politics

Abe dissolves lower house, seeking mandate for 'Abenomics'

32 Comments
By Linda Sieg and Elaine Lies

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32 Comments
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"Japan is Back!" ..... in recession.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

With a mix of

government spending ... while moving ahead with plans to rein in Japan’s massive public debt.

Err ... basic logic - want to reduce debt, REDUCE spending. Not increase it. Or am i missing something Mr Abe?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

... and around we go again. Steps should have been in place from the very beginning to cut down on govt. spending. All's well as long as everyone's getting their kickbacks, right?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

“Unfortunately, the DPJ has not recovered to a point where we can say to voters, ‘Entrust the government to us,’” DPJ Secretary General Yukio Edano told a news conference. The Democrats were trounced in 2012 after three years in power."

Quite the 'battle' you have there, Shinzo. The main opposition party is admitting it is crap.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

A phalange (phalanxes) of constraints, both external and domestic, are holding down the economic upturn. There is a lot of unnecessary labor kept on the payroll.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

To use the song lyrics from "Frozen":

Let it go, let it go! Can't hold it back any more. Let it go, let it go! Turn away and slam the door. I don't care what they're going to say. Let the storm rage on. The cold never bothered me anyway.

Let them all GO HOME to RETIREMENT where they belong! SLAM the DOOR! (and lock it)

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Abe should be resigning to take responsibility for his failed policies instead of seeking a fresh mandate to continue them.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

Abe dissolves lower house, seeking mandate for 'Abenomics'

Ummmmm, your 'mandate' for Abenomics was getting elected. You have two more years. The people are against the 10% tax. That is your current mandate. Wasting money to get elected again will not change this, it will only waste more of our money. Abe, please wake up.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

“Unfortunately, the DPJ has not recovered to a point where we can say to voters, ‘Entrust the government to us,’” DPJ Secretary General Yukio Edano told a news conference.

What? Wasn't he told that he's supposed to just lie, anyway? Pathetic...

Edano said the DPJ wanted to give voters a choice between Abe’s “trickle down” policies that critics say favor the rich and big firms, and the Democrats’ “bottom up” strategy that focuses on the middle class.

They need some principles, coherent policies in accordance with them, and candidates who believe in it all. But they have none of this, and so one has to ask what have they been doing for the past two years besides sucking up tax payer funding?

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Actually, he is sticking it in the face of the Ministry of Finance.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

What a waste of tax payers money. voting for DPJ

2 ( +4 / -2 )

@DeDeMiura And to further that, after this election there'll just be more of the same...as in the Japanese lyrics to to "Let It Go"...."ありのまま"

3 ( +3 / -0 )

No mandate here if the voter turnout is under 40% again. Most Japanese people are worse off than 2 1/2 years ago.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Well Mr. Abe you have been to the summits of this world. Where do you feel at home most closely? Even marketwatch.com calls Jp politics contradictonary. Whats a samurai do do now.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

How predictable. Article babbles on about "hyper-easy monetary policy". No it isn't "hyper-easy", they buy bonds from people who bought bonds with, uh, the money. Effect is zero. Then we get talk about "Japan’s massive public debt", which is, uh, the money. Where else do you think it comes from? And of course, the media tries to claim "he plans to tackle unpopular policies such as restarting reactors that went off-line after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis". Cut and paste journalism 101. "You must always say the Japanese public is OVERWHELMINGLY OPPOSED TO NUCLEAR POWER in every article you write, if you want to keep your job"

1 ( +1 / -0 )

"Abenomics... failed policy"

Lessee... Japanese unemployment is 3.6%. In the U.S. and the U.K. it's about 6%, in Europe it's above 10%...

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

The whole thing is about time, the 60+ years of LDP politburo control by certain families needs to be retained as the North Koreans have shown their Japanese counterparts. Sickening absolutely sickening. By the way, how are the homeless from the "accident " in the north doing? The economy? Day to day life? I really wish Aba had an offspring I could vote for?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

We’ll make an all-out fight in this battle so that we all can come back here to resume our responsibility to make Japan a country that shines in the center of the world

First objective for a government is to work for its people, not to "shine in the center of the world". So old imperialistic short-sighted view!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Let's just say this is a rigged election. Abe and his so-called junior party coalition member Komeito reportedly have been making plans for this election since summer. As in the last election in which the LDP trounced its opposition, the party will depend on Komeito's main Soka Gakkai membership for a massive amount of votes. It the Soka Gakkai members do indeed act as puppets for their political leaders, they will support Abe all the way. It was reported in one Japanese-language magazine that at least 40 LDP members won seats in the Diet thanks to Soka Gakkai voters in the last big national election that put Abe back into power.

Therefore, if Abe wins with Soka Gakkai's support, there will be no vote on Abenomics ... and the outcome will actually be the result of a vote that is demanded by the leadership of Komeito.

