What do you think of the idea of a grand coalition between the ruling DPJ and opposition parties?

Good luck with that! With all the fighting inside the party, I doubt they can agree with other parties. At least as long as Ozawa-yaro is there.

Japan will turn into a dictatorship. And if a right winger ever gets in power, then it's all over. Back to the dark ages. They only thing people will be able to afford to do is stand up and sing "Kimigayo."

if so, Japan may have a "Junta" Government !

Who can tell the differences between the parties anyway? All are just a bunch of incompetent little boys (mostly) pretending to look important.

all i can say is these maggots on society had better get their $hit together. grand coalition or not.

It's a stupid, bungling, let-me-at-those-construction-contracts idea.

It won't change a thing. As tabana said earlier, with all the infighting within the current parties, a grand coalition will be nothing more than a fancy name for 'circus'.

the ldp & komeito shud have done this when KAN propsed it shortly after 3-11, but the SOBs wudnt go for it, they didnt & still DONT CARE about their own country.

These SOBs only care about getting in on the massive kickback that we are all about fund, in short I think we are going to be screwed & may never have a hope of recovering, for me these are really sad days, not because of the quake/tsunami because I know the people can come back from that, its what the govt is doing & going to do to us that is the most depressing thing imo!

What I am going to say may draw some flak here, and also I may be wrong in my observation.

Could it be possible that we are actually witnessing history in the making? That is, the dying breath and decline of a great nation of modern times - in slow motion? And one day, when we look back, we will look in awe at the concrete remnants of it's glory and wondered what happened? How did a great glorious nation come to this state? Just like we wondered what happened to Machu Pichu or Ankor Wat? A scary thought.

They should try it once.

I don't think much would change, as smaller parties would still break away as they don't agree with the coalitions views and actions.

Excellent idea. bills need to go through for the tohoku region

Oh, yes! How 'grand' it will be! They might as well just make Ozawa PM and be done with it.

Some experience I can share from home in Germany: No matter how wild the vote numbers for individual parties and ruling coallitions change and up being, the actual political course in a democracy tends to be slow and hard to steer to a new course. They do wish to be revoted a few years later.

"It's a stupid, bungling, let-me-at-those-construction-contracts idea."

Slow clapping.

More slow clapping.

Almost THREE MONTHS after the big quake, we are now looking at a DPJ trick to PASS THE BUCK even longer. You know, the biggest contribution the national political leaders have made to Tohoku has been an admission of what we already knew: Fukushima Daiichi had some problems. It was worse than good, but better than it might have been. Well... Yeah! Let the bureaucracy take it from there.

In Tohoku's local paper this morning was a photo of dump trucks in Kessenuma: stretching to the horizon. Starting a new day. Waiting to be filled with debris.

I shook my head when I saw it. Pretty soon now, we in Tohoku are going to have all of this mess picked up. We are doing it by ourselves. If history is in the making, could it be showing that Tohoku does not need the rest of Japan after all? What do we get but nuclear waste anyway?

Where is this superfluous Nagata cho I read about? Where is a GRAND party of anything? Dithering. Blithering. Withering. Tokyo builds its skyscrapers (3000 yen!), and ivory towers, apparently, while cowering in panic from imaginary clouds of radiation. Meetings. Proclamations. Promises. Empty store shelves. Meanwhile, people from Ibaragi to Aomori put on their hard hats and get to work.

Master plans from almost all affected areas will be drafted by mid September. Sure hope Nagata cho can get its act together by then. How would the nation react knowing that the devastated and overwhelmed governments of these areas are more effective than the status quo in Nagata cho?

GW, kudos. I agree wholly that it is far more depressing watching the sloth and greed of human beings (in high places) than facing down the devastation of 3.11 with my neighbors.

I hope people do not take this the wrong way, but if the national government would just write a check now for HALF of what they planned to give Tohoku (and Fukushima, particularly) and just left it up to us to handle the mess, it would be enough. We have effective decision makers here and we can deal with our own people and problems.

But no. What is likely to happen is that things will get bogged down. Opportunities will be lost. Fukushima will wind up on the government teat forever, and fingerpointing will ensue. International committees. Environmentalists. Carpet baggers. Processes will stop. Costs will triple. Displaced people will be left in limbo.

When that happens, don't everybody go blaming Tohoku. People here are champing at the bit to get this all over with now. We really need to move on and we are ready.

A grand coalition is really the worst thing which could happen to Japan now.

Terrible idea. Japan is not in the midst of fighting a total war, the only situation that really calls for a grand coalition in a parliamentary system. Far better it would be to either strip the Upper House of any real legislative powers or abolish it altogether. Do that and the DPJ would actually behave the way a political party in control of more than 300 out of 480 seats in the main parliamentary body ought to behave.

I realize the Japanese love the idea of importing foreign ideas/institutions and tweaking them a bit here and there to make them suit Japan, but it's hard to understand the point of allowing the Upper House to continue having legislative veto power over the budget and other matters. Other countries with bicameral parliamentary systems long ago realized the futility of such an arrangement and either abolished their Upper Houses or stripped them of any real powers.

Smoke and mirrors designed to hide greed over upcoming reconstruction money. Leeches looking ot make more money.

You cannot get the DPJ to agree on much within their party. The LDP proved for years that they were incompetent. And all those little parties hate each other. So what makes them think they can form a coalation that will do anything other than bicker with itself.

Japan's government would be better off led by a band of chimps. And yet I really do mean that.

What do you think of the idea of a grand coalition between the ruling DPJ and opposition parties?

It will be another grand waste of time and the taxpayers' yen.

Klein2 wrote:

Where is this superfluous Nagata cho I read about? Where is a GRAND party of anything? Dithering. Blithering. Withering. Tokyo builds its skyscrapers (3000 yen!), and ivory towers, apparently, while cowering in panic from imaginary clouds of radiation. Meetings. Proclamations. Promises. Empty store shelves. Meanwhile, people from Ibaragi to Aomori put on their hard hats and get to work.

Well said.