tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post6790909068280105135..comments2024-03-29T05:14:33.223-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Tokyo not actually stomped flat by GodzillaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-71259605226967734382012-01-16T21:26:57.160-08:002012-01-16T21:26:57.160-08:00http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_wealth
Japa...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_wealth<br /><br /><i>Japan's current public debt to GDP is currently above 220 percent.</i><br /><br />It's owned by their own people, and dwarfed by their savings.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-4916860265693208462012-01-15T02:37:37.466-08:002012-01-15T02:37:37.466-08:00Eamonn Fingleton keeps writing economic drivel for...Eamonn Fingleton keeps writing economic drivel for the purposes of defending his previous writings on Japan - which have mostly turned out to be untrue. <br /><br />Japan's current public debt to GDP is currently above 220 percent. It is a disaster waiting to happen. With the ageing population, the constant and steady source of savings to finance this massive deficit is fast disappearing. The net result will be a total disaster for Japan. <br /><br />Far from being prudent investors, the Japanese Government frittered away the savings of its hard working and inventive people on all kinds of stupid government boondoggles and bridges to nowhere. The bill is now due for payment and it is not looking good. <br /><br />I'd like to speak to Mr. Fingleton in ten years. He may be in an old people's home by then though and not available for comment.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-60869150123566980902012-01-12T19:03:40.334-08:002012-01-12T19:03:40.334-08:00Building rental apartments is great business durin...<i>Building rental apartments is great business during deflationary times because every month your rent is worth MORE rather than less!</i><br /><br />Yes, but your renters will be demanding rent decreases every month as a result, in the same way landlords demand rent increases in inflationary times. And when you go to sell your building it will be worth less than you paid, meaning you would have come out farther ahead by stuffing the money into your mattress.<br /><br />Deflation is thought to be bad for an economy because it discourages people from borrowing money for new ventures. In a fractional reserve system that's probably true since a little deflation results in a deflationary spiral.<br /><br />But I'm skeptical deflation is bad in the general case. If we really had "sound money" more ventures would be founded using savings, which doesn't seem like such a bad thing. We'll never see that again in the US, of course - the current system allows the government to take wealth right out of your pocket and 95% of the population doesn't even realize it.Bob Loblawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11081916786770290968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53221098179297208462012-01-12T18:46:25.573-08:002012-01-12T18:46:25.573-08:00In the long term a smaller population will probabl...<i>In the long term a smaller population will probably be good for Japan once they get over the demographic hump, resulting in more affordable real estate, less crowding, and higher wages.</i><br /><br />Maybe so, assuming they don't get into some military tangle with an outside power. But barring an unusually lethal flu that comes along and kills off all the old people, getting over that hump is gonna be a bitch.Bob Loblawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11081916786770290968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42762051672504290182012-01-11T16:50:49.624-08:002012-01-11T16:50:49.624-08:00The US became a net oil exporter again for the fir...<i>The US became a net oil exporter again for the first time in many decades in the last fiscal quarter of 2011.</i><br /><br />Don't be so credulous. The USA became a net exporter of <b>refined petroleum products</b>. Every barrel of those exports was offset by several barrels of <b>imported crude oil</b> to the refineries.<br /><br />This is not a bad thing. Refining oil in the USA and exporting the products makes money for the USA. But it's nothing like being energy independent.<br /><br /><i>The oil field found in North Dakota</i><br /><br />The Bakken just barely broke 500,000 bbl/day of production. At that rate it will be dry in about 20 years (3.65 billion barrels estimated recoverable oil, US Geological Survey: 500,000 bbl/day, 365 days/yr, 20 years).<br /><br /><i>Nobody seems to know about this and for some reason the media don't much talk about it.</i><br /><br />It doesn't mean what you think it means. The people who go nuts over it are as crazy as the free-energy freaks who worship Nicola Tesla.Mr. Rationalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-1888788874693003712012-01-11T08:24:35.279-08:002012-01-11T08:24:35.279-08:00ziel--
