The very unpleasant echo from the 1930s

The very unpleasant echo from the 1930s
The Market Monetarist: 26 November 2015

I am trying very hard not to become alarmist, but I must admit that I see very little positive news at the moment and I continue to see three elements – monetary policy failure/weak growth, the rise of extremist politics (Trump, Orban, Erdogan, Putin, ISIS etc) and sharply rising geopolitical tensions coming together to a very unpleasant cocktail that brings back memories of the 1930s and the run up to the second World War.

It has long been my hypothesis that the contraction in the global economy on the back of the Great Recession – which in my view mostly is a result of monetary policy failure – is causing a rise in political extremism both in Europe (Syriza, Golden Dawn, Orban etc) and the US (Trump) and also to a fractionalization and polarization of politics in normally democratic nations.

That is leading to the appeal of right-wing populists like Donald Trump, but equally to the appeal of islamist groups like ISIS among immigrant youth in for example France and Belgium. Once the democratic alternative loses its appeal extremists and populists will gain ground.

The geopolitical version of this is Ukraine and Syria (and to some extent the South China Sea). With no growth the appeal of protectionism and ultimately of war increases.

Unfortunately the parallels to the 1930s are very clear – without overstating it try to look at this:

• Syrian war vs Spanish civil war: Direct and indirect involvement of authoritarian foreign regimes (Stalin/Hitler vs Erdogan/Putin)
• Euro  zone vs the gold standard
• The rise of populists and extremists: Communists, Nazis and Fascists vs Syriza, Golden Dawn, Jobbik, Orban, regional separatism in Europe, anti-immigrant sentiment, Trump and ISIS (in Europe) etc.
• The weakening (failure?) of democratic institution: Weimar Republic vs the total polarization of politics across Europe – weak and unpopular minority governments with no “political muscle” for true economic reforms across Europe.

Maybe this is too alarmist, but you would have to be blind to the lessons from history not to see this. However, that does not mean that history will repeat itself – I certain hope not – but if we ignore the similarities to the 1930s things will only get worse from here.

PS if you are looking for more empirical evidence on these issues then have a look at Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick and Christoph Trebesch’s recent very good post on voxeu.org on The political aftermath of financial crises: Going to extremes.

Ex-abductee's brother blasts Japan's stance toward N Korea

Ex-abductee's brother blasts Japan's stance toward N Korea
Japan Today: 25 January 2009

TOKYO —

Toru Hasuike, a former vice representative of the Association of Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea, on Saturday criticized the Japanese government’s policy toward North Korea over the abduction issue as well as media coverage of it.

“September 17, 2002, was a day of conspiracy. Japan and North Korea tried to sweep the slate clean,” Hasuike told the Asia Press Club, referring to the top-level meeting between former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

At that meeting, North Korea admitted abducting Japanese citizens in a state-sponsored program and agreed to return five to Japan. “The two sides signed the so-called Pyongyang Declaration which concluded five abductees were still alive and eight had died. That was a show by Japan and North Korea to normalize the bilateral relationship.”

Hasuike’s brother, Kaoru, was kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1978, and returned to Japan together with his Japanese wife in October 2002. In 2004, their children also returned to Japan after a second top-level meeting.

Since retiring from the association in 2007, Toru has continued to campaign for the release of further abductees believed to be in North Korea. He insisted that the families of the remaining abductees have so far been foiled by maneuvers from the government which wants to close the issue as soon as possible.

Hasuike said the government was just conducting a massive public campaign by creating TV commercials for advocacy and inviting foreign media to cover the issue. “Keeping the public informed of the issue is important. But it’s not the government’s main job. Their campaign trucks, for example, are like vehicles of right-wing campaigners.” 

Hasuike said the government has manufactured an abnormal nationalism over North Korea. “They’ve created an enemy, and have got Japanese people shouting that North Korea is evil. Hating each other does not bring any positive results.”

Hasuike also pointed out that news media treat the families of abductees as taboo. “The media still feel guilty that they have not covered the issue. I think they’re having a brain freeze. What is important for us is to have an atmosphere in which we can have diversified opinions (on the issue) in society.”

