Today's Japan, after too many decades of New Economy fooling around, has the government we might expect or fear. Shinzo Abe's LDP has a sure and certain ally in parliament in the shape of the far-right Japan Restoration Party (JRP), led by Japan’s 80-year-old version of Dick Cheney, Ishihara Shintaro.

His plan for the disputed islands is for Tokyo's city government to purchase them from their private Japanese owner, and station “civil servants” on them, which is Japanese coded language for Japanese SDF, Self Defence Force, personnel. Even "SDF" now has special meanings, because Japan's "self-defence" navy now boasts roughly four times more major battle-class ships than Britain's Royal Navy. Placing these "civil servants" on the disputed islands can only draw one possible reaction from China, which in absolutely no way would allow this provocation to slide.

Nuclear Wipeout

Japan can be called the nation that even if it did not go the fastest, certainly went the furthest with nuclear power, that is so-called "civil" nuclear power.

Japanese in March 2011 were able to witness the simultanous meltdown of at least 3 (possibly 4) reactors on primetime TV, along with hundreds of millions of non-Japanese. Probable cost - to the state of course, not Tepco the owner and operator of the reactors - of clean up and economic recovery operations will probably be more than $500 billion, even if this is peanuts compared with Japanese sovereign debt! Much more important and proving again, if needed, that "civil" uranium fuelled reactors are only good for making nuclear weapons and generating expensive electricity,

the JRP regularly crows that Japan is a "single screwdriver turn" from nuclear weapons capability and can at any time start production at an initial rate of four Hiroshima-equivalent weapons-per-week. In total, the JRP goes on to boast, Japan can have fully functional nuclear weapons in at most two months from getting the green light - from Shinzo Abe's governing party.

Japan's endgame flirt with Neoliberal mindwarp, what we can call the "slogan based economy", has brought about a situation where War and Circuses is surely on the Japanese political agenda, along with Japan's threats to sabotage the global economy.

The inventors of kamikaze suicide war now have an Old Guard of political deciders who are prepared to pilot the economy straight into the ground, while bleating about "national pride". After these have-beens have been dumped in the trashcan of History, however, the Japanese nation will really re-emerge and be proud to do it.

There are 2 simple problems:

- our economic cycle was always based on boom/bust model where we didn't destroy everything gained in the boom phase during the bust. But bust means war. And we can't have war anymore; that's why Bass will keep looking at his peace time debt levels chart and wonder another 100 years how it's possible...

The model doesn't work anymore. Either come up with a new model, or... self-service around for decades while losing much more in the bust phase than was gained in the boom. Having an obsolete system always helped; not.

- productivity is too high; either reduce hours worked/day drastically or accept high unemployment rates and redistribution. The problem with reducing work time is, like in free floating currencies, that there's always an idiot country who think they're smarter and try to game the system...



and none of the two problems can be solved with monetary policy..

I don't think Japan will go nuclear - I think they'll have a conventional dust-up with China to rally the tribe to sacrifice their saved wealth. Of course, once that kind of thing starts there's no predicting where it ends.

I'm short the yen - like everyone else - which scares me a lot. I hate being in the pack becaue I feel like I'm headed for slaughter - but there's nothing else to do. They have to crush the yen.

Does anyone seriously think that Japan does NOT already have an arsenal of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them? Really?

But around Tehran and the Gulf Emirates, DEBKAfile was already picking up insistent rumors claiming that Clinton was seriously injured while on a secret mission in the region in the first week of December. Some claimed that in the same incident, Americans in her party - advisers and security personnel - were either injured or killed. Those rumors did not say what her secret mission was. However, the episode described occurred shortly after Dec. 1, when, as DEBKAfile reported at the time, Obama administration officials and senior representatives of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched secret talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

Although our sources have not identified the negotiators on either side of the table, one of the theories floating around certain capitals claimed that Hillary Clinton three weeks ago was on her way to a secret meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in regard to those negotiations. The plane carrying her from Bahrain logged its destination as Baghdad, but is described as having changed direction in midair and headed for Ahvaz, capital of the south Iranian province of Khuzestan. There, it was said, the Iranian president was awaiting her arrival. But then the plane ran into technical trouble and made an emergency landing and that was when she was injured, according to this theory.

The unexplained death of Commander Job Price, 42, SEALs commander in Afghanistan is tied by some of the speculation to that incident. At the time, the Pentagon reported that his sudden death on Dec. 22, in Uruzgan, Afghanistan, was under investigation.

It is now suggested that Commander Price was head of the security detail attached to Clinton for her Iran mission and he was one of the casualties of the accident.

Federal detectives won’t need a warrant to eavesdrop on the emails and phone calls of Americans for another five years. President Obama reauthorized an intelligence gathering bill on Sunday that puts national security over constitutional rights.

President Barack Obama inked his name over the weekend to an extension of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a George W. Bush-era legislation that has allowed the government expansive spy powers that has been considered by some to be dragnet surveillance.

FISA, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, was first signed into law in the 1970s in order to put into place rules regarding domestic spying within the United States. Upon the passing of the FAA in 2008, however, the online and over-the-phone activities of Americans became subject to sweeping, warrantless wiretapping in instances where investigators reasonably suspect US citizens to be engaged in conversation with persons located outside of the country.

(Reuters) - U.S. sales of warplanes, anti-missile systems and other costly weapons to China's and North Korea's neighbors appear set for significant growth amid regional security jitters.

Strengthening treaty allies and other security partners is central to the White House's "pivot" toward a Pacific region jolted by maritime territorial disputes in China's case, and missile and nuclear programs, in North Korea's.

The pivot "will result in growing opportunities for our industry to help equip our friends," said Fred Downey, vice president for national security at the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group that includes top U.S. arms makers.

Demand for big-ticket U.S. weapons is expected to stay strong for at least the next few years, the trade group said in a 2012 year-end review and forecast released in December.

Rupert Hammond-Chambers, who consults for U.S. arms makers through BowerGroupAsia, an advisory with 10 offices in the region, predicted Southeast Asian defense budgets would expand steadily as a hedge against Chinese assertiveness in disputes in the South China and East China seas.

December's election of conservative, pro-American leaders in Japan and South Korea could further fuel sales, demonstrating U.S. solidarity with allies and partners.

The Obama administration says arms sales are an increasingly critical and cost-efficient arrow in its quiver to defend U.S. worldwide interests.

Japan has emerged as the most important U.S. partner in crafting a layered shield against ballistic missiles of all ranges and in all phases of flight.

The administration told Congress two days before Pyongyang's rocket launch that Tokyo was seeking a potential $421 million "Aegis" system upgrade for a pair of guided-missile destroyers to better defend against ballistic missile attacks.

Japan also has agreed to host a second land-based X-Band radar station - a possible prelude to purchase of Lockheed's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, designed to intercept enemy missiles inside the atmosphere and in space.

F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER

The highest-profile U.S. offering now is Lockheed Martin's radar-evading F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, whose three variants make up the Pentagon's costliest arms program.

Japan already has selected the F-35 to replace aging F-4s as its next mainstay fighter, a deal valued at more than $5 billion. The F-35 is being considered by Singapore and South Korea, which is also weighing rival bids from the Eurofighter Typhoon and Boeing's F-15 Silent Eagle. The Korean competition is for a 60-plane order valued at more than $7 billion.