WILL ZAIBATSU OFFENSIVE BE ACCOMPANIED BY NEW JAPANESE MILITARISM?

WILL ZAIBATSU OFFENSIVE BE ACCOMPANIED BY NEW JAPANESE MILITARISM?
Erle Frayne D. Argonza

In a previous article, this writer articulated the success of the Japanese Zaibatsu offensive. As one ought to realize, the success of the Zaibatsu offensive came at the expense of other markets, notably the North’s. Intellectually bankrupt as they are, the policy makers and technocrats of the North never foresaw the catastrophic consequences of predatory policies more so those concerning finance that came from their Japanese partners.

Today, Zaibatsus are well prepositioned across the globe, and it doesn’t matter anymore whether their headquarters will still be based in Japan. They have already fanned out beyond their boundaries, thanks to gullible states and market players in host countries that aren’t equipped to read the psyche of their Japanese partners. Japanese market presenters carry the mien of humble partners who bow in deep respect before you during business meetings, so who could ever suspect the rather cold-blooded nature of such gestures.

What the world must observe with greater focus these days, when global fascism is rising, is the resurgence of Japanese militarism. It may come in the form of ultra-nationalism, or ultra-conservatism, and may have nothing of the ‘Hail Emperor’ mantra of the previous Empire. But seeing the rise of predatory Zaibatsus, focused observers can never miss out on the possibility that the economic offensive may be accompanied, at some juncture of global economic crisis, by a very resurgent militarism.

Japan was very badly isolated during and after the 2nd World War, and till the early 1970s its moves at extending cooperation came with enormous suspicion, more so from the Asians whose countries were “burned down to the ground” by invading Japanese military forces. There surely was a colossal repackaging of Japan’s image, from wartime arrogance to new era peace-loving and humble advocate. To prove their sincerity, they even crafted their new constitution such that offensive forces were banned and only defensive military forces allowed.

No one ever heard of Japan getting involved in the arms race for many decades, and till these days the mindsets of somnambulistic folks tend to regard the Japan of the present as the peacenik country of post-war yesteryears. Even my old folks, who suffered miserably from the cruelties of Japanese forces during the war, have come to forgive Japan, though they still harbor the pains during moments of reminiscing.

The peacenik image is a product of its own context, this one must be reminded about. Japan was in high growth for many decades, than it matured onwards till it reached consumer society proportions around the 1980s. Then came the ‘globalization’ voodoo economics, and the rest was history.

That was then. The situation now is different. The global economy is crashing down, the plunge still hasn’t ceased, and the EU-USA experts just couldn’t learn from Japan’s ‘bailout’ mistakes. As the economy falters, anxieties arise within a country, and tensions across borders will increase. Superstition and groupthought (fascism) are rising, and before long we will see the fireworks of another world war ensued in the hottest spots of the globe.

EU-USA (West) and Japan (East), which comprise the pillars of the global economy, are now on the decline. If we study the behavior of their peoples well, whenever they experience severe crises, they undertake wars as strategy to release or canalize collective anxieties. They identify a Bogey Man (e.g. Nazi’s identified the Jews, North Americans identified the Southern slave owners during the US civil war,…), and then transfer their internal anxieties and defects on the Bogey Man, and war ensues.

Such economic pillars just seem unable to manage their decline without taking down others. This is classic binary mindset, destructive and demonic. Such mindset is responsible for using nuclear arms, regarding the casualties on their perceived enemies thereafter as mere statistics. And East Asia better prepare for the eventuality that this mindset will become dominant again in Japan in the short run.

Demented minds in Japan have two (2) bogey men today: (a) North Koreans and (b) Chinese. As this is happening, events have already shown the preparedness of Japan to mobilize its troops for missions outside the borders (e.g. Iraq war). Japan also possesses the technical capabilities to produce weapons of mass destruction such as nukes and probably the Tesla Earthquake Machine or TEM.

Intelligence reports have it that Japan is capable of constructing WMDs and manufacturing new series military vehicles (e.g. aircraft carriers) in just less than a year upon call to action. We wouldn’t be surprised if we receive further intelligence information that such WMDs and vehicles are in fact already in place, needing supplementation in quantities and troop mobilizations.