Hasuike said he is now suspicious about politicians. “Some politicians organize research groups. But all of them take an extreme stance. None of them are moderate. Some politicians seem to believe they can obtain public support just by wearing blue ribbons.” He said he has no intention to become a politician.

Hasuike now thinks the abduction issue should be dealt with step by step while Japan and North Korea discuss normalization of relations. “I used to be called a ‘hard-line leader’ and requested economic sanctions to rescue other abductees. I now feel I did not have cool mind at that time but I have gradually changed my mind.”

Hasuike said Japan should not expect much support from the United States, and thinks the abduction issue is basically a bilateral issue between Japan and North Korea. “Americans are good at lip service. The U.S. would tackle the issue quickly enough if it were about its own people. Japanese politicians just want the U.S. to praise them.”

He suggested that Prime Minister Taro Aso hold a summit with Kim Jong-il.

Abe rapped for inaction on North Korean abduction issue

Abe rapped for inaction on North Korean abduction issue
The Japan Times: 21 December 2015

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policy on the North Korean abduction issue is getting nowhere, Toru Hasuike, brother of abductee Kaoru Hasuike, said Monday in Tokyo. “Prime Minister Abe has risen to his post by depicting himself as a hard-liner toward North Korea, but no progress has been made on the issue. He is merely using the issue politically,” Hasuike told a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
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His brother was repatriated in 2002 after being abducted by North Korea in 1978. Hasuike, who recently published a book titled “Shinzo Abe and the Cold-Blooded People Who Abandoned the North Korea Abduction Victims to Die,” said that although Abe often says Japan will “use every possible way” to solve the issue, “the Japanese government has no concrete strategy.”Abe, who in his second stint as prime minister has been serving since December 2012, has said he will resolve the abduction issue while in office, and set up a special ministerial task force.
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Japan officially lists 17 nationals as having been abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s but suspects North Korea’s involvement in many more disappearances. Five of the 17, including Kaoru Hasuike, were repatriated in 2002, while Pyongyang claims eight have died and four others never entered the country. Japan has been urging North Korea to report the outcome of its latest probe into the whereabouts of all Japanese residing in the country, as stipulated under a bilateral agreement. No tangible progress has been reported so far.
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The abduction issue has prevented the two countries from normalizing diplomatic relations. Toru Hasuike said that to move the issue forward, Abe must define what exactly is meant by a true “resolution” — whether all 12 officially recognized abductees must be brought back to Japan or have their whereabouts confirmed, or whether the definition should be expanded to include the nearly 900 Japanese suspected of having been abducted by North Korea.
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“Once the definition of a resolution is clarified, Japan can negotiate toward a true agreement with North Korea,” said Hasuike, a former vice representative of the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea. “With no progress made, I am worried that the issue will be forgotten in Japan. The abduction victims and their families are getting older and there is simply no more time left,” he said.
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Critics assail Abe after middle-class income gaffe highlights wealthy upbringing

Critics assail Abe after middle-class income gaffe highlights wealthy upbringing
The Japan Times:  9 January 2016

3 years after Abenomics (economic recovery plan of Abe government) got initiated, even Takenaka (the scholor and economic advisor of the LDP government) started to admit its failure in terms of increasing inequality of income distribution. Observing from outside Japan, it looked successful because Japanese stock prices got recovered. The government expressed that unemployment rate decreased. But i...n reality, the number of permanent staffs with stable income has decreased while that of part time workers (lower paid, insecure position) has increased. While big businesses enjoy increasing profit by Abenomics, total amount of labour costs of past 3 decades either remained same or decreased. The amount of internal reserves of large corporations in Japan has reached all-time high record, the Japan Research Institute of Labor Movement (Rodo-soken) revealed recently.
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The below article from Japan Times describes the recent Diet session related to this matter.

