The Great Debate UK
from The Great Debate:
Goodbye America, Hello China? Think again
For the growing number of Americans who see China heading for inevitable global dominance, nudging aside the United States, a brief walk down memory lane helps put long-term predictions into perspective.
Not so long ago, Japan was seen as the next (economic) number 1. American executives studied the 14 management principles of The Toyota Way, developed by the automobile manufacturer that grew into the world's biggest car maker and is now recalling millions of defective vehicles.
Between the mid-1980s and early 1990s, books with titles such as Trading Places - How We Are Giving Our Future to Japan and How to Reclaim It (by Clyde Prestowitz) were required reading in Washington. Learned panelists expounded on the wondrous efficiency of "Japan Inc."
A glut of "Amazing Japan" books, Chicago Tribune writer Ronald Yates noted in 1987, hammered home the same theme: Japanese technology is superior, Japanese management is better, Japanese products are unrivaled, Japanese people work harder, Japanese are smarter, Japan is No. 1.
Japan lags behind in gender equality
-Atsuko Kitayama is a a Reuters translator and correspondent based in Toronto. Reuters is hosting a “follow-the-sun” live blog on Monday, March 8, 2010, International Women’s Day. Please tune in.-
Japan has quite a way to go to narrow its gender gap and come closer to matching the disparities found between the sexes in other G7 countries, statistics show.
from The Great Debate:
At least U.S. has Japan to fall back on
(James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)
The bad news for holders of U.S. debt, in case you missed it, is that China has sold so many Treasuries that it is no longer America's leading lender.
The worse news is that there is a new creditor-in-chief, and it is Japan, an aging country with its own government debt bubble to contend with.
from MacroScope:
What can Kan do?
Mixed reaction from major European banks to appointment of Naoto Kan as new Japanese finance minister. ING is pretty scathing, saying the appointment sidesteps a process of change Japan must undertake to avoid further stagnation or a fate far worse.
"PM Hatoyama has appointed someone with no experience in economic management... Mr. Kan takes on the finance minister role without a well documented, deeply considered policy agenda. Here we rely on reports of positions he has taken in the Cabinet, and from public statements on economic management. These suggest his instincts are to pursue a stimulus strategy involving higher government spending; a weaker yen and ultra-loose monetary policy. Mr. Kan appears tone deaf to microeconomic reform or to the threats to financial stability posed by high public debt."
Development of the risk trade
- Jane Foley is research director at Forex.com. The opinions expressed are her own.-
A willingness to differentiate between risk on a country or at a regional level is an important part of the repair process in financial markets.
Japan: The election that might change everything
- Arudou Debito, is a columnist for the Japan Times, activist, blogger at debito.org, and Chair of the NPO Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association. The opinions expressed are his own -
Japan’s famous mantra is that things don’t change much or very quickly. But I have a feeling that this approaching Lower House parliamentary election on August 30 just might prove that wrong.
from The Great Debate:
Forget Microsoft, Yahoo’s value is overseas
-- Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --
The fate of Yahoo Inc has become intertwined in the public's imagination with the success or failure of its dealings with Microsoft Corp in recent years.
That's despite the fact that as much as 70 percent of the value investors put on Yahoo's depressed shares are tied up in its international assets or cash holdings -- factors that have nothing to do with Microsoft.
Making the most of the Commonwealth’s potential
- Danny Sriskandarajah is Director of the Royal Commonwealth Society. The opinions expressed are his own -
In recent years the Commonwealth has become an easily derided organisation. From its inception as a clever way of easing de-colonisation to the heady 1970s and 1980s when the association showed a radical dynamism on issues like Apartheid, the international association has shown itself to be unique and useful.
from The Great Debate:
The ugly attraction of fast shrinking Japan
-- James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --
Sure, seeing your economy shrink at a 15 percent annual clip is depressing, quite literally, but if you believe in even a tepid global economic recovery in the second half, then Japan is actually attractive.
There is no way to sugar coat the first quarter Japanese gross domestic product figures released on Wednesday: they are breathtakingly bad viewed from virtually any angle.
Don’t scapegoat the Germans for crisis
– Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –
A revisionist theory on the causes of the global financial crisis blames surplus countries like China, Japan and Germany as much as highly-leveraged, deregulated finance in the United States and Britain.