It need not be overstressed that Zaibatsus are awash with money to fund militaristic or Banzai offensives for sustained periods. They already demonstrated this, during the Gulf War and Iraq War, when their coffers coughed up large sums by the tens of billions of dollars to pay the bills for the offensives while the USA provided the main attack hardware and human ‘warm bodies’ (like they were the Hessian Troops of the global
oligarchs).

If ever that the USA-EU would fall into a state of totalitarian governance (police state, fascism), and Japan would follow along that direction, then chances are high that the North Atlantic Alliance (USA-EU) and Japan would form a new Axis Powers alliance. The North Atlantic powers would constitute the Western flank, while Japan would comprise the Eastern flank of the alliance.

It will be déjà vu for sure. If indeed such is the direction. Peace advocates still have time to scuttle new treaties up north that could redound to concentrating enormous powers in central governments that are undisguised fascist police states. There is still time, but time is now short.

Before long, Japanese slogans of Banzai! will be heard again across the Pacific. Just by hearing it, or reading it on the papers and TV, many middle class Asians will die of heart attacks. Let us just hope that it will only be a slogan of marginalized mad people in Japan and nothing more.

[Philippines, 15 November 2008]
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EMERGING MARKETS OVERTAKE RICH NATIONS BY 2025 SAYS WB

EMERGING MARKETS OVERTAKE RICH NATIONS BY 2025 SAYS WB

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good news has played harmonious cords for the world’s emerging markets recently, as the World Bank released its most honest forecast that they will equalize wealth production with the richest nations by 2025. This wonderful forecast alone is very good news that is cause for celebration this early, as it means the era of hegemonism by the weathiest nations is coming to an end.

Richest nations often than not refer to the members of the OECD which has the G7 nations at the top. OECD economies, during their heydays, produced 60% of the world’s wealth, so you could just imagine their clout. They bullied developing economies no end, and they used the thuggish IMF as the institution to slam bang the poorer nations into submitting to their dictates of authority measures.

That era of OECD hooliganism is now drawing to a close, as the emerging markets make waves as growth drivers of the global economy. Emerging markets are those countries with (a) big populations, (b) growing consistently at a range of 5%-10% per annum, and (c) have a very significant numbers of families earning middle income range of U.S. $6,000-30,000 per annum.

Philippines, my beloved nation, has a population of past 94 Millions as of end of 2011, has been growing at an average of 5% for a decade now, and has 15% of its population at middle incomes (using the global middle-class yardstick). It is clearly among the emerging markets, and is a trend setter in the ASEAN together with the other emerging markets Indonesia and Vietnam.

Other trend-setting emerging markets across the globe are: China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, Mexico, Egypt, and Pakistan. Let’s cross our fingers that the likes of Bangla Desh and Nigeria will mutate into emerging markets very soon.

Taiwan, Singapore, and Hongkong do not qualify as ‘emerging’, as they are classified as ‘dragon economies’, besides they are already wealthy. Malaysia and Thailand have relatively small populations, so they don’t qualify as ‘emerging markets’ but are classified among the ‘tiger economies’.

The ASEAN is surely a fortunate region as it has Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam among its emerging economies, aside from wealthy Singapore, the ‘tigers’ Malaysia and Thailand, and small but wealthy Brunei. It is now recognized as a regional powerhouse, and will be a global economic power before this decade’s end.

Producing aggregate income of $1.8 Trillions as of end of 2010, which will double in 2016, ASEAN is surely bound to be a pillar of the global economy. China already reached that status, and India is on its way there too. Japan was the only economic global pillar in Asia by the 20th century, but that situation had radically altered as China surpassed it recently.

For the emerging economies of the world, bon voyage to your journeys to global acclaim and wealth!

[Philippines, 18 May 2011]
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CHRYSANTHEMUM: JAPAN’S HUMAN FACE POST-CATASTROPHE

CHRYSANTHEMUM: JAPAN’S HUMAN FACE POST-CATASTROPHE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good evening from the suburbs west of Manila!

Japan has begun to go back to normal life weeks after the catastrophe of quake-tsunami-nuke crash triad slammed Honshu and broke the hearts of Amaterasu’s scions. Amid the colossal maelstrom and seemingly ceaseless damages wrought, we observed the calm and sobriety displayed by the Japanese, a behavior that was exemplary to say the least.

