Japan

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog, What is going to happen when the greatest economic bubble in the history of the world pops? The mainstream media never talks about that. They are much too busy covering the latest dogfights in Washington and what Justin Bieber has been up to. And most Americans seem to think that if the Dow keeps setting new all-time highs that everything must be okay. Sadly, that is not the case at all. Right now, the U.S. economy is exhibiting all of the classic symptoms of a bubble economy. You can see this when you step back and take a longer-term view of things. Over the past decade, we have added more than 10 trillion dollars to the national debt. But most Americans have shown very little concern as the balance on our national credit card has soared from 6 trillion dollars to nearly 17 trillion dollars. Meanwhile, Wall Street has been transformed into the biggest casino on the planet, and much of the new money that the Federal Reserve has been recklessly printing up has gone into stocks. But the Dow does not keep setting new records because the underlying economic fundamentals are good. Rather, the reckless euphoria that we are seeing in the financial markets right now reminds me very much of 1929. Margin debt is absolutely soaring, and every time that happens a crash rapidly follows. But this time when a crash happens it could very well be unlike anything that we have ever seen before. The top 25 U.S. banks have more than 212 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives combined, and when that house of cards comes crashing down there is no way that anyone will be able to prop it back up. After all, U.S. GDP for an entire year is only a bit more than 15 trillion dollars. But most Americans are only focused on the short-term because the mainstream media is only focused on the short-term. Things are good this week and things were good last week, so there is nothing to worry about, right? Unfortunately, economic reality is not going to change even if all of us try to ignore it. Those that are willing to take an honest look at what is coming down the road are very troubled. For example, Bill Gross of PIMCO says that his firm sees "bubbles everywhere"... We see bubbles everywhere, and that is not to be dramatic and not to suggest they will pop immediately. I just suggested in the bond market with a bubble in treasuries and bubble in narrow credit spreads and high-yield prices, that perhaps there is a significant distortion there. Having said that, it suggests that as long as the FED and Bank of Japan and other Central Banks keep writing checks and do not withdraw, then the bubble can be supported as in blowing bubbles. They are blowing bubbles. When that stops there will be repercussions. And unfortunately, it is not just the United States that has a bubble economy. In fact, the gigantic financial bubble over in Japan may burst before our own financial bubble does. The following is from a recent article by Graham Summers... #000000;">First and foremost, Japan is the second largest bond market in the world. If Japan’s sovereign bonds continue to fall, pushing rates higher, then there has been a tectonic shift in the global financial system. Remember the impact that Greece had on asset prices? Greece’s bond market is less than 3% of Japan’s in size. #000000;">For multiple decades, Japanese bonds have been considered “risk free.” As a result of this, investors have been willing to lend money to Japan at extremely low rates. This has allowed Japan’s economy, the second largest in the world, to putter along marginally. #000000;">So if Japanese bonds begin to implode, this means that: #000000;"> #000000;">1) The second largest bond market in the world is entering a bear market (along with commensurate liquidations and redemptions by institutional investors around the globe). #000000;">2) The second largest economy in the world will collapse (along wi

WASHINGTON -- As millions of Americans pack their cars ahead of Memorial Day weekend, the United States remains alone among the world's advanced economies in its lack of guaranteed paid vacation time for workers, according to a new report.In an update to an earlier analysis, the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research looked at the vacation policies in 16 European countries, along with Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the U.S. Among the 21 countries, the U.S. was the only one without a mandate that employers provide some kind of paid time off.More...