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who hails from a wealthy political dynasty, has drawn public criticism over a gaffe he made in the Diet Friday, which was quickly pounced on as evidence by some that he lacks real knowledge about the plight of the middle class.
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During a Lower House Budget Committee meeting, Abe attempted to explain why average real wages, or workers’ price-adjusted earnings, have declined since he took office in December 2012. In his explanation, he cited “the Abes,” an imaginary family where the husband earns ¥500,000 a month and the wife, who recently began a part-time job, makes ¥250,000.
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The outcry over the figures was almost immediate on social networking services, with numerous users bashing Abe and calling such salaries unthinkably high — particularly for part-timers. According to the latest monthly survey by the labor ministry, the average monthly wage for a part-time worker, including nonregular extra payments, was a mere ¥96,638 at a company with five workers or more in November. The figure is just 38.7 percent of the wage Abe cited for a part-timer.
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For a full-time worker, the average monthly wage was ¥352,094, again far lower than the ¥500,000 salary for the husband Abe cited. “¥250,000 a month for a part-timer? Impossible. (I earn) ¥150,000 working six days a week with no breaks and with overtime work. In addition, social security (premiums) are taken away from that,” Twitter user @van_jin wrote Saturday.
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The furor over Abe’s comments at the Diet drowned out his larger point — that if a housewife starts working a part-time job with a salary lower than that of her husband, the average wage per worker will decrease although the family’s total income will rise. “When the economy recovers and jobs increase, it’s possible the average wage per worker will become lower because more people start working part-time jobs,” Abe said.
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“If I earn ¥500,000 and my wife earns ¥250,000, (the total family income) is ¥750,000. But the average will be lower because two people are now working,” he said. Still, if the furious reaction online is any indication, many believe that Abe, the grandson of former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, simply does not know how much money an average family makes since he was raised in a privileged, elite environment.
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“He is out of touch with the realities of the common people. Maybe you can’t ask too much from a hereditary politician who was born with a sliver spoon in his mouth,” said Twitter user Yoshihiro Kagoshima, who tweeted from his @kgssazen account on Saturday.

Note:  Last year end, Abe had a party hosting journalists and enjoyed luxury meals at the cost of our tax. On the other hand, Taro Yamamoto, a cabinet member from the opposite party, assisted NGO which fed homeless people.
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Japanese Ministry of Defense is claiming that the senior bureaucrats of Self Defence Fource to be promoted to the status authenticated by the emperor under Japanese Constitution

Akahata (Japanese):  4 January 2016

(Summary Translation)
Japanese Ministry of Defense is claiming that the senior bureaucrats of Self Defence Fource to be promoted to the status authenticated by the emperor under Japanese Constitution Article 7-5. This co...uld be a sign that Ministry of Defense intends to promote their position among the apparatus of the state. Many of current Japanese cabinet members belong to the cult politic lobby "Japanl Conference" which wants to restore pre-WW2 status. We have to keep in mind that the aggression of Japan in WW2 was as the result of Japanese Imperial Army,which took advantage of the imperial authority, became out of control.
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Japanese constitution Article 7-5: The Emperor, with the advice and approval of the Cabinet, shall perform the following acts in matters of state on behalf of the people....Attestation of the appointment and dismissal of Ministers of State and other officials as provided for by law, and of full powers and credentials of Ambassadors and Ministers.

Resistance to Syrian Refugees Calls to Mind Painful Past for Japanese-Americans

Resistance to Syrian Refugees Calls to Mind Painful Past for Japanese-Americans
New York Times: 26 November 2015

Before the attack that changed the country, a group of girls would meet their 14-year-old friend, Yuka, at her house every morning. They would walk to school together and discuss their plans for the day.

 

But the morning after the bombs were dropped and people lost their lives, Yuka waited and waited. Her mother urged her to go to school on her own. No, Yuka insisted, they’ll be here.

They never came.

So she went to school by herself, only to discover that classmates she had considered close friends were suddenly ignoring her.

 

It was Dec. 8, 1941. The day after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. A Monday.   