We outsider-sympathizers were indubitably impressed, more so as nary a rampant looting was exhibited at all as the catastrophe was building up and damages kept on accumulating. Let me say this myself: kudos to you Japanese people for your calm and indomitable courage amidst deep troubles!

Let me call the aspect of Japanese behavior exhibited amid maelstroms as the ‘chrysanthemum complex’. By ‘complex’ we refer to the sociological term for an agglomeration of traits that would constitute a coherent behavior pattern. ‘Chrysanthemum’ is an excellent signifier for that exemplary side of the Japanese culture template that was responsible for the calm, absence of massive looting, cooperation, synergy.

The question is: do Japanese exhibit such behavior at all times, across diverse historic epochs? Or, is it a behavioral complex that had evolved across time, reinforced by a post-war pacifism that sedated the future generations to never again engage in demonic holocausts that the Emperor’s militaristic followers unleashed on Asians and Pacific islanders?

A follow up question is: can the ‘chrysanthemum complex’ be exhibited if the catastrophic events would happen on a relentless, sustained basis for a certain period of time? This question arises, as the latest catastrophe was only a short-term one, though there are still aftershocks past the Reichter 6 magnitude till these days.

Let me sum up the guide question as follows: is the ‘chrysanthemum complex’ a conjunctural manifestation (valid only during a very short-term crisis) or a historical complex (sustainable even under extreme collective duress or force majeure)? Conjunctural stresses on the ‘synchronicity’ principle behind the phenomenon, while historical stresses the ‘causality’ principle across a time continuum.

This is my own note for our fellow global citizens: let us not be over-conclusive about the ‘chrysanthemum complex’. Let us go on and express platitudes to the highest heavens, thanking the Japanese profusely for the exemplary behavior exhibited amid the catastrophe. But we can and should never be totally inferential to the point that we would regard the short-term behavior complex as a permanent one.

There is another facet to Japanese cultural complex, and I will treat this in another digest article. Meantime, like the rest of the global citizens, let me bask in the regenerative energies radiated to the planet by the ‘chrysanthemum complex’.

[Philippines, 02 April 2011]

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9/11 PLUS JAPAN QUAKE DATES EQUALS 12-21-2012

9/11 PLUS JAPAN QUAKE DATES EQUALS 12-21-2012

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day from this enthused social analyst and self-development guru!

Just about a week ago, my wiz-kid nephew Dean Patick Delago, an accounting student who’s among the topguns of his batch, alerted me to the dates of 9/11 (9-11-2001) and the Japan quake cum tsunami (3-10-2011), with the intriguing conclusion that when added yields the following sum:

9/11 Crash-Bombing of WT Ctr: 9-11-2001
+
Japan Quake cum Tsunami: 3-10-2011
TOTAL: 12-21-2012

That’s the Mayan Calendar date for the end of the present cycle of history! What an intriguing, provocative finding, a conclusion that surely jibes with my own thesis that both events were pre-meditated attacks by rouge forces connected with the global elites.

For those unfamiliar with the ruling class, the elites go by the names of Military-Industrial Complex, New World Order or NWO, and Committee of 300 or C300. The elites’ calumny and abominable plans of sustained anarchy through wars and destructive engagements was exposed by John Coleman, former British MI6 spy, in his book Conspirators’ Hierarchy: Committee of 300. Former US president Eisenhower and sociologist C. Wright Mills did their exposes of the Military-Industrial Complex decades earlier.

To go back to my earlier writings: First, the New York twin-tower attack was hatched by rouge forces within the USA, who sowed terror by using Manchurian Candidates or MCs (chipped human semi-robots). Second, the Japan quake cum tsunami was hatched by global elites on the Western hemisphere, and used a US navy unit to strike Honshu with the Tesla Earthquake Machine or TEM (a similar US navy unit was utilized for the secretive Philadelphia Project).

