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Japan's recession worse than thought

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I think that what we really need is a real change, not more of the same old recipes.

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Japan's recession worse than thought: For those whose only source for financial news is JT. Rest of the world knew long ago.

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By the looks of it, the world is heading for a Great Depression. Everywhere you look, the financial news is grim. Very grim. Governments are panicking. Throwing money at losing banks and businesses. Fasten your seatbelts; stock up the larder, baton down the hatches, we are in for the mother of all bumpy rides.

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When has Japan been out of recession.... Really? Salary's haven't moved upward in 15 years.

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All of the affects of what Japan has been doing since the asset bubble has been completely idiotic. The only reason the country is afloat is because it has industry, and can produce useful products. Now it will be interesting to see how more government interference/intervention will further cause a deep depression. Japan never recovered from the first asset bubble, I doubt anything will help with the current collapse.

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I think the Japan and world has been over producing for too long now. Its time to rethink the whole consumerism nature.

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rgetty, I agree that our increasing drive to consume more is not sustainable. You and I today may discipline ourselves to consume less, but our employers on the other hand are sure to make us sell more to the consumers, so it is really a dilemma we all are facing. Corporate performance and the global economic growth engine is one which is measured on ever increasing profits, surely we can't tell our employers that we should all do less.

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Sands of time finish the job that is at hand. A depression will follow.

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One cannot compare Japan to America. The Japanese people are much more fiscally responsible; better educated and have much more sense of community responsibility. One only has to compare the government responses to New Orleans and Kobe. New Orleans was a complete mess while Kobe was rebuilt with a well-organised plan, financed by a government which was in tune with the needs of the people.

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The Japanese people are much more fiscally responsible; better educated and have much more sense of community responsibility

Hah

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Why don't these economic 'experts' just expect the worst-times-3? Then, whatever happens is a distinct improvement and investors (who are incredibly gullible and greedy anyway) will poor money back into the system, and float it for another couple of years, hopefully giving thoughtful governments time to reregulate and fix the problems that led to this.

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@buttamimi

With all due respect, are you aware of the huge national debt of the J gov?

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I agree, Japan never recovered from the bursting of the economic bubble of the late 80's. If Japan had only held it's tongue back then and co-operated with the US more... well, they would have never experienced such a drastic downturn. Indstead though, they ran their mouths, tried to tell the US how to run its economy, then started making risky purchases of high valued American property... yeh,. like we didn't see that meltdown coming. In any case Japan is literally doomed. The US has the ability to adapt and adjust... Americans don't sell "just" cars and electronics. The US is much more diversified and has a stronger domestic selling program. The US will bounce back very nicely ! Lower fuel prices will all but guarantee the domestic distribution system will be un affected in the long term... and that will fuel consumption once again. Too bad for Japan though... I sense some anti-Japanese rhetoric starting to gather wind as the big three try to protect their territory from parasitic foreign auto makers like Japan. The first volley has been fired out of South Carolina... and yes, I'll be fanning the flames there with data and facts to back O.C. Welch's claim that Toyota is partly to blame for the economic mess. Should be fun !

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The Japanese people are much more fiscally responsible;

The Japanese are parasites on the global economy. They want us to buy their products, but place way too many hudles in my way for me to buy cheaper US products directly - media products.

better educated

Just did a Asian geography test with my uni students and half of them mistook Mongolia for China and a third of them mistook Vietnam for Korea. This was at a university considered 'good' and with third year students studying international relations. last month quite a few couldn't get their head around the fact that Barack was elected US president when, 'black people don't have the vote in the US'.

New Orleans was a complete mess while Kobe was rebuilt with a well-organised plan,

Oh please.... have you ever been to Kobe? The Yamaguchi Gumi put the government to shame in terms of initial action. Just because you don't read about Kobe in the newspapers, doesn't mean it's OK.

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Just did a Asian geography test with my uni students and half of them mistook Mongolia for China and a third of them mistook Vietnam for Korea.

Have a look at global test results. Japan generally finishes so much higher than the US. Maybe your students just happened to have had a bad teacher.

With all due respect, are you aware of the huge national debt of the J gov?

Japan does have a large debt, but its foreign debt is very small. In comparison, the US foreign debt is huge.

