JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
- RCS (RCSコーポレーション), Kanto
- Salary: ¥180,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month includes performance bonus
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- Assistant Language Teacher - TOKYO - late-March start
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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- Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
- Interac, Kanagawa
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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blaze524
OssanAmerica:
Since when is Japan "all of Asia". Was there an agreement between all the Asian nations to make Japan their representative?
Who said anything about "owning"? Clearly, you're making things up as you go along.
Posted in: China announces visit by Aso
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blaze524
Just a little an addendum to Taniwha's comment.
The IMF's structural adjustment policies have been disastrous in the majority of cases in which it has been forced upon a country. I say forced because these desperate countries have no one to turn to but the World Bank and IMF when things get dire.
In order to secure a loan from the IMF, the country must sign a contract that stipulates it will carry out the following conditions (among others):
1) Fiscal Austerity and focus on loan repayment - cut government spending meaning health care, education, and infrastructure investments are heavily reduced. What happens is people fall ill and have no safety net (health care) to fall back on. They can't work, lowering production and causing the country to be unable to service its loans. They are thus forced to sell at a loss. Additionally, a nation that is forced to sell it's natural resources for example timber loses out on the income multiplier effect. As a simple example, if instead of just selling the timber as is, the nation was to cut the timber, sell it to a furniture manufacture, who sells it to an exporter the money "multiplies" and travels across many hands.
2) Remove government subsidies to farmers Somewhat related to fiscal austerity is that farmers will receive no aid from the government but have to grow products that can be sold on the open market. The farmers that sell these products on the world market cannot compete with the commodities from Western nations, whom are heavily subsidized.
3) Focus on export driven growth, in the form of commodities - This means that you have to extract resources from your land and sell it on the open market at unsubsidized prices. Or grow a small number of crops (wheat, rice, corn etc) and sell that on the open market while competing with farmers from western nations, whom ARE subsidized.
4) Stabilize markets, raise interest rates and open up trade in order to spur foreign investment - These nations inevitably do not have the ability to house a proper stock market and high interest rates have the effect of discouraging borrowing from small businesses. In addition, capital flight is an enormous risk that could trigger market collapses (see the Asian Financial Crisis).
These conditions reinforce one another, leading to a vicious circle of futility. In comparison, during economic recessions (like now), no Western nation raises interest rates and cuts government spending because it would be suicide. And yet, this is exactly what the IMF expects a borrowing client to do. Also, farm lobby groups are among the most well entrenched special interest groups and are really the antithesis of free trade.
The fact that the head of the IMF, without exception has always been a member of the privileged class and Caucasian European causes understandable mistrust of the IMF by the developing nations.
Posted in: Developing countries want say in world finance
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blaze524
Taniwha:
US supremacy and hegemony, though arguably waning, is not dead. The US is still responsible for 49% (2008 figures) of the world's defense spending. This figure alone indicates that the US is in a constant state of accumulating new technology and replacing its old, obsolete hardware.
You state that the USSR's collapse contributed to the deterioration of its military hardware. Duh. This isn't really surprising. But the comparison isn't valid, because the US hasn't collapsed, yet. The irony of the economic crisis is that during periods of uncertainty, the US greenback is deemed a 'safe' investment.
Hence, the US will find the means to maintain its military spending (read: borrowing to buy guns) partly because it seems to be woven into America's fabric to have a strong military, but the other reason is that defense spending is responsible for a ton of jobs. And we all know how important those votes are.
Projection of power requires the ability to bring your soldiers and aircraft to any region of the globe. China still lacks this capability. The technology that China seems to be researching involve mainly submarines - including the rumoured Jin Class sub that is supposedly docked at Hainan Island - and is meant to combat these carriers. The recent incident in which the USS Impeccable was harassed by those fishing boats seems to support this theory. This is also what China means when they say their military expenditures are for "defense purposes."
I focus on the carriers because it is the symbol of American wealth and power and while many nations may have a competent air force, the overwhelming majority do not have the ability to transport their aircraft across the globe to carry out missions. Simply put, there aren't many nations that even have 1 carrier; the US in comparison has 12 carriers in service, 2 more than the rest of the world combined.
I'm not fawning at US technology, rather I am pointing out the inherent hypocrisy of a nation that is responsible for virtually half of the planet's military expenditures when it "questions growing Chinese military power".
Posted in: U.S. questions growing Chinese military power
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blaze524
It never ceases to amaze me how OssanAmerica can continually take a complicated issue and reduce it to black and white terms. Your approach with the constant, cheap one liners (which you no doubt think is clever) has all the nuance and subtlety of a sledgehammer.
I'm not even sure you understand what a serf is. The following is taken from Michael Parenti's article, available at: http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
"The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery."
This was the reality 95% of the Tibetans faced under Lamastic rule.