The total 12-21-2012 reveals that both events—9/11 and Japan Quake—were (a) well planned by echelon rouge forces as (b) most impact-full major events in coherence with (c) a very long-term plan to sow global terror and psychic state of surrender through destructive means such as terror attacks and WMD or weapons of mass destruction. That means the global elites are sending a message to the world population that they are calling the shots in the planet, that peace will be had should people recognize their organized New World Order and its rules, that they are in control.

Among interesting finds are: (a) the WTC terror attack represents the Western hemisphere, while the Honshu attack (near Tokyo) represents the Eastern hemisphere; (b) New York is in the Atlantic Ocean side, while Honshu/Sendai is situated on the Pacific Ocean side; and, (c) both USA and Japan are like twin pillars of the global economy.

That means that when the twin towers in NY were attacked, we should have anticipated that another pillar of the global economy will be attacked. China was struck with Tesla a few years back, Indonesia was also struck hard (300,000 deaths due to the tsunami), and New Zealand was very recently attacked. But no, such countries weren’t symbolized by the 2nd tower in NY, as it was reserved for Japan.

The lingering question I ask is whether the Japan quake-tsunami attack was carried out by an existing unit in the US Navy, by tapping through the HAARP project based in Alaska, or by a US Navy unit in the mid-40s yet that had to travel through hyperspace to reach 2011 and strike genocidal hit on Honshu with the Tesla WMD before retreating back to the 1940s (time travel in other words). For if the 2nd thesis holds, than the planning for both events involved a far greater sophistication and complexity that boggle the mind.

What the events do show is that there may no longer be major events of a terribly psyche-shattering traumatizing nature outside of both events. That is, events carried out whose shock effects are of a traumatizing level to peoples of the world and not just to the Americans or Japanese.

To reecho, the use of Tesla attacks did terrible damages in China, Indonesia, and New Zealand. But of all events, it was the plane crash bombing attack on New York and the Tesla WMD strike on Honshu what were intended to be of the greatest symbolic significance.

There will be similar attacks again by the same rouge forces, which leaves us in suspense about what the next attack could be. So let’s await the next one, which could be just around the corner.

[Philippines, 28 March 2011]

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JAPAN GOLD RICH, POST-CATASTROPHE RECOVERY QUICK

JAPAN GOLD RICH, POST-CATASTROPHE RECOVERY QUICK

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good afternoon from the Philippine highlands!

Japan did suffer miserably from the catastrophe of a double-whammy temblor cum tsunami that walloped it recently. Deaths are now in the thousands, damage to property at past $183 Billion or 3.6% of its $5 Trillion GDP, citizens’ morale is badly eroded (more so that nuke fallout is imminent, aftershocks that followed), and the graphic images of the tragically affected areas are surreal scary.

Naturally, people will opine that Japan’s economy will be recessionary this very year of 2011. Many overseas workers are now leaving Japan, and most likely won’t return there, adding salt to the wounds the Japanese economy had sustained. It’s a doomsday scenario that both layman and experts do picture right now. Little do people see the positive things that can happen a year after the catastrophe.

It seems that among topgun experts, only the former economic secretary, Cielito Habito (who is now professor at the Ateneo University), sees the positive side to the catastrophe. He forecasts an infrastructure boom that will follow from the negative event, citing what happened to Japan after the powerful 1995 quake that flattened Kobe. Accordingly, Japan’s GDP rose by 3% after the Kobe quake, a good performance in a decade of near zero percent growth.

I do agree with Prof. Ciel Habito about the boom post-catastrophe scenario. True, there will be recession this year 2011, as it will take some time before the geological situation there will stabilize. And it will take some more months to craft a recovery program not just for the northeast Japan but for the entire nation. But next year will be a boom year, when the recovery program will already be in full effect.

What many people are least knowledgeable about is the fact that Japan is awash with gold. Even without external help, Japan will be able to quickly recover from the damaging impact of the catastrophe. But acts of goodwill, such as external aid offered, should never be underestimated or ignored, and most likely the Japanese will accept the boons coming from its friends and allies which will run by the billons of dollars.

The famed gold treasures of Japan were acquired by the Imperial government during World War II yet. Recall that Japanese forces scoured Asia for the treasures during the hot days of that war. The Imperial forces than hauled the huge cargoes of gold to its home base, the total volume of which could easily run by the millions of tons of gold bullions.

