JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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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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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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TheQuestion
Isn't that an oxymoron? If it jails its political opponents, shuts down dissent, and tries to make itself president for life I don't see anything good about it.
I hope Chavez recovers and has a bizarre chemotherapy induced dream that inspires him to set up a rational plan for his transition out of power rather than waiting for him to croke and having the entire nation thrown into chaos. A smooth transition to a contemporary republic or democracy would be nice. But that’s about as likely to happen as a free election in Cuba.
Posted in: Chavez chemotherapy under way in Cuba
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TheQuestion
This is why I think the laws as to what constitutes a private establishment should be made a little more lax. After April 15 all I wanted to do was have a smoke and get served by beautiful women. Now I can't smoke and in many states and I'd have to go to a strip club because unless the servers are classified as 'entertainers' they fall under EEOC jurisdiction and may be subject to discriminatory lawsuits as several have in the past and the last thing I want is a Chippendales wannabe serving me my Kona brand coffee.
These cafes sound like a nice place to relax with a coffee and some good company, go for a few spins on the roulette wheel, and to light up at the owners discretion. There are so few places that can successfully combine sex appeal with class. I just hope the moral police don't succeed in try to save me from scantily clad women serving me coffee, I could think of worse fates.
Posted in: Vietnamese cafes in Calif too racy for some
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TheQuestion
GM as a whole? Aboslutely not. That would mean having to uphold it's labor contracts and every other poor decision it's made over the years. No, the company known as GM would cease to exist and it's assets, including car lines, would be sold off piece by piece in far more manageable chunks. I recall quite vividly the collapse of a few major banks back in the 1980's that everybody though would drive us into another depression but were torn apart by smaller banks even when credit was arguably tighter than it was during GM's fall.
Posted in: Fed divided over more stimulus as economy weakens
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TheQuestion
When FDR froze some of the programs it revealed exactly how artificial the growth was under the New Deal. The jobs, growth, and production were done in a vacuum that had no real impact in the economy overall and would never lead to lasting prosperity but rather would snowball into even larger programs needed to maintain the farce similar to what is going on now through the ever increasing debt and stimulus.
Ah yes, glorious life during WWII. If you weren't working long days in factories making tanks, ships, or guns you were off in a foreign land getting killed. The austerity measures were the icing on the cake, who wants butter, salt, meat, and milk with their meals anyway? I'm proud of the way we rallied around the war effort but it should, under no circumstances, be considered an economic planning point.
The only reason the U.S didn't crash and burn after WWII was due to the pent up demand for consumer products that were denied to them during the war that fueled a private sector surge than nobody expected. It was private interests that paved the way for the U.S's rise in the post war years with the only hiccoughs being government regulation of the labor force that stifle job creation to this day.
Typically in times of economic downturn people start asking for less compensation and businesses, in turn start hiring employees at competitive rates. Between the artificial jobs of the New Deal and the welfare nets that market was virtually nonexistent and stifled long term recovery that was only offset by the war.
Posted in: Fed divided over more stimulus as economy weakens
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TheQuestion
Ratings can only be based off of past performance. If we start speculating on the payment capacity or wealth we open ourselves up to even more subjectivity and corruption. Ratings change after decisions are made, not before. Moody's isn't my top choice and I've never relied on it as anything other than as a supplement to my other research but then they aren't meant to be used as an exclusive measure anyway.
Take it with a grain of salt. A review doesn't really mean anything and so long as they resolve the issue in some capacity before the default I highly doubt anything would happen.
Posted in: Moody's downgrades Ireland debt to junk status
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TheQuestion
It's not a measure of success or debt it's a measure of how likely that bond issuer is to pay on it's debt. The U.S, despite having massive debt problems, has never defaulted... well I take that back, it did miss a payment on about 120 million in treasury bills due to an technical error in 79 that caused the payments to go out a day or so late but the problem was quickly rectified. Point stands though, despite it's problems the U.S is still a dependable payer which is why it maintains a AAA rating.