           

This week, Yuka Yasui Fujikura, who was born in Oregon to Japanese parents, reflected on the backlash against Syrian refugees after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. And her thoughts drifted back to one of her country’s most shameful chapters: when the American government indiscriminately criminalized tens of thousands of people of Japanese descent — most of them born in the United States — and forced them into detention centers during World War II.

 

“To judge someone by ethnicity or their religion,” said Ms. Fujikura, now 88, “it was wrong then, it’s wrong today, too.”

 

The dark memories of seven decades ago have bubbled to the surface in recent weeks for many other people who were sent to Japanese internment camps.

 

Since gunmen and suicide bombers with the Islamic State killed 130 people in Paris, there has been an outcry in some quarters to stop Syrian refugees from coming into the country. More than two dozen Republican governors have said they do not want Syrians escaping that country’s civil war to enter their states, fearing that terrorists would hide among them. Public officials have floated ideas that include surveillance of mosques, registering Muslims and setting up refugee camps.

 

What really disturbed Japanese-Americans was when the mayor of Roanoke, Va., David Bowers, a Democrat, suggested that barring Syrian refugees was prudent in light of the Japanese internment. “It appears that the threat of harm to America from ISIS now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then,” he said. He has since apologized.

 

For Japanese-Americans of that era, it was a reminder of the days when the government forcibly removed them and their families from their farms, boarded up their businesses, put them on trains with the blinds drawn and shuttled them to remote prisons where they were held behind barbed wire, under the watch of armed guards.

 

It was a time, several said, when the news media propagated fear by reporting conspiratorial rumors — such as that Japanese farmers were plowing their fields in a certain manner to send messages to the enemy.

“Such blatant lies started to turn the tide against us,” recalled George Ikeda, 93, a California native who was sent to an internment camp on Independence Day in 1942.

 

By order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, most of them born in the United States, were detained without charges during World War II. People shouted slurs at them. They were forced to fill out questionnaires to test their loyalty to the United States. The government set a curfew for people of certain foreign ancestries, but it was mostly enforced against the Japanese because they looked different.

 

Out of that discrimination emerged leaders like Ms. Fujikura’s brother, Minoru Yasui, who purposely had himself arrested to challenge the curfew. His conviction was eventually vacated. Though Mr. Yasui died  in 1986 and the United States Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of the law he was fighting, his efforts received the ultimate honor on Tuesday when President Obama posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

 

“It makes me so proud that my grandfather is getting a Presidential Medal of Freedom for defying a presidential order,” said Chani Hawkins, a granddaughter of Mr. Yasui’s. “That gives me hope.”

With the debate over Syrian refugees coinciding with Mr. Yasui’s honor, it was a prime opportunity to address the equality he fought for, another granddaughter, Serena Hawkins-Schletzbaum, said. “I don’t know if it would have been heard as loudly if we weren’t in this exact moment in time.”

 

Ms. Fujikura’s father was among Japanese citizens detained by the authorities after the Pearl Harbor attack, with law enforcement saying “he’s a potentially dangerous enemy alien,” Ms. Fujikura recalled.

 

He came to the United States nearly four decades earlier, she said, settling in Hood River, Ore. The family owned land and orchards, she said, and her father also co-owned a general store with his brother. Ms. Fujikura recalled a sign that was placed on the door of the store: “Alien property closed for business.”

 

Ms. Fujikura, the youngest of nine children, said she was taken with her mother and another brother to a holding area in Pinedale, Calif., before being shipped off to one of the biggest internment camps in Tule Lake, Calif.

 

“When you’re 14 years old and somebody says, ‘Oh you’re going to be shipped to a camp,’ in my head I had envisioned something like a Campfire or Girl Scout camp,” Ms. Fujikura said.

But she quickly learned it was not like that.

 

Several people said they recalled being held on fairgrounds in smelly animal stables before being sent to permanent camps. Some remembered sweltering temperatures in their barracks. At Tule Lake, Ms. Fujikura said, she lived in a tar paper dwelling, and the walls between the units did not go all the way to the ceiling, so everyone could hear what was going on in the neighboring dwellings. The communal toilets and showers did not have doors.