Due to incessant bombing operations by the Allied forces during the war, part of the gold was forced to be secreted inside underground bunkers in the Philippines. The Philippine gold cache was salivated upon by the West’s oligarchs, and they did what they can to unearth some of them. Dictator Marcos proved smarter than the others, even as he unearthed part of the gold and deposited them in the islands and overseas (via chain of foundations that were later dismantled, thus leaving no traces of the treasures).

Just the same, couples of million tons of the gold were able to reach Japan. That colossal hoard was partly responsible for the quick recovery of Japan after World War II. Your guess is as good as mine that part of the same hoard will be used for the quick recovery of Japan after the Reichter 9 temblor and tsunami.

So good are the Japanese engineers at tunneling and bunker construction, technologies that they perfected during the war yet. Their prowess dwarfs those of Hitler’s experts, and that prowess was used to build underground bunkers in Japan to secure the gold hoard. Between the islands of Honshu and Shikoku are tunnels that run through both land formations, deep down underground, safe from the prying eyes of would-be international looters such as cabal of financiers led by the Houses of Rothschild and Windsor.

Chances are that ready-made contingency bunkers are available to transfer the remaining hoard after the quake struck Honshu and moved it 2.5 meters away from its former location. More so that Japan’s secret service had unwind of the Tesla Earthquake Machine type of WMD (used by the rouge Aum cult to flatten Kobe), thus leading to the hatching of contingency plans in the event that hostile forces will pound Honshu or Shikoku with the same machine that could be tantamount to treasures lost forever.

Global observers should better get ready then for the sudden surge of Japan next year, or maybe as early as the latter part of this year. Part of the gold will be released surreptitiously to securitize big projects. For as long as the same hoard will remain in huge amounts, hostile forces should cease from plotting economically damaging catastrophes on the Japanese nation, as the treasures will be available to make its people rise like the phoenix.

[Philippines, 16 March 2011]

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JAPAN QUAKED ANEW BY TESLA WMD!

NEW ZEALAND QUAKE & TESLA EARTHQUAKE MACHINE

NEW ZEALAND QUAKE & TESLA EARTHQUAKE MACHINE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

A quake of intensity Reichter 6+ struck New Zealand just recently. Scores of people were instantly killed by the catastrophe, with some couples of Filipino expatriate workers there missing or presumed dead. The quake was the 2nd in a row to strike the city of Christchurch, and that to me bodes ill of the times.

There seems to be a hyper-attenuation of tectonic attacks across the globe over the last two decades or so. If one were to graph them on a sheet of paper, you’d notice a pattern of geometric rise in the frequency and intensity of the quakes.

What makes the Zealand quake earth-shaking as a new fact is that it struck the same city for a 2nd time in a short time span. Thus, there’s no telling that a strong quake may strike the same city or region for a 3rd time, 4th time, and so on till infinity within short time spans till the region submerges beneath the waters.

Some opinion writers and analysts may conclude in rather haphazard fashion that the quake may have been a natural event all along. Haphazard indeed, as little do folks and experts know that a very deadly weapon of mass destruction—the Tesla Earthquake Machine or TEM—has been in operational use for two (2) decades now.

Just a few years back, a powerful quake hit China, resulting to massive deaths by the thousands. Towns vanished overnight, buried as they were by billions of tons of earth loosened by the quake. Chinese officials never spoke about the cause openly, but never take the Chinese experts as ignorant as rats, for they knew what struck China then.

It was the TEM that hit China, which was unleashed by a special military force from a Northern power. Remember that just days before the quake happened, the US Pentagon released information that China supposedly has been building submarine bases below the seas, which is a mere cover up for the real thing: US naval assets were testing submarine facilities on China.

Much earlier than the China quake, there was the Japan quake in the 90s. That big one flattened a major city there, and it was a classic TEM operation executed by Yakuza operators on the payroll of the Aum cult. The TEM could have been purchased from the Russian mafia via the global inter-syndicate crime networks. Needless to say, rouge elements in Japan possess the technology, passed on to them by rouge elements in Russia.