In contrast the Greeks have put very real consideration to allowing their debts to default entierly. Ireland similarly has been so mismanaged though the European Central and it's own Central Bank that default is a very real possibility. The U.S's budget squabble is merely political and very few believe it will actually allow a default to occur.
So what do you use for investing purposes? Do you just pick a country or company that sounds good while ignoring their ability to make good on the debt? Using all information available is pivitol to sound investing strategy. If you want to disregard ratings, market indexes, and basic economic indicators feel free but I personally use every source of information I can get.
Posted in: Moody's downgrades Ireland debt to junk status
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TheQuestion
At those speeds there's going to be a mess. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those injuries were from bone fragments or other parts that came off from the impact.
Just legalize euthanasia. If you want to feel preachy you can even require psychological counseling but give them some out of the way place to do it. I'm tired of having traffic backed up when they jump off of a bridge, delays when they go in front of a train, and bystanders being endangered when they want a cop to off them.
Posted in: Woman jumps in front of express train; body propelled into station
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TheQuestion
That point is arguable. Between market reactions, the unemployment rate, and given how much of that money was wasted on pet projects the stimulus packages had very little real impact, the bailouts were actually counterproductive. They enforced the idea that we must save a company even if it is a failure resulting from unsound production and labor decisions. If GM had dissolved it's product lines were already ready to be purchased by outside and third party companies and while many of it's unprofitable lines would have gone under the majority of it's lines would have found new owners. The same goes for many of the banks and holding companies. Business does not operate in a vacuume, assets and losses need to go somewhere and they always do.
You mean that only a World War can end a serious economic downturn? Because most economists and historians now agree that FDR's plan actually artificially extended the Great Depression by several years. The only thing that saved the U.S economy in the long term was that the SC struck down large parts of the New Deal as unconstitutional. A better lessen would be learned from the depression of 1920 and how business leaders, lacking government support or stimulus, rallied knowing that if the U.S fell so did their businesses.
Posted in: Fed divided over more stimulus as economy weakens
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TheQuestion
It's a start. But you can only improve an old model so many times before it becomes pointless. I'd much rather see a new plant built with state of the art saftey systems already factored into the design instead of just adding or remodeling a few components.
Posted in: US panel says changes needed at US nuclear plants
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TheQuestion
Why? Its provides bond scoring and most of the time the information is useful. I won't defend their issues in the past but I will say that most of their ratings have been solid and while I don't use their findings exclusively in my investing it does provide another source of insight. Moody's analyzes risk and you don't have to listen to them anyway. Feel free to go out and buy Irish bonds.
Posted in: Moody's downgrades Ireland debt to junk status
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TheQuestion
But like most EU members it's banking and financial system is under the control of the European Central Bank and it's own Central Bank of Ireland which have been promoting unstable lending policies for years. This problem is similar to the mismanagment executed by the Fed but is more pervasive as it involves the economies of multiple nations and has been far more inflexible in it's responce to the financial crisis.
Posted in: Moody's downgrades Ireland debt to junk status
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TheQuestion
Ireland bonds are garbage and I don't know anybody that would see them as a safe investment, same goes for the rest of PIIGS. Moody's has dropped the ball enough to justify any amount of suspicion but even if you ignore their rating the market speaks for itself, the nations with the largest welfare systems are falling like dominoes and they're dragging the rest of the EU down with them.
The runaway borrowing was happening well before their credit took the hard plunge. Markets tend to lag more often than lead and the economic ruin of many European nations has been long in the making.
Posted in: Moody's downgrades Ireland debt to junk status
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TheQuestion
Unfortunetly the U.S is a mixed system. But more to the point jobs are a critical issue in this election cycle because we were promised that the massive bailouts, healthcare reform, and stimulus packages would create jobs, save money, and bring us out of the recession when, in reality, it has only set us on a stable course of decline. Scrap these failing government systems and start privatizing whole departments. The failures of government over the years have proved they have no idea how to provide oversight let alone stimulate.