So far the opposition seems to be in disarray. After watching via TV all the party leaders give speeches following the dissolution of the lower house today, I feel that they gave rather weak statements concerning their intentions in next month's election. They had better get their act together if they want to win lower house seats.

Hopefully, voters from throughout Japan will get their act together and think things over concerning their lives at this stage of Abe's second round as prime minister. Are they better off today than they were two years ago? That is what they should be voting on. Is Abenomics helping them? They should think this over carefully. Should they go on facing higher and higher prices thanks to Abenomics?

Anyway, I could go on and on ,.. but I think you, the reader, get the picture ...

0 ( +2 / -2 )

This so called election is no more than a charade. A one sided and ultimately unhealthy political mismatch. Called frankly on a dishonest premise to drive through unpopular policies on the back of a lame and dysfunctional opposition.

"We’ll make an all-out fight in this battle so that we all can come back here to resume our responsibility to make Japan a country that shines in the center of the world".

“Are our policies a mistake, or are they correct? Is there really any other way? Let us all win together”.....

Abe san certainly packs a powerful political punch, that you have to respect even through gritted teeth......

1 ( +1 / -0 )

And once again Abe claims that this is some kind of 'voice of the people election' when the majority CLEARLY said they don't want it. Only a complete and utterly arrogant fool would say s/he's doing this on behalf of the people, or that 'the people have decided' when the people have said they don't want it to happen, nor do they want the things he says were decided by them as a result. And here, just a couple of weeks ago, he was saying it's 'necessary for credibility', etc. etc., when now he has absolutely none.

Only in Japan.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

@edojin Yes, I agree. Unfortunately then we have to come with whether another political party has a plan, or the ability to pull off any plan to fix the problem.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The bottom Line big government spending does not help a deficit it just feeds more money into the debt. Government that allows free market to move will improve very rapidly. GOvernment choosing winners and losers by them picking who gets tax dollars only makes the special interests behind the leadership richer.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

We still have a month do go during nobody makes politics just mytics Mypolitics) well Abe from Yamaguchi is Doing and we are all watching

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

“Are our policies a mistake, or are they correct? Is there really any other way? Let us all win together,” Abe said, raising his fist to applause.

What childish hogwash. But I'll give Abe a clue -- his policies have been a mistake, a very costly one.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

fxgaiNOV. 21, 2014 - 05:27PM JST

"Edano said the DPJ wanted to give voters a choice between Abe’s “trickle down” policies that critics say favor the rich and big firms, and the Democrats’ “bottom up” strategy that focuses on the middle class."

They need some principles, coherent policies in accordance with them, and candidates who believe in it all. But they have none of this, and so one has to ask what have they been doing for the past two years besides sucking up tax payer funding?

Opposing. I don't think they fully understand that an opposition party is supposed do other things as well.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It seems there really is hiatus world wide political class of parasites and everyone else they sponge off of. Japan seems to be No different, politicians just refuse to realize raising taxes causes recession, most government spending causes recessions, government borrowing causes recessions and eventually all three cause inflation. Not that US politicians listen any better, But if japan want the recessions to turn around again, cut the tax back. If the debt and deficit spending is an issue, cut the deficit spending. But politicians and bureaucrats and those who are tied to this group are the greediest people on earth, they believe it is Ok to live off the backs of others and once you can justify being a parasite, you never consider giving the free ride up.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Shinzo Abe offers neo-liberalism while Yukio Edano proposes what? Not "trickle-up." It is not "trickle-up" when the spending is deficit financed. Real "trickle-up" would require a new national yen that is not borrowed into existence, but an ex nihilo currency from the government distributed to each Japanese courtesy of the Emperor so that the people of call classes can spend new money into existence together. In the 1920s and 30's there Japan showed interest in the social credit ideas of C H Douglas. Perhaps it is time for Japan to again review the assumptions of the Bank-of-England-Rothschild model of what money is and where it should come from and who should be the first spenders of it when it is new.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

"And once again Abe claims that this is some kind of 'voice of the people election' when the majority CLEARLY said they don't want it."

Wow, I can hear the teeth-gnashing all the way over here from China and North Korea where the people wish they could vote in an election.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Wow, I can hear the teeth-gnashing all the way over here from China and North Korea where the people wish they could vote in an election.

Lol.

It's another way of stating that they like the way it is but for the anti Abe crowd, they construe it completely differently.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Wow, I can hear the teeth-gnashing all the way over here from China and North Korea where the people wish they could vote in an election.

There are people in Japan who wish they could vote in Japanese elections. If they took a close look at the way Japanese elections work, though, they might realise that the Chinese and North Koreans aren't actually that much worse off in terms of how politicians get selected.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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