Alarmed about such a development, the Anglo-American oligarchy quickly directed its own defense establishments to accelerate the catching up process. The technology was to come under the disguise of a beneficial HAARP project that is based in Alaska. The frequencies from the HAARP can be used to control people’s minds, create super-storms (like Philippine’s typhoon Ondoy), induce super-quakes (Tesla effect like they did on China and Indonesia), and more.

Not only was China a favored guinea pig for the deadly weapon. Indonesia was already struck at least a couple of times using the same mad equipment, with 300,000 dead across couples of countries due to a tsunami coming as aftershock effect of a powerful quake on an island there.

Knowing such patterns of deadly attacks in the past can somehow provide as a tool to understand what happened to New Zealand. Australia’s quaking events in the near future, if ever, will suspiciously follow the same pattern as Indonesia’s and New Zealand’s, and better prepare yourselves for that eventuality.

The global elites—exemplified by Prince Charles—regard humans as viruses and/or ‘useless eaters’. Reducing the viruses via mad Malthusian means—from nuclear thermidore to TEM—is in the drawing board of the depopulation strategy of the evil elites, with end goal of taking down the present 7-billion population to a manageable two (2) billions by the year 2050.

[Philippines, 08 March 2011]

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WESTERN ECONOMIC SHRINKAGE A REALITY AS ASIA RISES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza                                                       

Magandang araw sa kapamilyang global! Good day to fellow global citizens!

For three decades already, I have been echoing a prognostication that was already current stock within sociology, about the ‘decline of the west’. Let me return to the same theme, as the rapid decline of the West and the fast rise of Asia is now a reality of the current historical juncture.

Just a couple of days ago, the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s or PDI’s opinion pages published an article by the past recent premier of the UK, Gordon Brown (PDI, 7 January 2011). Titled “Reviving the West,” it was a rather straightforward admission of the techno-economic decline that the West had undergone and the rapid ascent of Asia as the global economy’s growth driver.

As Brown succinctly stressed, “Time is running out of the West, because both Europe and the United States have yet to digest the fact that all the individual crises of the last few years—from the sub-prime crisis and the collapse of the Lehman Brothers to Greek austerity and Ireland’s near-bankruptcy—are symptoms of a bigger problem: a world undergoing a far-reaching, irreversible and, indeed, unprecedented restructuring of economic power.”

That was the former premier speaking, a technocrat and economic manager prior to his premier stint, so it does carry weight as much as those of the globe-trotting former US president Bill Clinton. Gordon went on to demonstrate his deep knowledge of the rising middle class consumers of Asia who altogether will make the greatest consumers the world over in the foreseeable future.

Said Gordon:

Of course, we all know of Asia’s rise, and that China exports more than America and soon will manufacture and invest more as well. But we have not fully come to terms with the sweep of history. Western economic dominance—10 percent of the world’s population producing a majority of the world’s exports and investment—is finished, never to return. After two centuries in which Europe and America monopolized global economic activity, the West is now being out-produced, out-manufactured, out-traded, and out-invested by the rest of the world.

That indubitably is an empirical substantiation of the thesis long held by Western social forecasters about the ‘decline of the West’. Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee, Daniel Bell, Alvin Toffler, and John Naisbitt have churned out voluminous prognosis and forewarnings about the same thesis within a century’s span…and that thesis is now a reality.

In the middle and last portions of Brown’s article, he admonished Americans in particular to re-invent the ‘American dream’. The way to the revival of the West, with the USA showcasing the compass, is to re-structure the economy altogether. Accordingly, the nascence of over a billion middle class Asian consumers is a huge opportunity for America to re-invent itself and revive a strong economy.

Brown also forewarned America’s politicians, notably the Right, about criminalizing external forces, such as China’s currency, as culprits behind the decline of the US economy. Intervention measures such as currency wars are flawed, precisely because they fail to address the internal factors that are truly the causes of the economic decline.

To a great extent, I do agree with the evaluations and interventions of Brown. Fact is, I have already begun to echo the theme that America and Europe ought to reverse the policies of liberalization, privatization, and deregulation that led to de-industrialization, agricultural decay, infrastructure decay, and the rise of a ‘virtual economy’ based on predatory finance (vulture funds, derivatives or hedge funds). As I had been saying all along, the West should go back to the principles of the ‘real economy’ where wealth is produced from agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructures, transportation & communications, and science & technology.

