An Ill Wind Blows From Japan
The Market Ticker ® - Commentary on The Capital Markets
Posted 2009-08-30 13:23
by Karl Denninger
in Politics
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An Ill Wind Blows From Japan
 

Bloomberg (and everyone else) is reporting that The LDP of Japan has suffered a crushing defeat, calling it a "bloodless revolution":

Hatoyama, who quit the LDP in 1993, has pledged to revive an economy emerging from its deepest recession since World War II by boosting child-care spending, cutting taxes and curtailing the power of bureaucrats. His grandfather founded the LDP in 1955 and became the first of that party’s 22 prime ministers.

“This election has been all about changing the government,” Hatoyama said in a nationally televised press conference. “Everything starts now.”

Indeed it does.

Before the election The Democratic Party of Japan had talked assiduously about the avoidance of US Debt Hegemony (read: Japan may stop buying or even sell US Treasuries) and in addition they made noises unthinkable just a few years ago - their stance towards China, long thought of as an arch-enemy of Japan, is quite friendly and cooperative.

While Bloomberg and others seem to be reporting that the Japanese debt and stock markets will cheer this win, that is not necessarily something that I would be inclined to chase in our markets if indeed it translates over here at all.

There is a tremendous amount of contradiction out in the marketplace in regards to what this means.  I have seen articles over the last two months claiming that this win would mean dramatic increases in bond issuance, and then others claiming that the party is adverse to bond issuance.  Which is the truth? Who knows - but what has come through loud and clear is an unmistakable tenor that the DPJ is well-aware of that the policies of the last twenty years, adopted on the back of the Nikkei's and Japan's property market crash (gee, anyone see parallels?) have not worked and have instead stagnated the Japanese economy for close to two decades.

The DPJ has audacious goals in terms of social spending.  One way to meet them could be to sell some or part of their US Treasury holdings to raise cash (oops!), which would have dramatic and immediate impact in our Treasury market.  It could also do interesting things to the Yen/Dollar balance, but between that and trying to sell huge quantities of additional debt into the Japanese market, I suspect the former, rather than the latter, would be the wiser policy - for them.

More ominously a link-up between the Yen and Yuan, unthinkable with the former government, now looks possible.  Create a basket-of-currency settlement system over in Asia with the Yen and Yuan as the core elements and the US immediately loses control of the game we've been trying to run with the banksters and fraud-laced credit games in the United States.

That which cannot continue forever won't, and I suspect we're about to get a lesson in reality from our friends over in Japan and China - a lesson we may not like at all.

Time is drawing short for The US to clear The Bezzle on a voluntary basis, lest we be forced to as a consequence of US Debt rejection by the Asian nations that have, thus far, enabled us to continue this charade.

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User Info An Ill Wind Blows From Japan in forum [Market-Ticker]
Stemmit
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Quote:
Time is drawing short for The US to clear The Bezzle on a voluntary basis

Power will not be relinquished voluntarily.

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The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will execute great v
Obseedian
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I wonder if this will rocket the yen and cause a nasty selloff here in response.

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Asimov
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Quote:
I suspect we're about to get a lesson in reality from our friends over in Japan and China - a lesson we may not like at all.


Why do I yet again get the impression that we're copying the japanese with our economic decisions? Who will we be ****ing over in 20 years when we decide to throw out our worthless government? Think the US Sheeple will react quicker than that? I sure hope so.

Quote:
Time is drawing short for The US to clear The Bezzle on a voluntary basis, lest we be forced to as a consequence of US Debt rejection by the Asian nations that have, thus far, enabled us to continue this charade.


Judging by the noises they're making, it's already too late. Just imagine what the political chances are for the new government retaining power if they reverse on something so important so soon after the election? Even if we do start doing the right thing. I think they're going to go through with what they've got planned regardless of what we do.

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It's justifiably immoral to deal morally with an immoral entity.
If you trade based on what other people say, you will lose money. Especially what I say. I won't be held responsible. Festina lente.
Obseedian
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Quote:
Who will we be ****ing over in 20 years when


South America, judging by all the new "free trade" agreements.

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Ilikecoffee
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Does that mean 'change' they can believe in? Where have I heard that before?

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Nuke_engineer
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Quote:
Who will we be ****ing over in 20 years when we decide to throw out our worthless government?


That's not the question that worries me. The one that does, however is:

Who will we be ****ing US over in 20 years when we decide to throw out our worthless government?

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Drake
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The Us will not voluntarily clear The Bezzle.

It will NOT HAPPEN! Voluntarily.

Take appropriate steps to get yourselves ready for the inevitable.

Just so you know, in general, and in my opinion,the Chinese HATE the Japanese.

If China ever had the chance, in my opinion, they would FLAME Japan. In the meantime they will use them.

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Patentleathershoes
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Bad sushi? smiley

Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

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Mm^^
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Spot on, Drake. There is no way our gov't will ever stop the bezzle, spending, or use common sense on our economic problems. Heard from Volker lately? MIA....


However, this is a very good sign for me. I'd love to see our **** stopped by a foreign entity, even if it gives cover to Ben and his cronies. That's the only way it's going to happen anyway. Bring it.....

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Brain
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China won't be flaming Japan anytime soon:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/n....

There is definitely bad blood between the two; but Japan is the lesser of two evils for China.

Japan already dumped $134 billion under the table, earlier this year; I would expect MUCH more of the same with the new leadership. I welcome such a scenario.
John117
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About three years ago I took part of a forward looking thought experiment for the US Coast Guard called the Evergreen Project. http://www.futurestrat.com/scenario-proj....
We took about 200 leaders and broke them up into 4 "possible future worlds" to find cross cutting strategic positions (policies, equipment, training, etc.) that would address several potential future worlds we might face as a nation by 2026.

