Yep, I am another lunatic.
I lived and worked in Tokyo for HP in the ’80’s. In Nov ’88 in my exit interview as I was heading back to the U.S., I told my boss’s boss that Japan’s stock market was about to crash and Japanese banks would fail. They laughed at me.
Despite the fact that before I arrived, the business group I was responsible for had been flat for 20 years, but after I was there 4 years my business had grown 700% in Yen terms. But my managers did not, could not, accept my warning. The evidence was clear and right in front of me and them. (The Japan market crashed two months after I left.)
Japan was and is operating on 180 DSO. The true state of the economy is hidden by their Tegatta system, which is an accepted system of payment by negotiable note, and other interlocking devices. Company managers have stacks of these Tegatta notes in their safes which they use to pay off debts or buy things, with generally accepted rules of engagement. But the Tegatta debt is outside the monetary system, unrecorded and of unknown size and effect, on top of the official debt in excess of 100% of GDP.
So, not only does Japan have QE, official government debt over 100% of GDP with the requirement that banks purchase a % of government bonds, they have extensive cross holdings of corporate stocks and interlocking boards, and Zaibatzu (anti-competitive conglomerates), they are holding mountains of negotiable notes equivalent to about 6 months sales outstanding. It’s another layer of debt that Americans do not have. (But we do have student debt and credit card debt.) The weight of the Yen is enormous.
Thus you have an 18 yearlong recession in Japan, but most things appear to be OK if not prosperous. For example, retail stores are loaded with the latest and greatest inventory, but the stores do not actually own that inventory…it’s all debt. And yes, it is factored/discounted. A mountain of debt held up only by the mutual confidence of the Japanese people. Screw up and you lose face, and nothing worse can happen to you than that. Face is the ultimate result of political correctness.
Japan is still afloat because their largest market, the U.S., is still buying. But mutual diversity is not an advantage in this case. The mutual confidence among Japanese does not exist in America or Europe. Maybe in China and South Korea.
Taxes in Japan are very high, so high that salaries are suppressed significantly. One unacknowledged consequence: the Japanese population is not replacing itself…very low birth rate.
A long recession is spiraling downward to an eventual depression which could make the nation, as they know it, become extinct. Pushed along with some other problems caused by immigration policies, Europe already followed Japan off the debt cliff. Italy, I believe the second largest economy there after Germany, also runs on 180 DSO or more.
There also, except by the grace of God, the U.S. is heading. Except, at the moment, the U.S. has no giant export product in hand with which to save the U.S. economy from its debt crisis.
Enter Trump’s big opportunity “to make America great again:” Revive and build the U.S. energy export industry. That’s a 10 year project in the normal course of events. If the nation were on a highly focused mission, like going to the moon or a Manhattan Project, we could have a new market in 5 years. Better yet, the demand is there.
budbromley 
Bud – I’m going to pass along to my financial advisor. John
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Of course John, no problem. Let me know any comments please.
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You know me, Bud, I have to speak my mind. The truth about the world economy is this:
Over $200 trillion has been funneled, siphoned, embezzled and stolen from the world economy.
Those who wonder how the 1% got control of 99% of the world’s wealth can rest assured that monsters from hell belong in prison – until the day they die – with all the assets in their control seized and returned to the public.
The 1% controls trillions of dollars in profits from cocaine and other illegal drugs – they also control and manipulate the stock market, pension funds, retirement accounts, etc. These trillions of ill-gotten gains helped them to gain control of the oil industry, the petrochemical industry, pharmaceuticals, biotech, military weapons and other government contracts, profits from the nuclear industries and radiation technologies, they control the majority of profits from the stock market, they control profits from the public airwaves and the free press, the film industry, the fashion industry, the music industry, etc., meanwhile trillions of dollars have disappeared from the Pentagon budget and from the Federal Reserve, trillions of dollars disappeared from pension funds, retirement accounts, stock market investments, etc.
Trillions of dollars disappeared through the Savings & Loan Scandal, the Enron Scandal, the Bernie Madoff Scandal, the Mortgage Scandal, the dot com collapse, false flag attacks, non-profit foundations, federal land holdings, etc.
So let’s tell the truth about money for a change.
The American people have no debt.
The American people – along with the rest of humanity – are entitled to receive everything that has been stolen from them. However, since the public is poisoned, drugged, numbed and programmed with lies, lunacy and insanity, the chances that justice will prevail – through finance or economics – is next to zero.
The lies end here.
Truth prevails –
poetic justice is coming.
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I hope you are right about the justice coming and truth prevailing. At the moment, the American people are indeed saddled with debt, massive debt, by their own government. It is our own fault for letting that happen, for not voting differently through the years.
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Bud, presidential elections have been rigged for over 100 years – since Woodrow Wilson. Books have been published exposing the evidence. Who the public votes for is irrelevant. The candidates are manipulated from the beginning.
The public is so poisoned, drugged, numbed and programmed with lunacy – on virtually ever topic – very few people realize what’s going on. Some see a small piece of the puzzle, others see another piece of the puzzle, but the deception is so pervasive most people buy the lies and pay for them with their lives.
Keeping the public ignorant and confused, poisoned, drugged, numbed and programmed with lies and lunacy is how it’s done. Most people are satisfied to live a life of lies – they accept what they’re told and slave away for the criminals until the day they die.
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When the public better informs themselves, elections do not go the way the fixers intended. But the public must focus on the primaries. The primaries are where Americans lose the elections in the way you mean. Thanks for your thoughts and comments.
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