The Carlisle Import Nationals wouldn’t be the show that it is without the hundreds of German cars and car fans that make the trip to Pennsylvania every year, some coming from as far away as Canada. And this year the field certainly didn’t disappoint, as the numbers of Audi cars alone seemed to approach 200. This was a great turnout for Opel as well, with more than 40 cars present. If you were there on Friday and Saturday, you would have seen just a tremendous number of cars in the German section of the field, perhaps the biggest turnout in the last five years of the event. And if you were there on Sunday you probably saw jack squat, because Sunday is the day that everyone drives back home. Which we warned you about.Straying a bit from the topic of German cars, I feel compelled to note that the vendor area of the field grew quite unexpectedly this year, with seemingly double the number of sellers present on the field than in previous years. This was both good news and bad news. It was good news for actual car owners as they crowded that part of the field in what seemed to be a mini version of Hershey’s swap meet, and it was bad news for me because I was tempted to buy parts for cars that not only did I not own, but hadn’t even seen in years. Carlisle is tricky like that, it plays mind games on you, so you’ve got to watch out. Let’s gawk at some German cars instead after the jump.Remember the S2 Avant? Of course you do, it’s that car that you really wanted, but since Audi couldn’t get its act together in the US in the early 1990s, we weren’t offered this model. This 1994 S2 Avant basically stole the show as far as German cars were concerned. The current owner purchased this car just recently, and has performed quite a bit of maintenance on it in the last few months. Being a 1994 car, this one must have been brought into Canada just in the last few years per its 15-year rule. The S2 Avant was offered from 1993 till 1995, though the coupe and sedan versions of this car were available for a longer period. The S2 of course served as the starting point for the development of the RS2 track demon, which was developed with input from Porsche. Okay, you really want to bring in an RS2 I’m hearing? It’ll be just a few more years guys, but start saving now.This BMW E34 Alpina B10 3.6 was the runner up when it came to stealing the show. This car had appeared last at the 2012 edition of Lime Rock Sunday in the Park, where it managed to gather just as many crowds as at Carlisle this year. Yes, those are Hungarian plates it’s wearing up front, but on the back are Ontario plates, which leads me to believe that this car may have come through Japan. Vancouver is quietly becoming a city where it’s not uncommon to see kei cars, but European stuff is also being brought in from Japan. Namely rare luxury sedans modified by European tuning companies. These tend to be Brabus, RuF, and Alpina-tuned cars, ones that were bought new by wealthy Japanese businessmen.  They’re now being brought into Canada as they’re turning 15 and becoming importable (or rather registrable, as you can import whatever you like).This was a stunning BMW Glas GT, a car that we had seen last year at Larz Anderson’s German Car Day, as well as Lime Rock’s Sunday in the Park concours. BMW had essentially put it’s engine into the Glas GT after purchasing the firm, merely tweaking a number of smaller details on the car. Not a lot of these were made, needless to say, and for a while the GT complemented the Neue Klasse range of small saloons.Another rare sight was this BMW M5 in the E28 body. You will immediately notice that this one is wearing European-spec bumpers, so I am unsure if this is a car that was brought into the country back when it was new, or whether this is a relatively recent import. E28 M5s were indeed sold officially in the US, and having seen a couple original exa

Mobile Insights is a daily newsletter from BI Intelligence delivered first thing every morning exclusively to BI Intelligence subscribers. Sign up for a free trial of BI Intelligence today. iOS Dominates Mobile Video Traffic (FreeWheel)The iPhone, iPad, and iPod combine for 75% of mobile video traffic, despite a smaller installed base than Android. Tablets tend to drive ad views on longer videos: nearly 60% of ad views on iPads were generated by long-form content, versus about 25% for iPhones and Android smartphones. Overall, smartphones and tablets accounted for 20% of video views in the first quarter, up from 6% a year ago. Read > HTC Has Sold 5 Million Units of the HTC One (The Verge)Released to rave reviews, it's still only half the volume of the rival Samsung Galaxy S4, which may further dishearten the struggling phone manufacturer. Read > Square Is Expanding to Japan (The Next Web)It is Square's first expansion outside of North America, but it won't be the first mobile payments player in the market: PayPal formed a joint venture with SoftBank in 2011, and there's also a host of local solutions. Read > In case you missed it, our new report on Mobile In Korea, Japan And Singapore discusses why mobile payments and mobile monetization have been so successful in these markets. How to Leverage Market Data to Create Hit Apps (App Annie)In order to create a successful app, developers should first devote themselves to thoroughly researching the market and understand what consumers are downloading or willing to pay for. Once you clue in on what's happening in the market, you can extrapolate further to understand what features or specifications made those apps popular. Read > Tablet Use Soars Among U.S. Airline Passengers (USA Today)Although tablet usage patterns are generally closer to PCs than smartphones, they have carved out one truly "mobile" niche: in-flight usage. Read > A Designer's Take on Google I/O (The Push)Adam Beckley's big takeaway from this year's I/O was Google's push to create a unified service, which paradoxically means a more personal experience for users. As part of its push towards a unified ecosystem, this year's conference had a greater emphasis on design. The infographic at the end of this newsletter looks at I/O from a similar perspective. Read > Twitter's New Ad Tools Are All About The Second Screen (Twitter)Twitter is pitching its new ad product to brands as a way to continue the stories they tell on TV commercials, and do so online and mobile. Thanks to new analytics, Twitter will automatically know what ads aired on which shows, pair that data with users who tweeted about those same shows or events, and serve those users ads that tie in with the TV commercials that aired during the programming. This strategy is all about leveraging Twitter's mobile usage as a "second screen" companion app to TV. As Twitter itself highlighted in its announcement, "64 percent of mobile-centric Twitter users use it in front of TV at the home." Read > Showrooming May Not Be as Big a Threat As Thought (MarketingCharts)New statistics from xAd show that only 6% smartphone users conducted their most recent mobile retail search in-store and that 77% of smartphone retail shoppers ultimately market their purchase in-store. Read > INFOGRAPHIC: Here's What Drove Conversations About Google I/O (Mutual Mobile) Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