As a matter of fact, I have been among Asian analysts and development practitioners who have urged the Americans to go back to the economics of New Deal propounded by the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Likewise should the tried & tested policies upheld by Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick von List, and John F. Kennedy, policies that impelled the rise of the physical economy and brought bountiful prosperity to Americans (read: created a predominant middle class), be put to the fore in rebuilding America.

Gordon resonates somehow with the ‘physical economy’ framework, even as he heralded the need for a new Marshall Plan for the world. Accordingly, the Plan could help to recast the banking system that was dirtied by its engagements in speculative financing and contributed to creating financial bubbles. The Western peoples should better listen to him, more so the youth who will be tomorrow’s Western leaders.

Let me re-echo the same message I have been saying all along: that prosperity should be a win/win phenomenon. No one here in Asia would ever want the USA and Europe to go back to the era of ‘cave man’ economy of hunting & gathering. I’d be happier many more times if the West should re-invent itself, cease from playing the destructive game of win/lose logic in order to prosper, and move back to reconstruct its physical economy altogether.

Asian spiritual masters, who incidentally also discoursed on economic doctrines (i.e. Baha’ullah, Gandhi, Vivekananda, Sarkar, Sri Aurubindo), left us all the legacy of building prosperity through the way of peace, cooperation, and mutual-help. It’s time for the Western peoples to retool themselves, by throwing away the binary and destructive thought system they inherited from their forebears, and by learning from Asia’s spiritual and intellectual giants.

[Philippines, 11 January 2011]  

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EUROPE & AMERICA ON DOWNWARD SLIDE TO 3RD WORLD ECONOMIES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang gabi! Good evening!

It’s dusk time as I write, and this dusk at a time of intensifying monsoon rains seems to bode images of a grim future for the West at large. The European Union or EU members and the USA, the gigantic pillars of the global economy, are particularly in dire straits as they have entered the zone of flat growth and perpetual recession.

As already tackled by me in diverse articles, the East is surging forward bringing life to the global economy as a whole. In contrast, the West is spiraling downwards, and the strategies their stakeholders are putting into place to arrest the downslide are at best palliative. As the East continues to surge upward, the West continues to stagnate and decay.

After World War II, both Europe and America embarked on massive infrastructures and heated industrialization that saw both economies dominating the global economy’s wealth production. The result of that was an OECD producing 60% of Gross World Product or GWP for some decades (today that’s down to 40% of GWP and will still go down).

That was the situation back then. By the 1990s, the situation had been badly reversed as a result of liberal economic policies instituted in the previous decade (80s). The rise of a ‘virtual economy’ dominated by predatory finance was instrumental in the West’s massive de-industrialization, decay of relatively unattended infrastructures, decline in science & technology research, and neglect of the transport sector (only Japan & Germany were actively pursuing maglev railways).

By the early 1990s yet, certain experts among economists and sociologists in America began echoing alarming notes about the possible downslide of the USA into a 3^rd world country should the economic decay, such as that of relatively unattended infrastructures,  be allowed to continue till past 2010s.

In the late 1990s, my own circle of political economists in Manila (Sunday Kapihan/Independent Review) saw such a possibility ourselves as we consolidated the data made available to us thanks to the internet. By 1998 all fellows of our circle were convinced of the catastrophic direction that the USA and Europe were plunging themselves into, which could begin with a depression past 2005 and a thirdworldization by 2010s (both have been hit by recession this decade as a matter of fact).

When Katrina struck the USA and when those floods struck Europe just a few years back, and the same free market policies stubbornly remained in place, I knew the downslide would turn out to be irreversible. The fate of New Orleans, with its residents lining up for food akin to a depressed city, revealed an appallingly decayed 3^rd world city inside the USA which, to my mind, is but a fractional tip of a gigantic iceberg that are America’s decaying cities on the way to 3^rd world infamy.

If, for instance, just about 55% of the top 700 cities of the USA will be so badly decayed by 2015 and be declared as 3^rd world or ‘developing cities’, then we know more or less that America had catastrophically seen its worst state. With 97% of U.S. population living in cities (urban), likewise will the whole of the USA be declared as a ‘developing economy’ as early as 2015.

