“We welcome the ruling party’s victory,” announced Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of Sumitomo Chemical, and chairman of the Japan Business Federation, the country’s largest business lobby. He is one of the faces of Japan Inc. He’d been handed a gift: the ruling coalition controls both houses of parliament and will push Abenomics deep into the system.
Japan
“Who Could Trust Such A Company?” – The Big Fat Lies About Radiation Exposure Of Workers At Fukushima
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on “Who Could Trust Such A Company?” – The Big Fat Lies About Radiation Exposure Of Workers At Fukushima
The nuclear fiasco in Japan has shaken the omnipotent nuclear industry – and government agencies that aided and abetted it. Yet they still obfuscate the consequences of the triple melt-down. Latest revelation: the number of workers at the plant with cancer-inducing radiation doses in thyroid glands was eleven times higher than disclosed last December.
Eerie Abandoned Japanese Island Hashima On Google Street View
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Eerie Abandoned Japanese Island Hashima On Google Street View
Ghost island: Hashima, a speck of land, used to be a coal mine where 5,000 people lived and toiled. But in the 1970s, it was abandoned and the concrete structures left to decay, only to resurface in the last James Bond movie. Now Google captured it for Street View – and made an awesome brief video of this eerie industrial wasteland.
The Big Four Central Banks Muddy The Same Sea Of Liquidity, And Then There’s China
by Lee Adler • • Comments Off on The Big Four Central Banks Muddy The Same Sea Of Liquidity, And Then There’s China
Contributed by Lee Adler, of The Wall Street Examiner. The Fed, ECB, BoJ, and BoE all deal with the same banks. Of the Fed’s 21 Primary Dealers, its sole counterparties, only seven are US domiciled. Three are Canadian, eight are European, including three British banks, and three are Japanese. All of them are major players in Europe and Japan.
One Part Of Japan’s Abenomics Salvation Is Already A Fail
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on One Part Of Japan’s Abenomics Salvation Is Already A Fail
Japan’s make-or-break economic policies have been named lovingly after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – lovingly, because if they fail, he gets to carry an albatross called Abenomics around his neck for the rest of his life. And one of the “three arrows” of Abenomics is already headed that way: goosing the economy through a frontal attack in the Currency War.
Bank Of Japan Machinations Crash Into Reality
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Bank Of Japan Machinations Crash Into Reality
Akie Abe, Shinzo Abe’s Antinuclear Wife
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Akie Abe, Shinzo Abe’s Antinuclear Wife
Japanese Hodgepodge Of Old Ideas And New Contradictions, Stocks Dive In Sympathy
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Japanese Hodgepodge Of Old Ideas And New Contradictions, Stocks Dive In Sympathy
The leaders of Japan Inc. listened politely as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe laid out his master plan, the cornerstone of Abenomics that would fix everything and offer big handouts to Japan Inc. As his words seeped out, the Nikkei dove 5% in a couple of hours. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of his hodgepodge of old ideas and new contradictions.
Iron-Fisted Bank Of Japan Is Losing Its Grip
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Iron-Fisted Bank Of Japan Is Losing Its Grip
Stability in the Japanese government bond market is “extremely desirable,” said Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda in a sign of just how frazzled he was after the turmoil and craziness that his over-the-edge experimental monetary policy has unleashed. But as stability eludes him, he might resort to ever more desperate measures to just hang on.