Posted on 01/02/2013 6:04:09 AM PST by dynachrome
Japan's government is to take the unprecedented step of buying factories and machinery directly with taxpayer funds, the latest in a series of radical steps to lift the country out of its deep slump.
Premier Shenzo Abe is to spend up to one trillion yen (£7.1bn) buying plant in the electronics, equipment, and carbon fibre industries to force the pace of investment, according to Nikkei news.
The disclosure came just a day after Mr Abe vowed to revive Japan's nuclear industry with a fresh generation of reactors, insisting that they would be "completely different" from the Fukishima Daiichi technology.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“Man, it’s a good thing we nationalized all those years ago, really helped us out of a jam” said nobody ever.
Did I miss out on the recent news from Japan, or was the government there just not replaced with a more right-centered version of what they had?
Perhaps this entire thread is wrong.
Perhaps Japan is simply looking out for Japan.
Like we should. Look out for America, rather than exporting all our jobs.
Of course, Japan probably fears more than anything, the ChiComs coming in and swooping up the companies.
Because many people don’t care what happens 5 or 10 yrs from now. They only care what they get now.
We have also largely Outsourced our energy production.
The wealth fracking is generating shows how important it is to bring industry home.
The country is short 10-15 million jobs. For people who can’t find work, who do you think they voted for?
Horrible policies have helped push companies overseas, but don’t underestimate greed either.
It is always amusing that the biggest believers in free trade are in the AngloSphere nations. You can read up on American history. We were a protectionist nation (meaning TARIFFS!) until 1913. Early on we protected our infant industries against the lower prices of British goods. We kept your goods out!
An Obama regime can never be trusted on tariffs and protectionism. Maybe a future presidency could be. Japan is a mono-ethnic nation so has a better chance at protectionism. Meaning they have the intelligence to try and keep jobs at home. They look a lot smarter than UK and America.
Fascism never prospers. Never.
You would think we in this country would have learned, but we haven't. We are drinking increasing amounts of the same old snake oil. If we continue to gulp it, we will end in being fatally bitten with the same old viper's poison.
That ideological and social poison we are pumping into our veins - like heroin - is simply too alluring and addictive for politicians and the ObamaPhone voters to resist.
This will not end well.
Dittos for Taiwan and Australia which had the brains to keep the Chinese from buying up a major natural resources extraction company
“Japan plans ‘nationalisation’ of factories to save industry”
fiscal cliff deal....U.S. Federal pensions and retirements (i.e. fiscal cliff deal) to save DUN “Dow Un-Industrial”
The Northern states ‘protected’ the rest of the United States by forcing everyone in America to buy their goods.
The Southern states were not allowed to buy where they wished, but were instead forced to buy Northern exports and enrich Government and Government lobbyists.
This led to a civil war - a war which the forces of Big Government won.
If you want to rejoice in the victory of Big Government over the people of America then you chose an odd site to do it on.
Which is unfortunate, as Japan is really the only counter to China in the East.
What increase in fossil fuel production? Who authorized it? Democrats want us all living in mud huts.
Japan has carried out aggressive protectionism for decades, seeing the economy not as an end in itself, but as an instrument or statement of national power. 'Business is War', and so forth.
Japanese government intervention has certainly 'kept jobs at home': but in so doing they have crushed their own economy and spent/re-hypothecated the money of their own people subjects.
2013 will be the year that the decades-long 'success story' of Japanese protectionism is finally revealed for what it is: a monumental act of socialist hubris that will wipe out the life-savings of everyone in Japan.
Keep dreaming. Japan is a great place to live, very low crime, public schools are still good and prosperous despite the propaganda you have heard. Some this propaganda is from the Japanese trying to poor mouth their economic situation so that others are not so envious. Japan would not be this way without protectionism. The Koreans and Chinese are doing great with protectionism.
Like I said. Japan, Taiwan and Korea are hi-IQ nations. They don’t believe in silly Anglo-American BS like free trade with the NAFTA and GATT rubbish we are saddled with today.
These are the ideas that lead to war.
I have great sympathy for “the South” but it is common sense that the way you build a young nation (America) is buying and making it yourself and if you need some tariffs to help this along then fine by me.
Nations should always try to be self reliant and resourceful. Trade among nations is OK but lets not go crazy over-empathizing it. It is not the panacea that many promote it as. You mine it, grow it, manufacture it at home and the USA is a large enough nation with enough natural resources to do it if we wanted to.
European nations are small so they need trade within their Euro-Zone
America managed to prosper despite its period of protectionism because it had the resources of an entire, previously undeveloped subcontinent at its command. Only the most draconian, insane acts of government could have stifled its growth - and your government was not then the monster it has since become.
Fast forward a century or two, and America again has very impressive resources. But now your government is powerful enough to take every penny the wealth-producers make. Over the next two years you may all become familiar with the term 'financial repression'.
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Japan is an economic basket case. We're not discussing their low crime rate or their nice neighborhoods: Japan has a quadrillion-dollar debt and an aging population that is retiring and now needs to spend the money that they've saved for decades.
But there's no money there. The Japanese government have spent it all multiple times over.
* Their debt is ~ 25 times tax revenue. 25 times!
* They spend a quarter of their tax revenue on interest even at near-zero rates. If interest went to a mere 2% they would have to spend **80% of revenues** on interest.
* Japan is not self funding. Japan's current account surplus is only 1% compared with a 10.5% deficit. Their current account will be negative by the 3rd quarter of this year.
The Japanese government will either have to borrow money or print it. They won't be able to borrow it - so they'll have no choice except Argentinean-style devaluation or hyperinflation.
For a great many years Japan has been a bug in search of a windshield. This is the year of the windshield.
Plus Japan does not promote entrepreneurship like this country does..
UK is doing a lot worse than Japan. Do you seriously deny this? Free trade is an Anglo myth and delusion. The Nips, Koreans and Chinese are smarter than you in UK and never took it up. You fly into Narita or Shanghai airport and you can see the display of wealth. Fly into JFK airport...very shabby and worn and Heathrow is prolly the same
Libertarian free trade ideas only exist in ridiculous hot-house nations like America, UK and some in Europe. Go to Asia and they will laugh at you.
But by all means do carry on!
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