Like a good many other things, the Tibet issue consists of shades of grey. No, the CCP are not angels. But neither are they demons. Similarly, the lamas are not devout, pacifist Buddhists (and yes this includes the exalted Dalai Lama). They can be, and were militants, funded by the CIA (see link below) to conduct guerrilla warfare and generally be a thorn in the side of communist China. This is the reason for China's deep mistrust of the Dalai Lama.
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/02/world/world-news-briefs-dalai-lama-group-says-it-got-money-from-cia.html
Posted in: China marks 50 years of direct control over Tibet
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blaze524
Let's put this criticism in perspective.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, world military spending in 2007 breaks down thus:
"The USA is responsible for 45 per cent of the world total, distantly followed by the UK, China, France, and Japan each with 4 to 5 per cent of the world share."
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending
Yes, it is indeed a case of the teapot calling the kettle black.
I have a feeling this criticism is really coming from special interest groups that are eager to conjure up the next bogey man. They are building up their latest "enemy", endowing the enemy with all of this power and mystique, while downplaying the US's capabilities. This creates a scenario where despite a threat being really unlikely, it becomes in the minds of the US government to be existential and causes the US to spend ever more on defense.
Additionally, all of this nonsense about China being a "super power" is misleading. China may be an emerging economic super power, but militarily, they have a ways to go before they can carry that mantle. From a geopolitical perspective, the only one true super power in the world is and will be for the foreseeable future, the United States. This is because in order to be a true super power, a nation must first be secure at home, thus allowing it (if it chooses to do so) to project power overseas. With Canada to the North and Mexico to the South, the US is really in an ideal position to focus it's might overseas. Contrast this with China which shares a border with a host of nations, not many of whom can be termed "friends".
Secondly, Projecting powering requires naval and air supremacy. This is where the aircraft carriers come in. Last I checked, the US had a boatload of aircraft carriers (10+). China has 0 or close to 0 (I don't think the rusting Soviet made Varyag counts). China is only a regional power and will remain so until they build some carriers. It is therefore, in the US strategic interests if China does not get along with her neighbours, i.e. Russia, India etc.
Finally, the amount of defense spending cited in those figures is not an aberration; that is, it isn't a one time thing. The US consistently spends the most on defense. It has been that way for years now. It would take China a number of years to match the US's current capabilities, assuming of course that US defense spending stagnates.
Posted in: U.S. questions growing Chinese military power
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blaze524
The JT headline for this article is very misleading. It appears to connect two mutually independent events in chronological order i.e the suicide attack occurred because of US announcement of troop withdrawal.
Posted in: U.S. announces 12,000 troops to leave Iraq; suicide bomber kills 30 in Baghdad
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blaze524
Smith: You're welcome. As to your point about the two methods being complementary to each other, I don't think they are because the new methods are simply a better way of researching stem cells as it not only uses a patient's existing cells, but a type of cell that is abundant.
The other benefit of course is to remove the politics from the research and strip the pro-lifers of the ammunition needed to go on the warpath.
Posted in: Obama reverses Bush stem cell restrictions
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blaze524
While this is an encouraging development, this article is way behind the times when it comes to the current stem cell research environment. Despite, or rather in spite of the Bush administration's ban on stem cell research, various stem cell breakthroughs have occurred over the last 8 years. This research does not involve embryonic stem cells but rather taking a patient's existing skin cells and "reprogramming" i.e. getting the cells to undifferentiate so that they can be induced to specialize into various other cells (termed induced pluripotent stem cells).
I'm surprised that JT didn't pick up on this but it was a Japanese scientist that was instrumental in defining this new process, Shinya Yamanaka. From here, various other scientists took the baton and ran with it, including Dr. Douglas Melton from Harvard University. The most recent breakthrough by Canadian scientists is even more encouraging as it takes Yamanaka's research in another direction. While Yamanaka uses viruses in order to inject 4 genes into cells to get these cells to undifferentiate, Dr. Andras Nagy from the University of Toronto and his team found a way which is far safer.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090301.wstemcells0301/BNStory/Science/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090301.wstemcells0301
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/01/stem-cells-breakthrough
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1874717-1,00.html
Posted in: Obama reverses Bush stem cell restrictions
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blaze524
UnagiDon, that's some wacky paradox you got going there...=)
Posted in: What do you think society will be like 20 years from now?
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blaze524
TonyUS
As for your question....What did you think of the substituting the local Chinese children playing them off as Tibetan children for a show of show social harmony to the world? ---I thought it was a bad move. They should have used children from real ethnic minorities.
Posted in: Olympic opening uses girl's voice, not face
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blaze524
TonyUS First off, thanks for bringing the topic of Zhao Ziyang to my attention. I wasn't aware of that. So now you've answered one of my questions. Now what about the other 2 questions?
