Can your approval rating drop to zero? That must have been the question Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was brooding over as he digested two polls taken over the weekend: his approval rating had plunged 15 points from a month ago, to 19%, his lowest rating yet. Clearly, the yakuza scandal didn’t help.
Monthly Archives: November 2012
The Bailout Of Russian “Black Money” In Cyprus
by Wolf Richter • • 4 Comments
Timing couldn’t have been worse. Or more opportune. A “secret” report by the German version of the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, bubbled to the surface, asserting that the bailout of Cyprus would use money from taxpayers in other countries to bail out mostly rich Russians who have over the years deposited their “black money” in Cypriot banks that are now collapsing.
Nationalizing Companies Is Part Of The French DNA
by Wolf Richter • • 6 Comments
In France, socialism isn’t a political movement that swept the elections this year, and it isn’t an economic philosophy that moved once again to the forefront, but it’s part of the DNA of much of the population. And it produces classic knee-jerk reactions to the current economic morass—such as the nationalization of tottering automaker Peugeot.
Desperate French Government Threatens To “Requisition” Vacant Buildings
by Wolf Richter • • 7 Comments
Prime Minister Ayrault made it official: the government would requisition vacant buildings regardless of who owned them and make them available to the homeless and the “badly housed.” In a few weeks, “an inventory” of buildings should be on his desk so that he could requisition the first properties “in January and February 2013.” A desperate move to halt the collapse of his numbers. And a broadside at investors.
Bleeding the Taxpayer: An Old Technology Dolled Up As New
by Wolf Richter • • 2 Comments
On September 14, 1899, Henry Bliss stepped off a streetcar in Manhattan and got run over by a taxi. The first automobile fatality in the US. The taxi was an electric vehicle. As were 90% of the taxis in the city and about 30% of all cars sold in the US. Electric cars aren’t exactly new. Yet, the government is bleeding taxpayers to advance that technology, create jobs at a cost of $158,556 per job, and fund executive bonuses.