BoJ has already bought an estimated $90 billion in the first 7 months of this year trying to prop up the US Peso (and keep Yen cheap). It's failed, though - "Yen Has Biggest Two-Week Gain Against Dollar in Almost 5 Years" at: http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=as5zxahq2DjQ&refer=home
But that kind of ammo is worth infinitely more than any number of Polish or Spanish bullet catchers.
But the subject line should be of greatest concern: Ghosts of war criminals past now boss the LDP in the person of Shinzo Abe, Koizumi appointee. More info below in the latter half of an exchange with "the repulsive Januzzi": ----------- Been busy dodging job bullets...
Charles Jannuzi wrote:
>
> The reason the G7 made Japan the focus and not the US's cheap dollar policy
> the focus may not have one reason. US and European private equity
> interests--linked to huge financial firms like Goldman Sachs in some cases
> (there is nothing comparable in Asia)-- want to buy up distressed bargain
> Asian assets of all sorts--the companies that make things for other
> companies, companies that make things, real estate, insurance assets,
> banking assets etc. So they really want to see an industrial hollowing out
> of S. Korea, Taiwan and of course Japan. It's the next step in global
> evolution for these economies to take their place in the order of things.
> That is how the interests behind Lone Star, Cerberus and Carlyle Group (and
> France's Paribus) think.
Must have got that off of Asia Times? Well, here's an article that coorelates (ignore the neo-"liberal" spin):
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/EI23Dh01.html
On the political front, this is an onimous sign of the very reactionary character of the Koizumi government as it consolidates its power post Sept. 20th:
"No time was wasted savoring victory on Saturday. Koizumi's first move: stack the party leadership, which had foiled his agenda in the past, in his favor. His
choices surprised many, but showed the same sort of careful thinking that won him the party election.
As LDP secretary general, the prime minister chose a very popular, savvy (and sober) 49-year-old Shinzo Abe, who as one writer put it "knows just how tough the political world is". This is really young for the upper ranks of the political world, especially since Abe is only in his third term. But it is never
too soon to be groomed as a future prime minister, even if it's a diversion on Koizumi's part. "
"There is no shortage of prime minister wanna-bes to take over when Koizumi's two-term limit is reached in 2006. Shinzo is perfect. His father, Shintaro, a well-known foreign minister, died in 1991 before reaching the prime minister's post. Shinzo Abe took over the family seat in the southern Honshu prefecture of Yamaguchi - an LDP stronghold - backed by an iron-willed political mom, the daughter of the legendary postwar co-founder of the LDP and named war criminal, Nobusuke Kishi."
"I inherited more DNA from my grandfather than from my father," he says.
"Last year, he was named deputy chief cabinet secretary and won praise for a tough stand on the issue of Japanese abducted to North Korea (the big issue in Japan). Meanwhile, Koizumi put an anti-Koizumi faction leader and a member of a pro-Koizumi faction in the other key posts."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/EI23Dh04.html
--------------
Abe's self described 'political DNA' lineage is highly symbolic: War criminal Kishi was the Prime Minister (late 50's) who rammed through the US-Japan Security Treaty ("AMPO" == 'security' 'defense', the full name is a few
kanji longer), and thereby provoked the greatest political crisis of postwar Japan: the AMPO uprising and mass siege of the Diet building in Tokyo (1960). Kishi's LDP attacked the besiegers with armed yakuza gangs, among other things, and eventually broke the siege and got AMPO passed by illegal and undemocratic means, but Eisenhower had to call off an official visit in the midst of the crisis, and the Kishi government soon fell thereafterward.
Kishi fell quite likely with the assist of Washington, who was shocked into backing a more liberal government in Tokyo. (Ah, those were more "progressive" times!) This was the crucial turning point in Japan's postwar development, as the new government launched the "Income Doubling" plans that launched the sort of dynamically expanding economy Japan became famous for.
It is a telling sign to the present government's political complexion that the new LDP Sec. General (basically top Party boss, a kind of "Stalin" position where you can determine party personnel) deliberately harkens back to the miserable days before Japan became a global economic power. It's what I call one of these narrow "far right executives" like that of Berlusconi (Italy) and Aznar (Spain) that have aligned themselves with the Bush Gang. (Characterization does _not_ include Blair, an entirely different case - but Britian is a parlimentary dictatorship based on customary usage in any case).
Of the three, though, the Japanese "Koizumi Executive" is by far the most crucial for the U.S. My point is this: The "Coalition of the Willing" is nothing without Koizumi!
It is not for nothing that every U.S. Administration in the past has routinely referred to the U.S.-Japan relationship as the #1 strategic relation for the U.S. in the world.
But few seem to pay attention to this detail.
-Brad
PS: You may be right about those tank treads - they call it "wear", I'd guess you'd call it crap:
Signs Show U.S. Underestimated Iraq War http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030926/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us_military_1
"_ Wear on tank treads and vehicle tires that has far outpaced the Army's ability to resupply them. Treads that normally are replaced once a year are wearing out in two months. Asked whether war planners had anticipated such heavy work for U.S. ground troops this long after the war, Gen. Paul Kern, the Army's materiel chief, said, "Some did, some didn't." " -- /**********************************************************************/ Brad Mayer