Earlier this week, we took a brief look at Nintendoji, a Nintendo title only available to gold or platinum members of the Japanese Club Nintendo. And because of its very limited release, both Japanese and Westerners are unlikely to be able to ever play it—which is a real shame as it is a fun, cute, and more than a bit of an addictive game. Good – Cell Shaded Sumie It’s no secret that I love me some games with sumie inspired graphics. The character models in Nintendoji mix sumie aesthetics with the cel-shaded style of Wind Waker. So what we’re left with is an art style full of dark or muted colors perfectly setting a world of abandoned temples to explore. And while as a game designed for the DSi it doesn’t live up to the image quality of 3DS games, the art direction more than makes up for it. Good – Puzzle and Dungeon Gameplay Nintendoji plays largely like a turn-based dungeon crawler. Each turn, you draw several priestly seals from your stack of them. Each of them has a number on it. If you choose and use said card, that number is the amount of spaces you have to move in the dungeon. In addition, many of the seals have a special magical effect—like using wind magic to fly directly to your final square, for example—if you have enough magic collected. On each floor of the dungeon there are crystal balls you need to activate to proceed and monsters you need to avoid (or kill if you have the right items). The trick is to plan your movements carefully so you don't run out of your priestly seals. In some ways, Nintendoji is as much Minesweeper as it is a dungeon crawler—and that is where most of the strategy aspect comes in. While you need to make the most of each priestly seal you use, you are also unable to see most of each map until you move within a few spaces of the unexplored area. Thus moving too brashly can lead you right into the mouth of a hungry monster. To counter this, you have a special power that tells you how many squares away the nearest monster is—even if you cannot see him. If used correctly, navigating becomes much simpler—but still challenging. Good – Quirky Nintendo Humor Nintendoji as a game has more than its share of tongue-in-check humor. The main priest at the shrine is the Kappa from fellow eShop downloadable title Sakura Samurai: Heart of the Sword. Moreover, the holy relics you find in the dungeon are taken right from other Nintendo games, be that a barrel from Donkey Kong or a giant turnip from Super Mario Bros. 2. While story is hardly the focus of the game, what little that exists is cute, quirky, and 100% Nintendo. Mixed – A One Trick Pony Beyond mucking about in the dungeon or shopping to prepare for your next trip, there isn't much else to Nintendoji. The only thing that really changes as you progress is the difficulty. Your movements have to be more carefully chosen and the enemies aren’t the pushovers they once were. Moreover, it takes a fair amount of replays of past areas to stock up on the money and supplies you need for the later levels of the game; so your progression will occasionally grind to a halt. Final Thoughts On one hand, I don’t know if I should feel sad that few people will ever play Nintendoji or feel happy that the game was released as such a heartfelt gift to Nintendo’s most supportive fans. Personally, I really enjoyed the game—though I will admit I was more than a little angry each time a monster appeared suddenly and ate me because of a careless step on my part. However, if you like dungeon crawlers or Minesweeper-esque puzzle games, this game is a great way to spend a few hours. The biggest problem it has is simply the obstacle of obtaining a copy. Nintendoji was released on April 4, 2013, on the Japanese 3DS eShop. It is only available to Gold and Platinum Nintendo Club members. There is no word on an international release. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in

By now every single chart laying out every possible permutation of a hopelessly insolvent and overlevered world has been compiled, created, colored and in some cases, animated and socially networked. The following chart showing global debt dynamics over time from the WSJ is no different: it is animated (check) it has lots of pretty colors (check), and it is quite informative because it remembers that in addition to public sector debt, there is a thing called the private sector (sadly it avoids shadow debt: perhaps someone good at making 3D animated charts should take a stab?) and succeeds in incorporating everything in one cool animation. Yet why it may be most memorable, or not as the case may be, is that it is merely the latest chart in a seemingly infinite series which are just not big enough to fit Japan. Perhaps it is time to make a chart of all the charts that need to be bigger to show the true Japanese state of affirs. That, or in reverence to the sadist joke, pardon "experiment" (as Jens Weidmann would say) that is Abenomics, we can finally start making bigger charts. Interactive global debt dynamics chart after the jump:

The Japanese markets have been largely a one-way path higher in the last six months, as market participants focus on the bold actions of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) targeting 2% inflation through unprecedented monetary stimulus. One outcome of these bold policies has been a substantially weakening yen,...