Posted in: House, Senate leaders meet Sunday on debt talks
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TheQuestion
Any. We are at a turning point in human history where we can either allow ourselves to slow down as a society and stagnate while trying to preserve the oil we have or trying ot make due with inefficient renewables or we can surge forward. With consumption of energy on the rise we need poduction methods that can pace it and while renewable energy sources like geothermal, hydro, and others should be used where effective we will require something that can actually compete with oil as a future replacement for oil. The only one currently available is nuclear energy.
We need to kickstart research into nuclear energy, not shy away from it, so that we can build newer, safer reactors. Reserach cannot stop or even slow if we are to achieve the magnum opus of energy production, fusion power. Unless we want to grind to a halt not just as a society but as a species we need to make fusion energy this generation's moon landing. The only way to get there is by investing in nuclear research and using building nuclear reactors.
Posted in: Can a weakened nuclear industry survive its deadly repeating history?
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TheQuestion
Were that true we would have more nuclear plants going up ever year. As it stand construction of new plants has ground to a virtual standstill even before the japanese incident due in large part to oil and renewable energy companies cultivating public fear of nuclear power despite the fact it is the only cost competative replacement for oil as a means of energy production available on the market.
I WISH the nuclear producers had more sway as compared to other forms of energy production. It would fast track the viability of electric cars, reduce dependancy on foreign oil, reduce emissions, and generation IV reactors use nuclear waste from other plants as fuel which, in turn, produces waste that stabalizes in decades instea of millenia.
The idea of nuclear reactors is only frightening because we have been made to believe that meltdowns are a regular occurance when, in fact, they are an astonishingly rare event. The japanese event was by far the most economically damaging but even that pales in comparison to the gas line explosions, toxic spills, and pollution put out by gas and coal plants every year. Even renewables are not without their demons considering how much manufacturing, materials, and transportation is required to get them built and operational.
We need an energy plan that will carry us forward into a century that I can only hope will be as productive and revolutionary as they one we left behind. That cannot be accomplished without a potent mix of viable energy production models with nuclear power leading the charge.
Posted in: U.S. and industry rewrite nuclear history
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TheQuestion
I've got a bad feeling it's going to be a lot more than one. I'm a pretty good swimmer but even I'd have trouble swimming two miles to shore not accounting for currents and drift.
Posted in: Russia: 102 missing after boat sinks in river
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TheQuestion
It's a real shame that people are willing to allow old reactors to keep chugging along but won't comit to the fact that we need a drastic restructuring of our nuclear plants. The age of these reactors is unacceptable, we need to start replacing the old ones with newer plants with up to date systems. We also need to start moving nuclear technology forward toward generation IV reactors and making more strides towards the grail of energy production that is fusion power.
The 20th century had it's cold war and it's space race and they did the impossible. What we need now is an energy race because the first power that learns to harness fusion power will leave every other nation in the dust in terms of economic and social development. Because while solar energy sounds nice and everything I'd rather bypass the middleman and go directly to the source of the power.
Posted in: U.S. and industry rewrite nuclear history
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TheQuestion
It's old man stock, consistent returns and it weathered the economic downturn well.
I always have been. The idea that a governing body has any authority to dictate what a person may or may not ingest is ridiculous. Billions have been wasted in drug wars and keeping users and dealers in prison. They've spawned a culture of crime and corruption across the world from the drug cartels in mexico to the gangs in every major city in the U.S and the poppy fields in the middle east.
Posted in: Australia introduces tough new tobacco ad bill
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TheQuestion
Reuters is reporting 127 dead with 51 survivers, apparently initial reports of how many people were on the plane were understated. It was an old Boeing 727.
Posted in: Congo plane crashes; more than 50 dead
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TheQuestion
Launch is up and away without a hitch. Well done guys. Now I just hope we can get our act together and reignite the interest in the space program again. Leave the low orbit stuff to commercial interests start looking at mars and asteroids.
Posted in: Storms, lightning threaten final shuttle launch