The 1,000 Trillion Yen Cuntry

[Russell]

Japan National Debt Escalates

Japan’s national debt has topped 1,000 trillion yen, official data showed Friday, a record figure that underlines Tokyo’s struggle to curb its huge borrowing.

The figure supplied by the finance ministry of 1.008 trillion yen by the end of June amounts to about $10.42 trillion at current exchange rates.

Tokyo has the dubious distinction of having, proportionately, the biggest debt pile among industrialised nations, more than twice the size of its economy.

The lion’s share of that debt is from long- and short-term Japanese government bonds, as well as other borrowing.

The staggering figure, about 1.7% higher than the previous quarter, comes a day after Japan pledged to slash its budget and get spending under control.

Japan has not faced a public debt crisis like the kind seen across the debt-riddled eurozone, largely because most of its low-interest debt is held domestically rather than by international creditors.

But the International Monetary Fund and others have issued warnings about Tokyo’s ever-increasing borrowing, after a series of sovereign credit rating downgrades in recent years.

This week, the IMF called on Japan to adopt a “credible” fiscal plan to repair its books, including raising sales taxes to generate new revenue.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government is mulling whether to go ahead with a series of sales tax rises that would double the rate to 10% by 2015, a key source of new income but one that some fear would stall his economy-boosting plan dubbed “Abenomics”.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

When is the mainstream media going to report on the failure of conservative fiscal policies like Abenomics? There's not a single case of success among the Third-World style economic policies adopted by much of the Western world over the past three decades or so.
Much of the Japanese workforce is now comprised of temporary workers. Why the fuck would people on this form of employment think of consumer spending when they may not have a job next month (yet still be required to make payments based on the old economy)?
Until ordinary people are given some semblance of protection in the economy, it's never gonna get better. Massive debt is only going to make it worse....(but Japan's borrowing isn't really debt; it's payback for letting business run free during the economic miracle. They'll clear this by wiping out all those massive fortunes mums and dads have been squirreling away at 0.0002% interest by sparking inflation).

[Mike Oxlong]

Japan defends Abe's 'Gordon Gekko speech' on Wall Street

Japan's top government spokesman on Thursday defended a speech by the Prime Minister in which he compared the career of the fictional Wall Street titan-turned-criminal Gordon Gekko with his own country's economic resurgence.


Shinzo Abe's address to the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday -- which touched on everything from hot dogs and sushi to baseball and US heavy metal rock band Metallica -- repeatedly mentioned the anti-hero of the 1987 film "Wall Street".

"Today, I have come to tell you that Japan will once again be a country where there is money to be made, and that just as Gordon Gekko made a comeback in the financial world... so too can we now say that 'Japan is Back'," Abe said.

The Oliver Stone-directed film portrays Gekko as a corporate raider who is ultimately sent to prison on insider trading charges and other securities violations. His memorable line that "greed...is good" became a popular symbol of 1980s excess.

Actor Michael Douglas, whose performance netted him an Academy Award, reprised the role in the 2010 sequel "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" which chronicles Gekko's release from prison and subsequent redemption.

"What the Prime Minister wanted to say the most was that 'Japan is Back'. And in the sequel, Gordon Gekko was redeemed, wasn't he?" top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

Suga was responding to questions about why Japan's leader had cited a cinematic convicted criminal as an inspiration for a policy blitz aimed at reviving the country's long-limp economy.

Abe noted that the original film a quarter-century ago portrayed Japan as an economic powerhouse, while in the sequel "the investors that appear are Chinese -- Japan is conspicuous only in its absence", reflecting its two-decade slide...

[Coligny]

Leaving this here...

http://www.cracked.com/article_18966_5- ... es_p2.html

Somebody should forward to the bloody bunghole guy...

(...) See, Gekko was supposed to be a villain, and you were supposed to hate him! He was a caricature of the "greed" culture of the 80s, a cartoonishly evil human-shark. (...)