I came across this whilst browsing on tumblr. Have a listen and see what you think … ~~ This young player from Kanagawa, Japan plays all the instruments heard on his overdubbed recordings and has worked on many arrangements of popular tunes from video games. I find all his videos skilful, amusing and refreshingly original. Check out his channel ~~ Filed under: Music

2013 has brought at least six different billion-dollar natural disasters in just five months — and the Atlantic hurricane season hasn’t even opened yet. In the wake of the killer Moore, Oklahoma tornado that hit Monday afternoon, Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak said that the insured losses from that disaster alone could exceed $2 billion. Considering that the NOAA Hurricane Forecast has already predicted an active Atlantic tropical storm season this year, with as many as six hurricanes at Category 3 or higher, then the costs could really mount up. The single most expensive natural disaster that ever occurred in the United States was 2005′s Hurricane Katrina, which NOAA eventually said cost around $81 billion in total damage. The single most expensive natural disaster of all time is the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, which caused a serious nuclear disaster. World Bank priced that disaster at a record-shattering $235 billion. Besides the Moore F4 or F5 super-tornado, what are the other most expensive natural disasters of 2013? Let’s have a look. The first billion dollar storm in the United States was the March 18 derecho, a series of severe thunderstorms that dropped damaging hail over a wide area, especially in Mississippi — including its state capital of Jackson, as well as several other population centers. A terrifying video of the event was posted by Aaron Webb, allowing you to see the baseball sized hailstones that pounded the state: But early 2013 wasn’t good for anybody. According to The Weather Underground, there were four other billion-dollar natural disasters in the world before March 30. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, late January flooding in Australia in the wake of tropical cyclone Oswald caused an estimated $2.4 billion in damage in Australian dollars, which is very roughly $2.5 billion in American dollars. Check out this chilling video of a baby being rescued from the rising flood waters by helicopter: The news reporter angrily remarked that they had been told a 2011 flood was a “once in a century” event but the flood waters had returned only two years later. And here is a video montage of the deadly flood which hit Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, a city of 14 million, also in late January. Jeff Masters, owner of The Weather Underground, estimated the damage to the highly populated city at around $3 billion: The winter which wouldn’t end might have been a laughing matter in the United States, where people poked fun at the hapless groundhog who predicted an early spring. But it was no joke in Europe, where the coldest March since 1962 hit agricultural and travel interests from Russia to Ireland at an estimated cost of $1.8 billion. Here’s a video from the beginning of the unnamed snow disaster, which continued for over two weeks: An ongoing drought in China, priced at around $1.7 billion, rounded out the list of disasters for 2013′s first three months. In a cruel irony, the worst drought in China in 50 years was then broken by killing floods: And, of course, no video roundup of 2013′s billion-dollar natural disasters would be complete without the Moore tornado. Here is a video caught by tornado chasers, who believe it will be considered a true F5: Guys, don’t try this at home. Like most Hurricane Katrina survivors, I don’t run toward storms. I run the other way and suggest you do the same. In any event, with June 1 rolling around, it’s time to get prepared and stock up on your supplies. My guess is that the next billion-dollar natural disaster for 2013 will be a hurricane. [photo of earth during Moore, OK tornado courtesy NASA/NOAA GOES Project, Dennis Chesters] Six Billion-Dollar 2013 Natural Disasters Before Hurricane Season Even Opens [Video Roundup] is a post from: The Inquisitr

With peak vacation season set to kick off, a U.S.-based economic policy think tank has sobering news for Canadians.Among the 21 affluent nations studied by the Center for Economic Policy and Research, Canada ranked third-worst in terms of legally mandated time off from work, with vacation and statutory holidays combining to give Canadian workers a minimum of 19 paid days off each year.Austria and Portugal both require employers to grant 35 paid days off — 22 in vacation and 13 in holidays — while workers in Germany and Spain are entitled to a minimum of 34 days.The study, titled “No Vacation Nation,” is the sequel to a similar survey conducted six years ago, and lead author John Schmitt says the results haven’t changed much.He points out that the Eurozone economic crisis hasn’t prompted cutbacks on paid vacation time in places such as Spain (34 days) and Greece (26), where hobbled economies prompted austerity measures from federal governments.“It’s quite surprising how little change there’s been in vacation policy given the big movement towards austerity,” Schmitt says. “It speaks to how important this is to so many people in so many different countries.”But he also emphasizes that the last six years haven’t prompted governments in low-ranking countries to increase access to paid days off.Canada still outranks Japan, where workers are guaranteed only 10 vacation days annually, and the U.S., where employees aren’t assured any paid days off.The study found 90 per cent of high wage earners in the U.S. have paid vacation, but without laws requiring paid time off only 49 per cent of low wage earners in the U.S. have paid vacation.Schmitt disputes the idea that Americans simply don’t value time off work.“We have a high level of economic insecurity (in the U.S.) and that makes people very nervous about both asking for vacation or taking vacation if they have it available,” he says. “People are afraid that if they take vacation they’re not going to get a promotion, or are more likely to be laid off if there’s a round of layoffs.”While the U.S. economy is growing faster than many countries that guarantee the most time off, Schmitt says there’s no link between mandated vacation time and an underperforming economy.He points out that Germany has a lower unemployment rate than the U.S., even as its workers are entitled to 34 paid days off each year.