火曜日, 11月 23, 2010

Update on my Apartment

Just a quick update for people:

I am back living in my apartment again, and it's better than ever!
I have a new ceiling, new lamp, and new tatami mats! (Love that fresh tatami smell!)

The whole ordeal was relatively quick and painless so I am extra grateful to my landlord. I did lose a few photos (of the printed out variety), but extremely lucky none of my electronics got fried! If my hard disk drive was ruined I'd have lost 5 years of photos! Time to make a DVD backup of them methinks!

Just got home from watching the newest Harry Potter film btw. It was good, not great, but I probably would have been thoroughly impressed if I had never read the books.

Oh, and yesterday I played in an all-day Ultimate Frisbee tournament which was great fun. Now I have sore shoulders and crazy allergies from running around in dead grass, but it was perfect weather for it and I have the day off to recover tomorrow (Japanese Labor Thanksgiving Day!).

Until next time!

木曜日, 11月 18, 2010

When It Rains, It Pours...inside my apartment???

Saturday I had the chance to spend the day with Nobel Peace Laureates, and even got to translate for a bunch of VIPs in the evening on their Cruise around Hiroshima Bay.
When I got home, the right-hand side of my apartment was SOAKED!
That's because my landlord's home the floor above mine had a pipe break in the space between my bedroom and his kitchen!

I realized this too late at night to do anything about it though, so I took my futon to a friend's hose and went to sleep. The next morning the landlord helped me move my fridge to the empty aparment next door and gave me a key to it. This is because, among all the other electronics, the water was dripping into my bedroom light and almost caused an electrical fire! So I shut off the circuit breaker and pulled out a tarp over my tatami until the problem could be solved.

Luckily for me, I had a three day trip planned to Tokyo for work so when i got home and checked it out last night, things look like the wont take much more time to fix! until then though, I have no internet at home, so I am writing this (after hours) from work.
Bye for now!
Greg

木曜日, 11月 04, 2010

Reaction to "America's Losing Decade"

This link was given to me on a forum during a discussion on American and Japanese economies.
In my reply I unintentionally ended up critiquing his blog post and restating my underlying economic beliefs (without getting into things like economic schools of thought and fiat currencies).
By all means please read his post and share your thoughts on my reaction below.

http://savingtheworldeconomy.blogspot.com/2010/11/americas-losing-decade.html?spref=tw

It was a comparison. I am hesitant to say "good comparison" because he failed to actually explain why his examples led him to his conclusions.
If I am right in interpreting his point, it is that Japan (and subsequently America) has shifted from a production based economy to a consumer economy, then I agree completely. But he seems to almost purposely leave out what he thinks his "new market structure" would look. Maybe because he is promoting his market synergy company he hopes someone will read that and PAY him for the answers, but his data and examples still support my argument:


1)Japan is structurally more sound than the U.S. because the individuals save more (even 0 is more than a negative number) and they are still comparably more, although not by much recently, production-based than consumption-based.
 

2)The "answer/fix" is to raise interest rates. In the short term (read: 1,2 years), banks will stop loaning, people and companies will go bankrupt, and more people will lose their jobs; yes. 
But in the long run (read: 2-10 years) fiscally sound companies, entrepreneurs, and investors with excess capital will buy up those assets, stimulating an expansion of productive jobs, resetting of the over-inflated housing market, innovation, and an economic environment that encourages savings and investment.