 

By the time the last camp was closed in 1946, many families had lost their homes, land and all their belongings. They were generally discouraged from returning to the West Coast, so many settled elsewhere. Tensions surrounding Japanese-Americans remained high.

 

Ms. Fujikura said that she was accepted at the University of Oregon, but that the university sent her a letter warning she could “return at her own risk,” she said.

 

The camps left lingering anguish for some. Marielle Tsukamoto, 78, who lives in suburban Sacramento and was interned with her family for about two years, recalled the complete darkness of the camps at night, but for the occasional spotlight check. She had a hard time getting over her fear of darkness, she said, even after adulthood.

 

When one of her cousins, a star basketball player, returned to high school for his senior year after internment, teachers and students no longer looked him in the eyes, smiled at or acknowledged him, Ms. Tsukamoto said.

 

She does not want the United States to ever make the same mistake again, she said.

In 1952, internment camp survivors successfully lobbied Congress to allow people from Japan to become naturalized citizens. Ms. Tsukamoto was among many who fought for greater redress. The result was a congressional commission convened in 1980 that concluded that the mass incarceration was not done out of national security, but out of “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.”

 

And they won their biggest victory in 1988 when Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act, requiring an apology and payments of $20,000 each to survivors. In all, the government paid about $1.6 billion to internment camp survivors.

 

“We thought that would prevent it from happening to another group in the future,” Ms. Tsukamoto said.

 

Mr. Yasui’s family noted that the Supreme Court’s 1944 ruling in Korematsu v. United States, which endorsed the executive order requiring Japanese detention, has never been formally overruled. And there is great concern among some Japanese-Americans that the sentiment regarding Syrian refugees has the country headed down a grimly familiar path.

 

“It’s people reacting in hysteria because of fear,” Ms. Tsukamoto said. “We’re better than that. This is a country that is based on welcoming immigrants.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/us/for-japanese-americans-resistance-to-syrian-refugees-recalls-long-ago-fears.html?ref=topics&_r=2

 

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10 construction companies win Henoko-related contracts after donating 63 million yen to LDP

10 construction companies win Henoko-related contracts after donating 63 million yen to LDP

Japan Press Weekly: 3 January 2016

Ten major general construction contractors won contracts related to the construction project for a new U.S. base in Nago’s Henoko district in Okinawa after donating a total of 63 million yen to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in 2014, Akahata reported on January 3.

The government awarded seven Henoko-related contracts, which are worth 47.5 billion yen in total, to the ten companies and other construction companies. Tenders for one of the seven contracts were called in June 2014 and tenders for the rest of the contracts were submitted in January and February of 2015.

According to Akahata, the LDP’s political fund management organization in 2014 received 63.21 million yen in total in political donations from the ten major construction companies. For example Taisei Corporation which later won three of the seven contracts and Shimizu Corporation which was awarded one contract in a joint venture project contributed 16 million yen each to the LDP. Penta-Ocean Construction Co. Ltd. donated nine million yen.

In 2013, the amount of political donations that the LDP received from nine of the ten general contractors was only 43.7 million yen. Given that these companies had offered 1.5 times more money to the ruling party just before the dozens of billion-yen contracts were put in a tender, they cannot avoid being suspected of using political donations as a tool to obtain contracts.

http://www.japan-press.co.jp/modules/news/index.php?id=8837


Huffington Post Japanese: 3 January 2016

(Summary Translation)
More than 80 percent of the government undertakings for the relocation of U.S.Marine Corps from Futenma to Henoko at Okinawa are given to the joint ventures/contractors which employ the retired bureaucrats of the Ministry of Defense.  Total amount of undertaking is 73 billion yen.
10 of these contractors had made political donation to the LDP (a leading party of Japanese government) before bidding.

Also, please refer to:
http://tokuraaya3.blogspot.in/2015/12/japanese-bureaucrat-advises-us.html

Japanese bureaucrat advises U.S. officials that they should not “compromise” on the Futenma relocation plan