Japan gears up for decisive election

[Vikrant]

TOKYO, JULY 4:
Campaigning began today in an election expected to strengthen Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s control over Parliament, ushering in the stability he needs to fix Japan’s floundering economy.

Voters nationwide will go to the polls on July 21 to elect half of the 242 seats in the upper house of the legislature.

With approval ratings as high as 70 per cent, Abe is expected to romp home, bagging control of both chambers and not having to face a public vote for three years.

Supporters say he will use that political clout to force changes on cosseted and inefficient industries, like agriculture, and to cut a swathe through labour laws that businesses claim make it too difficult to hire and fire workers.

Detractors say he will abandon the economic project of his first six months and get back on his hobby horse — revising the constitution, boosting the military and re-assessing Japan’s wartime history.

“We want to... stabilise politics and bring you the actual feeling,” that the economy is picking up, Abe said in a party leaders’ debate yesterday.

As of 10:30 a.m. (local time), 428 candidates were registered at the board of elections. The number of candidates will be confirmed after the 5:00 p.m. (local time) deadline.

For the first time in Japanese politics, Internet election campaigns are allowed in the upper house vote, with candidates and parties permitted to update followers on Facebook and Twitter.

The opening months of the Abe administration have seen a blizzard of economic policies, starting with vast government spending programmes and a flood of easy money from the printing presses of the central bank.

The drive — dubbed “Abenomics” — is intended to be completed with reforms that the prime minister hopes will make it easier to do business in Japan.

Details are scant at present, but Abe’s wishlist includes lowered corporate taxes, special business zones in some big cities, more women in the workplace and Japan’s participation in a mooted free trade area encircling the Pacific Ocean.

Abe said yesterday he would also liberalise the electricity market, in a move supporters hope will free the country from the stranglehold of massive monopolistic utilities that generate and supply power.

Opponents say the premier’s focus on the economy is a ruse designed to fool voters into giving him enough power to change Japan’s hallowed pacifistic constitution.

They say with a majority in both houses, he will look to bolster the country’s already well equipped armed forces and switch their role from that of “self defence force” to full-fledged military.

Japan gears up for decisive election | Business Line

 

[Mad Scientist]

No mention of Japan's QE, which is destroying the currency. A "Free Trade Area" will do for Japan what it did for America: Sent all the good paying jobs to China.

Bigger Military Industrial Complex. Corporate Tax Cuts. What's not mentioned is the shrinking Middle Class.

It's clear that Bankers own Japan too.

 

[Unkotare]

No mention of Japan's QE, which is destroying the currency. A "Free Trade Area" will do for Japan what it did for America: Sent all the good paying jobs to China.

Bigger Military Industrial Complex. Corporate Tax Cuts. What's not mentioned is the shrinking Middle Class.

It's clear that Bankers own Japan too.

Cheap labor work goes where there is cheap labor. Just the way it is. Cheap labor work has been going from Japan (and more recently South Korea) to China and other places for decades now. Some people seem to think that "the bankers own everything!" is a magic slogan that allows them to stop trying to understand things that are perhaps too complicated for them to really grasp. Nice for a bumper sticker, but not for anything meaningful.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Too much for you to comprehend Diarrhea Dog? The BofJ committed to copying the US with QE which has devalued the currency 25%. Now they're gonna' sign a "Free Not Fair Trade Agreement" that will send all the remaining good paying jobs to China or other cheap labor nations in the Pacific.

See, right thinking people would charge a fee (Tariff) to access it's country's economy, as the US used to do.

But when a Bank has control of a Nation, as in the case of the US and Japan, it can do as it pleases. In our case it's Print Money and give it to foreign Banks and send it's manufacturing base overseas to cheap labor markets.

The BofJ is merely copying what the US has done. What's too hard to understand?

Oh I get it, you don't WANT to understand!

 

[Vikrant]

The article seems to be taking a shot at Abe's reforms that will enable Japan take charge of its destiny. This idea is not very popular among China sympathizers. Seen in that light, think of this article as a piece of work from the devil's advocate.

As a society becomes more prosperous, it will always seek out cheaper labor pool available in less prosperous societies.

There is not much else to read into that article.

 

[Unkotare]

Too much for you to comprehend Diarrhea Dog? The BofJ committed to copying the US with QE which has devalued the currency 25%. Now they're gonna' sign a "Free Not Fair Trade Agreement" that will send all the remaining good paying jobs to China or other cheap labor nations in the Pacific.

See, right thinking people would charge a fee (Tariff) to access it's country's economy, as the US used to do.

But when a Bank has control of a Nation, as in the case of the US and Japan, it can do as it pleases. In our case it's Print Money and give it to foreign Banks and send it's manufacturing base overseas to cheap labor markets.

The BofJ is merely copying what the US has done. What's too hard to understand?

Oh I get it, you don't WANT to understand!

I understand that you are afraid of free trade, but as I've been trying to get through your thick skull, the migration of cheap, unskilled labor has been going on in Asia almost as long as it has from here. Modern economies grow because they innovate and out-compete others, not because they try to pretend that the most unskilled labor of previous decades is the key to the future. Stop being a coward and embrace free trade to the extent (which will never be absolute) that those countries involved will tolerate it. Or don't. It doesn't matter how much your whine and cry because it's going to happen anyway.