucrats "descend" and revolve around one after another while getting an enormous salary and retirement allowance. The State budget, Ozawa says, is an estimation of costs by each ministry that wants to take as much as possible from the national coffer. It's what bureaucrats drafted with their ulterior motives in mind. Politicians' job therefore is to sort out what's necessary from what's not and prioritize. Raising tax should be the last resort after implementing every other means. But such politicians are abhorred and being deliberately put out of the way.
BTW, in this age of declining birthrate, children will get almost what their parents have. Present younger have-nots are not necessarily lifetime poor in terms of assets.
Posted in: Ozawa criticizes Noda for consumption tax hike plan
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Seiharinokaze
To paraphrase what Kamei thunders forth, the TPP is America's tactics to prevent Postal Revisal law from being established and help AIG snatch the funds collected in the postal life insurance (Kampo) and the mutual benefit society (Kyosai). So wait and see for the time what will happen to the sellers and buyers of the CDS (derivatives) for the sovereign bonds of EU countries while dallying with a new party idea or something.
Posted in: Kamei looking to form new political party to counter DPJ
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Seiharinokaze
What's hammered out by FTA between South Korea and the U.S. is, for instance, an exemption of imported American cars from such obligations as exhaust gas emission measurement system and safety standard certification in the S. Korean market. Also tax concessions on small cars were revised and they were newly given to large cars to suit American cars. Likewise the TPP will probably regard the tax concessions now available on ecological cars in Japan as "barriers to entry" and have them abolished for unecological cars. Fraternal insurance by mutual aid associations might also be pointed out as a kind of non-tariff barrier along with the universal medical insurance system and will be replaced by private life/medical insurance. International investors' interests are basically prioritized over the safety and welfare of the state and people as per the notorious ISDS (Investor-state dispute settlement clauses). I doubt the TPP will make our society any more livable and symbiotic. And I predict Noda will lose office leaving the whole issue outstanding. A Japanese way of resistance against the empire.
Posted in: Noda says Japan will enter discussions toward joining TPP talks