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Worse than thought? By whom? Surely anyone who's lived here over the past decade has noticed a COMPLETE and UTTER downgrade of the whole psyche among the natives. Its no longer "fun" or "friendly" but utter gloom. I don't care if this comment lasts 10 seconds or 10 days( with you know who looking over our shoulders), but there's no denying that Japan's recession has utterly devastated this country spiritually, equal to or maybe even greater than the material loss, if that's possible.

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I think the entire mess can be economic mess can summed up with the following quote from Thomas Sowell;

“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

Politics should also read blind consumerism. Japan, America and other wealthy countries that consume far more than their countries can naturally produce themselves will never be able to return to the levels of wealth they were once use to, with India and China gaining wealth, there are not enough natural resources to sustian the levels of Economic growth that the whole world wants. This will cause the level of consumer goods(in particular goods that are imported) prices to raise, effectively reducing the purchasing power of those countries. Growth Economics systems should be moved away and more towards sustaining a certian level of economic wealth.

I'll be fanning the flames there with data and facts to back O.C. Welch's claim that Toyota is partly to blame for the economic mess.

Ahh, yes the Japanese automakers, that build thier North American Cars with a higher percentage of American built parts than the American Big 3. I suppose there is nothing wrong with sending American wealth to China(see GM China), now that China is biggest holder of American Debt.

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When you see your old financial advisor collecting aluminum cans and getting in fights with the blue-tarp-shanty-people --> you know things are getting bad.

For some this will be their worst Christmas ever.

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Guess what folks Japan is even further in debt than the US as a percent of GDP (105% if you care)Japan tried to spend its way out of recession in the 90s and really just wasted money. Things here are going to get much worse before (and if) they ever get better.

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First lesson in income ,how to sell a product like a sucessful nation and get 100 yen/1 USD/1.3 Euro/7yuans from a globalised worker,every yen/yuan/dollar/euro counts.

The system was working few months ago,do not see why it will not work again. The system needs to go okay. System okay,we okay,systems not okay,we all not okay.

System need time to be okay again. Someone/Everyone must fix it,real good. The question is how and who will fix it ?

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Dog dog: I agree the Japanese companies only want to export and will restrict all imports, not only through tariffs but other measures that slows the imports and doesn't make it worth while. They don't care about anything and have devastated industries the world over and MITI and the government were intentional in these actions. Greedy and ruthless.

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Dogdog: I agree. the Japanese companies have been ruthless in their pursuit of market share. The government and MITI were 100% aware of their actions.They decimated industries the world over and didnt care one bit about the workers or the economy of that country, there only goal was to extend the export machine.

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People,the question is how to fix the slowdown,who can unite all nations via common action projects to fix the slowdown in global economy. Jobs made globally and in japan are removed to accomodate lower revenues from slowdown.

Nations have to adjust now to realities in global economy jobs. Some leader from any nation must be appointed to devise a action plan to fix the slowdown and bring back the lost jobs or create new jobs ,to fight slowdown in systems in global trade.

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Gee. I thought I was the only one who could do glum posts. Get a look at yourselves here. Not that I disagree with most of the observations above. Yes, Japan has never recovered from the burst property bubble in the late 1980's/early 1990s. But neither has the US economy ever recovered from the decision in 1971 to axe the Bretton Wood system of fixing the US dollar to a gold standard, or the Democrat & Republican decision to deregulate the US financial sector in 1999 during the Clinton watch. The fact of the matter as globalization was harnessed to reap the most corporate profit by enabling cost cutting through cheap labour, land, and raw materials in far away 'developing economys' so too, globalisation drew up all economies into one world capitalist economy. And so what channelled great profit also ensures the collapse is systematic, spread amongst us all.

I've been virtually the issuer of glum warnings of what is happening in Japan and particularly the US, the apex of world capitalism for several years on JT. A funny thing but very few people have ever been interested in the truth, i.e. the bare economic facts, or for that matter the lessons of history until economic facts beat down their front door and barged into the kitchen.

The worst thing though is to think there is no way out. There is. It just means leaving a diseased and dying political and economic system behind, and taking the intelligent and optimistic alternative, which is international socialism. Democracy and peace for all. It'll be no utopia of course, it means the sanity of planned economy that takes care of the world and everyone in it, and in the true form of democracy where we really all do realize we live and share limited resources and the rights to them.

The alternative is to survive (not so likely this time) exactly what followed immediately after the Great Depression.

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