For example, all the oil extraction that ...ziel--<br /><br /> <i>For example, all the oil extraction that went on in the U.S. before we became a major oil importer depleted the nation of an important asset. </i><br /><br />The US became a net oil exporter again for the first time in many decades in the last fiscal quarter of 2011.<br /><br />The oil field found in North Dakota, well a combination of further found and make deliverable due to fracking technology and horizontal drilling, is the largest in the world in the last 30 years, with the possible exception of the offshore Brazilian field. <br /><br />Nobody seems to know about this and for some reason the media don't much talk about it.Doug1https://www.blogger.com/profile/13948793969077395057noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-86534703166845367412012-01-10T21:00:03.129-08:002012-01-10T21:00:03.129-08:00Very original thought.Very original thought.Samnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-38161033514499222332012-01-10T04:33:40.997-08:002012-01-10T04:33:40.997-08:00But the money you owe on the construction loan is ...But the money you owe on the construction loan is worth more every month, too.Mr. Rationalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-1714635400394553252012-01-09T17:41:30.353-08:002012-01-09T17:41:30.353-08:00Deflation does not inhibit economic growth. The US...Deflation does not inhibit economic growth. The US had constant deflation for a hundred years from the war of 1812 until the Fed was created. <br /><br />Almost the entire country, and everything that defines every major city was built during that time. <br /><br />You also can look at places like the Bronx: all the Art Deco buildings on the Grand Concourse were built during the great depression, a period of deflation. <br /><br />Building rental apartments is great business during deflationary times because every month your rent is worth MORE rather than less!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-90666979728196365062012-01-09T12:12:24.359-08:002012-01-09T12:12:24.359-08:00I second what Jody said about Fingleton. He is a w...I second what Jody said about Fingleton. He is a well-known Japan booster who has been writing for a lot longer than a decade. He has been writing since at least the 80's, if not longer. He is known to play fast and loose with his statistics.<br /><br />All of his books are prominently displayed in the English-language section of the Kinokuniya bookstore in Shinjuku.kurt9https://www.blogger.com/profile/02101147267959016924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-91173829120863305072012-01-09T11:20:24.075-08:002012-01-09T11:20:24.075-08:00>In many cities fire trucks are dispatched to m...>In many cities fire trucks are dispatched to medical calls with no fires anywhere in sight.<<br /><br />A volunteer fireman in Nashville told me medical calls keeps he and his buddies hopping.<br /><br />And by "medical call" he meant: mopping up assaults among black and white trash in the black neighborhoods in Davidson County.<br /><br />One typical story he told me involved two guys who got drunk together one night. One stabbed the other in the keister with a knife. When the "firemen" arrived to answer the call, the stabber was weeping that he had just killed his best friend.<br /><br />The code word for blacks among these "firemen" is: "bubbas." I objected that this word better applies to white trash. "That," said he, "is why we use it."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-65374589344321113382012-01-09T11:16:32.274-08:002012-01-09T11:16:32.274-08:00Japan, like Finland, is a great counter-argument a...Japan, like Finland, is a great counter-argument against people who claim the only way to have a competitive high-tech economy is to throw open the floodgates of 3rd world immigration (also against people who claim that it's impossible for high-wage countries to maintain a manufacturing base). In the long term a smaller population will probably be good for Japan once they get over the demographic hump, resulting in more affordable real estate, less crowding, and higher wages. I give them credit for wanting to preserve their culture and ignoring the many commentators who have called for them to combat their declining population by importing a servant class from southeast Asia into an already overcrowded island.