Now, your knowledge may or may possibly be profound, but your logic is certainly flawed. Read carefully: I don't live in a fantasy land. You're making the assumption that because I am defending the CCP, I must be part of the CCP propaganda machine and living in a fantasy land. This is quite a leap in logic seeing as how you don't know the first thing about me other than some comments I posted on a forum. And that is the reason why I asked Question #2. How are people that defend the CCP butt kissers? There are aspects of the CCP that are good. This isn't a case of the entire adminstration and all of its actions being evil and that the US is the force of good, bringing light to the darkness of the cave dwelling, unenlightened Chinese. In short, this isn't Lord of the Rings. You are the one that is making wild accusations. You need to prove that I am a CCP shill and you have practically zero evidence to back that up.
Its funny how you say you've spent many hours reading and understanding this topic, but you don't seem to understand basic English or a word of what I wrote. I have made this clear but you constantly ignore parts of my post. Now, let me say this for the third time and please do not gloss over this again -- I never once said that China did not oppress its people or that it should not be criticized for its transgressions. I don't deny that these things happen. I merely stated that these topics are unrelated to the story people are discussing. And yet you use ad hominem attacks by constantly pigeonholing me into the role of CCP apologist as a means to discredit my arguments.
"All is relevant when it comes to the topic of China because all that has went on in China has brought China to the way it is today and how it is seen today and that is a country that no one can trust." - that's the thing, we're not discussing China in general, but the decision by the director of an entertainment event to use one girl's voice and another girl's face. If the article was about human rights abuses in China, sure it would be fair game to bring in a host of topics. This has nothing to do with putting people in political re-education programs, human rights, or freedom of speech. What you are doing is spamming the forums with your opinions.
Posted in: Olympic opening uses girl's voice, not face
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blaze524
seansezso...kudos to you for pointing that line out. Can't believe I missed it completely.
Posted in: Olympic opening uses girl's voice, not face
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blaze524
TonyUS... Why don't you answer my questions and give me these facts of yours? I will pass them onto my neighbor's child and we'll put your theory to the test.
Failing that, you have once again demonstrated exactly what I discussed with you on the other board and that is using every single opportunity to bash China. I have stated that China has problems, it would be foolish and disingenuous to suggest otherwise. However, it would be nice if you could temperate your extreme rants with some balanced analysis. You go on the attack at the drop of a hat, bringing up issues that are wholly irrelevant to the article (notice I said article, and not irrelevant in general).
Posted in: Olympic opening uses girl's voice, not face
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blaze524
TonyUS So anyone that "makes an excuse" (aren't they providing another perspective?) is kissing the butt of the CCP? And I particularly love this gem:
"If we stood on all that nonsense then China would be no where were it is today because they would have had no incentive to make changes now or in the past, and the losers would be everyone including mainly the people of China"
Who's we? I did not realize that the Chinese are where they are today because "we" were critical to their success. What exactly did we do to merit such high praise?
I agree with you on one thing though, not everything is black and white, and can easily be explained away as "kissing the CCPs butt".
Posted in: Olympic opening uses girl's voice, not face
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blaze524
China is about as likely to attack Japan as Iraq was about to attack the USA. Nowadays, China is more capitalistic than socialist and Japan is an important trading partner. North Korea is not a threat either. Don't let the media reports fool you.
Posted in: Does the U.S. need to have military bases anywhere in Japan?
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blaze524
Precisely. It's like saying I lent you my microwave and so I have an interest in making sure that you don't misuse it. So now you have to give me access to your house by arranging for me a room to live in. It isn't really in your best interest to have me there.
Undecidedabout08: can you be more specific? Your comment doesn't address my question.
Posted in: Does the U.S. need to have military bases anywhere in Japan?
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blaze524
The short answer appears to be 'no'. What is the US protecting Japan from? It appears more likely that the military bases are just another way of asserting and maintaining US dominance, a modern form of imperialism.
Posted in: Does the U.S. need to have military bases anywhere in Japan?
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blaze524
WillB: Think about this for one second: if it wasn't a rhetorical question, would I really want to go on the JT forums to ask the readers for information? Wouldn't I say, Google it myself? Would I not go to the official sources?
Also, you haven't answered my question. I'm seeking a justification for the US's placement of military bases all over the world. The US has what - 700 to 1000 bases in over 150 countries. Why?
Posted in: U.S. Navy warns of possible radioactive leak from nuclear sub in Sasebo, Okinawa
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blaze524
It was a rhetorical question.
Posted in: U.S. Navy warns of possible radioactive leak from nuclear sub in Sasebo, Okinawa
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blaze524
Can anyone tell me why the US is allowed to have military bases all over the world?
Posted in: U.S. Navy warns of possible radioactive leak from nuclear sub in Sasebo, Okinawa