One was a world of constant conflict where terrorists & state sponsored conflicts impacted everything.
Another was called "Be Careful What you wish For" where the US remains sole world power and everyone comes to rely on us for everything.

I forget the third, but my future world was called "The Asian Way" where a declining US holds no influence over the world as Asian powers take over economical & culturally. In that world, "Go West Young Man" meant learning Chinese and headed across the Pacific to find a better future.

I knew at the time that this was the most likely scenario. I just didn't think it would happen so fast.

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Karlmarxghost
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Interesting times indeed. It kinda reminds me when we ****ed up and invaded Iraq and the Sunnis and Shiites tag teamed our soldiers. We managed to have two groups fighting for centuries ally with each other for one common cause. Now we have China and Japan two BITTER enemies rubbing up together for a common cause, once again the US. I mean how ****ing dumb is our government. How do we manage to***** off people to the point of they would rather be friends with centuries old enemies than deal with us.

I don't know what to say anymore. Im glad people are waking up but there are still to many people who believe this is a Republican or Democratic issue and not a one big criminal cabal issue. Until I see more people discontinue the toeing of party lines Im going to still have some apathy.

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Christiangustafson
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Awesome news. Tick tock tick tock cutting off the leachf*** nation soon.

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Right on TJ, we did such a great job ****ing up Iraq.

Keeping Saddam in power was by far the most optimum way to keep the Middle East stable. American's can't use their brains, they always drink the Kool-Aid on command. Would the 19th century British Empire ever have acted as stupidly as we did?

Someone remind me again how Saddam came to power? Didn't we prop him up for years? Of course, that was back when the US government still had (some) brains. Oh yeah, didn't he keep the Iranians tied down for more than two decades?

Kind of nice having an anti-jihadist right in the middle of the M.E. whacking jihadis on his own dime. It was working so well we had to take over the franchise. Now we own the place.

Saddam was bad because people were tortured and killed. How many people did we kill taking over Iraq? How many have we tortured trying to keep that place together?

Was Saddam torturing and killing doe eyed wanna-be Patrick Henry's, or was he offing Shiite maniacs in league with Iran? My guess is that 98+% were ****heads that had it coming anyways. The rest are balanced out by the people we whacked taking over the place.

Wouldn't it have been far cheaper in American lives, dollars, and prestige to have simply kept the status quo?

Are we safer now or before we went into Iraq? We're definitely less free and poorer.

Same deal with the Far East. We bankrupted ourselves and shipped our manufacturing capacity overseas to curry favor with Japan for decades. Now we are pushing China and Japan into each other's arms while we are about to collapse.

Way to go USA. What a bunch of **** ups.

I don't buy the "Go West Young Man" scenario though, I think it's pretty obvious at this point that we're going to have another World War soon. Our bond market isn't going to matter much longer one way or the other.

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This has got to be bearish for US markets. Too much uncertainty.
Froghat
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So, how does the everyday person prepare for this? Buy gold?
Cyppok
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Couldn't China and Japan just peg their currencies to each other while unwinding their treasuries as maturities come due?

The oddest thing I could thing off would be an exchange of dollars for SDR holdings and then an exchange of those for IMF gold holdings it would be cheaper than going into the market and more effective. Would not disturb the gold markets but simply transfer from one entity to others.
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Froghat buy GUNS.

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What are China and Japan going to do, export to each other? Most of their current trade is for components that are assembled and exported elsewhere. Their whole economic system is just as unsustainable as ours is.

How much cheap plastic **** do rapidly aging Japanese consumers want or need? Isn't the average Japanese house about the size of the closet space in the average new American home? They don't have anyplace to store that ****.

The Japanese already have all the crap they'll ever want or need. Anything they buy will simply be replacements for things that wore out.

Rmonical
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"Couldn't China and Japan just peg their currencies to each other while unwinding their treasuries as maturities come due? "

They have to recycle their dollars by buying US stuff. If they don't buy bonds, they have to buy something else: real estate, cars, toxic financial instruments, whatever. The price that they pay for maintaining a trade surplus with the US is that they have to recycle the dollars they earn.

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Cyppok
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thats true but if they peg currencies to each other both will remain cheaper longer right? I get it that they have to buy U.S. stuff but thats not the point.

If they peg to each other wouldn't that slow down the appreciation is they start easing out of the dollar and keep them both more competitive?

This is a time play ergo both want enough time to unwind but not to zoom their currencies to the moon while they do so. If they could transition to other markets by creating currency agreements with other countries they could transition easier while slowly easing out of the dollar.
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Quote:
Who will we be ****ing US over in 20 years when we decide to throw out our worthless government?


Here, let me fix that for you:

Who will we be ****ing US over FOR 20 years when we decide to throw out our worthless government?"

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It's justifiably immoral to deal morally with an immoral entity.
If you trade based on what other people say, you will lose money. Especially what I say. I won't be held responsible. Festina lente.
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Quote:
Who will we be screwing the US over in 20 years when we decide to throw out our worthless government?


The same crew who has been at it ever since the first American revolution. You think we fought 2 world wars for our own interests? Every single conflict since has been inspired by an ages old imperial model. The sun hasn't set (yet) on the British Empire.

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Bad sushi for US in the near term, but, maybe a clean slate in the mid-term, if it gives us a [nobull****] Congress, Administration and President. IMO, it makes it less likely we follow the Japanese economic model going forward.

TJG, when a country interferes with conflicts shy of genocide that have been going on for millenia, it is a country with foolish foreign policies. We should have put a sunset clause on every base we've built.

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