<br /><br />Another important statistic the article didn't mention: Japanese cities are light-years safer and cleaner than American ones. The comparison of the Japanese reaction to Fukushima and the American reaction to Hurricane Katrina remains instructive.Mannerheimnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-2934206881320345152012-01-09T10:01:01.826-08:002012-01-09T10:01:01.826-08:00Firefighters respond to emergency health calls bec...Firefighters respond to emergency health calls because their fire station is, often enough, nearer the afflicted caller than is the paramedic-ambulance station, or because the paramedics are off in their ambulance responding to another afflicted caller. Before the Age of Paramedics (which began at about 1970 as paramedics and emergency services evolved into specializations) it was firemen, far more often than ambulance crews (who in the pre-paramedic era were nearer to white-garbed chauffeurs than to medically-trained emergency responders), who responded to calls for health emergency aid. To this day firefighters are trained & drilled in first aid and are equipped to provide baseline emergency first aid with oxygen, stretchers, splints, extraction tools, hazardous substance response gear and training, and their better communications links to more specialized medical emergency services (paramedics). This is where public employee unions enter the picture - paramedics, firefighters, police all battle over municipal, county, and state funds for their pay, benefits, pensions, equipment, installations, &c., so that the balance, or proportion, of the various emergency services are always in flux, since they hew, among other factors, to the power of the various public employee unions and to politicians' priorities in municipalities, counties, &c.<br /><br /><br />Buildings themselves are now built to be far more fire-resistant (and many are more disposable and more easily & cheaply replaced) than earlier structures were (money is at root here: lower cyclical insurance costs appeal to owners of buildings having superior fire-resistance, sprinkler systems, &c). In the last thirty years the widespread introduction, often according to local/state construction and occupancy codes, of smoke alarms has greatly reduced firefighter response times and the effectiveness of their responses to alarms - and contributed to significant reduction of fire deaths, injuries, and damages. Finally, there is the simple attrition, owing to various causes (including destructive fire, ordinary demolition & replacement, urban renewal, &c.) of older, less fire-resistant/more fire-prone structures, which has reduced the number and severity of fires. There is also nowadays far less commingling of commercial-industrial installations whose processes use or produce hazardous materials: the industrial park and even the common strip mall have segregated factories, shops, and warehouses from residential areas in which commercial enterprises had long been more frequently co-located with residences, thus reducing the impact of commercial structure fires upon residential tracts and their occupants. Specialized substances, far less flammable than what had been their common predcessors (benzene, toluene, &c) for tasks such as household and industrial cleaning have evolved, making both homes and workplaces safer, far less fire-prone.<br /><br /><br />In the US just about every state now mandates so-called "Fire-Safe Cigarettes" which include chemicals that extinguish a cigarette if it's not drawn upon by its smoker. (This is, in my opinion, exemplary of Big Nanny State overreach, if not a veiled tactic of anti-smokers to make ciggies tastes so foul from their "Fire-Safe" chemical additives as to discourage smokers from enjoying - and buying - them.) But this is also exemplary of countless initiatives to reduce fire hazards.Auntie Analoguenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30658543724644783642012-01-09T07:34:14.688-08:002012-01-09T07:34:14.688-08:00The science of fire fighting has developed tremend...<i> The science of fire fighting has developed tremendously. It is one of those revolutionary technical advances that changes people's lives but nobody notices it. ... Sprinklers have reduced fires in a 95% and additional safety measures like illuminated exit routes, emergency doors, fire-resistant textiles </i><br /><br />Also, fewer tobacco smokers.David Davenporthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03315090179595817174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-9704871796899206562012-01-09T06:36:33.938-08:002012-01-09T06:36:33.938-08:00Some of you folks would do well to read my (relati...Some of you folks would do well to read my (relatively short) book, THE LAW, on which I've received many hundreds of very favorable reviews, quite a few even going so far as to find it 'entertaining."<br /><br />Though I wrote it quite some time ago, I included quite serious commentary on the many advantages enjoyed in places like Japan and Germany as the result of being so heavily bombed as to destroy most of their industrial capacity. And there are even some considered suggestions on how the U.S. might reap some of these same benefits.Frederick Bastiatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-15835287357120996292012-01-09T05:58:55.585-08:002012-01-09T05:58:55.585-08:00"Real bricks guy":
