TravelingSales comments

99% are boring bland junk. But recently the 1% has gotten pretty good - craft breweries like Bairds & Shiga Kogen are great.

"Trump was my preferred choice of the two, but if there was a third choice, I would have chosen Crusty the clown over both of them"

There were third, fourth & fifth choices. More than 5 million people voted for Johnson, Stein or McMullin.

24 hours ago I wouldn't have believed it. Obamacare is dead, the Supreme Court is safe, the IRS will stop targeting people for their political views, Washington will have less control of our lives.

It's morning in America again!

Clinton just conceded!

Reduce the power of the Federal government and give more power back to the states and to the people so that Washington politicians will matter less.

Obviously the foreign executives will want to come here to pay a 55% marginal tax rate rather than paying 16% in HK, 18% in Korea or 20% in SIngapore. Who wouldn't?

Why can't the smokers just inject the nicotine, like all the other druggies?

This was California where only criminals & cops are armed. If they tried it in Texas, it would likely be a different story.

This is good news for commodity markets. Usually Japanese banks, especially government banks (which are marginally more bureaucratic than the others), come in at the top of te market and stay out when it's close to the bottom, so this is a bullish indicator.

Basic rule of investing - watch the dumb money and do the opposite.

If the Japanese courts were more efficient at enforcing contracts, these face-to-face confrontations could be avoided.

If rates are zero, it makes sense for regular people to hold cash. If you're a bank or a fund trying to hold 100,000,000,000 in cash, it's not practical until rates get below about -.1% and stay there for a year or so.

10 yr rates at zero - great for mortgage rates and for the real estate market!

They need to have separate elevators for smokers. There's nothing worse than coming up in the same box as some noxious creep who's just had a smoke break.

In central Tokyo, for a family of 4, about 6-700,000 per month, not including tax & housing

He's the best PM since Nakasone at least.

The crucial issue is to make sure the negative rates affect corporations as well as banks. Incompetent and unimaginative time-serving managers currently (Mar 2016 numbers) have more than JPY200,000,000,000,000 in cash, and this amount is growing by more than 8% annually. Forcing them to disgorge it, whether by investments, dividends or buy-backs, would put that money into the hands of the people - it averages about JPY1.6 million for each citizen - and provide a great stimulus to the economy,

The smarter and more direct alternative is a temporary surtax on retained earnings, but the keidanren would never allow it.

I guess I would be the exception. I'd definitely prefer my wife to bring home more cash than me. Although frankly I'd settle for her bringing home anything at all.

And congratulations to the survey in finding 200 Japanese guys who have managed to acquire girlfriends!

This is progress. Hope Tokyo will follow.

It doesn't matter if they're more toxic to the morons who choose to use them. That's just a part of natural selection. What matters is they're less toxic to the innocent bystanders breathing the same air as the junkie.

The AirBNB sector is still tiny - much too small to affect the market in general. Chinese money is significant in the 200 million plus area - they are about half to a third of that top sector. Below that the market is driven by banks willingness to lend. Banks have been aggressive for 3-4 years in the sub-100 million sector. Now, finally, they are getting good in 100-200 million.

You can make good money on new and old. I sold a 25 yr old condo last year making 30% profit over 5 years (not including the rental profit every month). Someone I know bought a condo new in 2011 and just sold for 75% profit (again, not including rental). Given you can easily borrow 80-90% LTV at next to nothing rates, the returns are great!

Tokyo real estate is only going up by 10-15% pa. The BoJ needs to drive that to 20-25% to have a real impact on the rest of the economy.

Tokyo demand overcomes Japanese demographics because (i) household numbers are increasing as household numbers decline because more people live alone and less seniors move in with their kids, and (ii) about 33% of Japan lives in the Kanto Plain conurbation but about 50% wants to.

Sounds like Tom Sawyer

For the assumption of risk defense to work, in the case of a minor a defendant would need to demonstrate that the injured party had the capacity to assume a risk and that the defendant had taken appropriate steps to exclude those who did not have such capacity.

Nothing wrong with giving Japan 5 years notice of abrogating the current one-sided treaty & letting them choose between going it alone or a fairer NATO-style treaty with bilateral or multilateral protection and spending obligations.

Tokyo real estate is only going up 10-15% a year. The BoJ needs to force that up to 20-25% to get the economy moving.

The last thing we want is a bunch of ignorant self-important bureaucrats telling us what we can or can't do with our own property.

As the attacker would no doubt have said, they are all infidels or apostates - what difference, at this point, does it make.

Tokyo real estate has been going up 15-20%pa for last three years and looks to be accelerating

Helicopter money vs current policy is a distinction without a difference.

As for perpetual notes, take a look in your wallet. What do you think is in there?