What you don't s..."Real bricks guy":<br /><br />What you don't seem to take into account is that real bricks take real mud. Had we not economized in our lavish use of such brick, we'd now be looking at an even more disastrous shortage of mud--the stuff from which all those real bricks are made.<br /><br />You might think I'm joking about this but you'd be wrong. Every time mud is used to make bricks, there's that much less to do what's most important: hold up our houses--especially our lawns, to grow stuff to eat (mud for farming is getting in such short supply that there's whole bunches of scientists and engineers trying to develop ways to do without it--they give it a fancy name--"hydroponics"--but it's just a cover to divert attention from the real crisis). We've even taken to producing artificial surfaces to economize on the stuff for football fields--even tennis courts. <br /><br />If you paid attention to these things, you'd realize we're running so short of mud that we're in danger of running out of enough to dig holes in to dump our trash. We used to send a lot to poverty-ridden places like Africa that really needed that stuff but now we keep it just to fill up all the places stripped of their mud, just to keep the public from seeing the reality.<br /><br />Of course, we've actually been economizing on mud for a long time. For instance, there was a time when a brick house was actually made of brick. Nowadays, the only brick is a veneer on the outside--for show, to "keep up appearances," so to speak.<br /><br />Of course, we'll adapt, one way or another. Time was when we had a thriving industry cutting ice blocks in the winter from lakes up in Maine and shipping it where it was needed, places like South Africa and even India. We didn't run short of ice in those places but those foreigners came to prefer other sources for their ice (or maybe have their drinks without--I don't really know). It might've made some folks temporarily uncomfortable but they got over it and made their living selling lobsters (to Japan, I think). In those days, half the country's agriculture was just growing hay and corn and stuff to feed horses for police, firemen, and deliverymen (ice, milk, coal--even the "ice cream truck" that came around city neighborhoods). All gone now; but, somehow, people got by. I don't know what everyone will do when the mud runs out but I'm sure they'll come up with something. They always do.Gene Bermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61024923561689568822012-01-09T05:04:10.231-08:002012-01-09T05:04:10.231-08:00Great piece from the NYT. I wonder how the Japanes...<i>Great piece from the NYT. I wonder how the Japanese manifest their wealth, since the google streetviews don't impress (I know, a poor metric). It always looks drab and a poster who lived there confirmed it. </i><br /><br />That's true. I have taken probably thousands of street view "tours" around the world. Japan often looks very unimpressive. Even the iffy parts of LA look nicer. Taipei (Taiwan) tends to look like this too. Hong Kong, on the other hand, has a more pleasing "feel" to it (surprising number of buildings that look like eastern european "commie blocks" though). Haven't "been" to Singapore yet.<br /><br /><i> But there's nothing like that in our National economic accounting.</i><br /><br />Actually, there is a measure called Net Domestic Production, which accounts for the depreciation and replacement of capital stock. <br /><br />GDP is more often used because it's a measure of current <i>production</i>. If you want to know how much is presently being produced (over a year, typically), you have to look at GDP. GDP, of itself, isn't <i>supposed</i> to clue you into what GDP may be five years from now. <br /><br /><i>true, this is why GDP growth is not necessarily reflecting something important. two mexicans selling tacos increases GDP, but contributes almost nothing to the US really. multiplied by a million mexicans and you get some additional phantom GDP but not much important GDP. in fact, mexicans are having a huge effect of this nature on the US right now.</i><br /><br />Jody I know you like to believe no one before you ever tried to explain the world we live in, so it may surprise you to learn that you're not the first one to have had this idea. Economists have long considered GDP <i>per capita</i> a much more important metric than total GDP.<br /><br /><i>Now, the extreme over-crowding in Japan</i><br /><br />Roughly as "extreme" as Massachusetts, which is just e.x.t.r.e.m.e How anyone can live there I'll never know.<br /><br />SilverAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-2816836641347972312012-01-09T00:47:45.879-08:002012-01-09T00:47:45.879-08:00Actually there have not been any specific deaths i...<i>Actually there have not been any specific deaths in the US "linked" to Fukushima. Not a single one. </i><br /><br />I thought Truth was being ironic with original claim.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53917292717519250412012-01-09T00:42:55.110-08:002012-01-09T00:42:55.110-08:00Japan employs a lot of people in agriculture, the ...Japan employs a lot of people in agriculture, the army is pretty big and there are all sorts of make work schemes to prop up employment.<br /><br />Seems to me there is scope for shifting some of these people into the productive sectors of the economy - compared to now - thus countering some of the demographic change.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-24631886424786174612012-01-08T20:37:33.442-08:002012-01-08T20:37:33.442-08:00" Commercial buildings in particular seem dis..." Commercial buildings in particular seem disposable--people are always tearing down the building the Walgreens was in because it doesn't fit the plan they want for a Safeway or Target or whatever,"<br /><br />It's like a backyard shed school of architecture. So many buildings look so cheap. Store buildings built maybe 50 years or more ago seem to have more real brick. <br /><br />How come real brick isn't used anymore. We had a house built in the 60's and it had real bricks. It seems in the 70's the use of bricks went down.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-52975739562157577732012-01-08T18:41:07.123-08:002012-01-08T18:41:07.123-08:00On the flip side of your article, places like Chic...On the flip side of your article, places like Chicago and Japan got a shot in their asses when they were destroyed. Within 25 years of the fire, Chicago was running neck and neck with New York in population and importance (New York had to annex Brooklyn to stop the population part). And within 30 or so years of WWII, Japan was running neck and neck with the US in importance. If the US could cut out some deadwood, it may bounce back from the current doldrums!Dahindanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-15477834175568894952012-01-08T18:37:27.351-08:002012-01-08T18:37:27.351-08:00"amazed at what diversity had wrought on some..."amazed at what diversity had wrought on some areas of Chicago. It looked like large tracks between downtown and the museum of science and industry had been subjected to firebombing raids."<br />Sure, find the official worst part of the city and judge it by that! It is like driving through South Central LA and judging all of that city by that area!Dahindanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-3019710107628584952012-01-08T18:04:31.405-08:002012-01-08T18:04:31.405-08:00"of course there's the issue that the jap...<i>"of course there's the issue that the japanese are literally dying off."</i> <br /><br /><br /><br />Remind me again how the Americans are doing. Oh, they're "literally dying off" as well?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-2211814371873963882012-01-08T17:40:31.096-08:002012-01-08T17:40:31.096-08:00"of course there's the issue that the jap..."of course there's the issue that the japanese are literally dying off."<br /><br />Their birth rate isn't healthy, but they're still having about a million births per year. Ten million new Japanese per decade - it's not as dire as some seem to think. Of course, without immigration, a Japan with half as many people as now is still going to be Japan. Smart women all over the world are overwhelmingly secular now, and that kills birthrates. How likely is that cultural trap to reverse itself at any point during this century? I don't know. If it happens, they'll be able to re-inflate.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53647167833147980412012-01-08T16:56:38.319-08:002012-01-08T16:56:38.319-08:00NONE of this debt is going to be repaid - not by a...<i>NONE of this debt is going to be repaid - not by anyone.<br /><br />Not by the USA, not by Japan, not by China, not by France, not by Spain, not by Italy, not by Greece, NOT BY ANYONE.</i><br /><br />Adam Smith noted in <i>The Wealth of Nations</i> that no government ever paid off its national debt.<br /><br />http://www.bartleby.com/10/503.html<br /><br />Book V<br /> <br />III. Of Public Debts<br /><br />"When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid. The liberation of the public revenue, if it has ever been brought about at all, has always been brought about by a bankruptcy; sometimes by an avowed one, but always by a real one, though frequently by a pretended payment."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com