That is, again, if the destructive ‘virtual economy’ policies will not be taken down and reversed sweepingly. As I’ve declared in previous articles before (when Obama was still campaigning for the presidency), America must quickly return to a New Deal-type policy regime: interventionist, with great stress on revivifying infrastructures, revitalizing transport R&D (railways, shipping, etc), upscaling science & technology investments (including rockets), returning heavy industries (revive steel and many dead manufactures), and ensuring agricultural productivity.

Europe is not far behind such near-catastrophic downslide of the USA, just to remind our friends in Europe and the globe. Decisively institute interventionist policies in the continent, regulate the financial-banking sectors (criminalize predatory finance), and revivify social policy that were hallmarks of a once strong and mighty European economy.

And there’s no better time to act then now. Failure to act soon, by stubbornly instituting the palliatives (e.g. bailing out failing big banks, semi-regulating stock exchange), will be the best sure-fire formula to see a rapid thirdworldization of the West.

Before long, some messianic mad leaders in both continents would be drum-beating their being “stubbed behind the back” and generate  new Hitlers and Bonapartes in their backyards. Act now, Western peoples, to avoid this eventuality from ever taking place at all.

[Philippines, 21 July 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

ZAIBATSU & WESTERN OLIGARCHS’ ALLIANCE CRAMBLES, WAR LOOMS!

ZAIBATSU & WESTERN OLIGARCHS’ ALLIANCE CRAMBLES, WAR LOOMS!

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat! Good afternoon to you all!

Just about a few weeks back, the world was shocked (as per media sensationalism) by the failures of new Toyota models on the road, leading to deaths of over twenty (20) riders in the USA. Within hours of the news, panic arose among riders, congressional investigation began, and Toyota was compelled to pull back 7-digit cars-in-use from the roads for retrofitting works.

The world watched as Toyoda-san, scion of the Toyota zaibatsu founder, wept before the congressional committee that investigated the fiasco and near-to-maelstrom in the markets caused by it. I wished I could have extended commiseration to Mr. Toyoda, but knowing the cold-blooded greed of the oligarchs made me adopt the scientific attitude of detachedly observing a species exhibiting behavior under duress.

My take of the matter, which some economists and investments analysts in the USA incidentally confirm, is that an organized bashing of oligarchs of Asian origin the West is in progress. Using typical Freud-type analysis, I’d say the bashing is very large-scale, with the Toyota- and Hyundai-bashing representing merely the tip of an iceberg, or better still a mere scratch in the skin surface.

My preliminary thought on the matter is that the Anglo-European oligarchy, led by the greedy financiers whose notoriety in looting the portfolio & derivatives markets led to the recent global financial meltdown, is calling it quits with their long-time partners from East Asia. The marriage is over, and so we better expect de-mergers and hostile take-over by the Western oligarchs of the assets and/or enterprises of their East Asian counterparts.

To recall, after the World War II, humanity was confronted with a new polarization forged as the Cold War between capitalism and communism. New spheres of influence have to be crafted pronto by the world powers, with the West securing Japan’s zaibatsu loyalty through sticks (force, de-militarizing Japan) and carrots (permitting Japan to achieve industrial prosperity, but subordinated to the West).

The zaibatsus (Japan), chaebols (Korea), emerging oligarchs of Taiwan and the Far East, zamindars (India), and more, or those landlord-gentry elites who were enticed to invest in industries and emerging commercial enterprise, sooner or later found no better recourse than to ally themselves with Anglo-European oligarchs (bankers, financiers, industrialists, rentiers) in order to preserve family wealth and elevate these to new levels.

Fast-forward to the 1980s, when the zaibatsus reached their peak of prestige brought about by the gigantic strides of Japanese firms, globalization became the buzz-word as Japanese technocrats cajoled the West into creating a borderless world economy. Zaibatsus thus made headway in their merger schemes with Anglo-European businesses, and nary a conglomerate in the West refused the sweet offers of the likes of Sony and Toyota to name some representative East Asian champions.

The last of such waves of mergers and ‘Asian offensives’ in the west saw the Indian tycoons such as Mittal investing heavily in the western backyards, and merging with western businesses when opportunities do open up (e.g. Mittal steel). Asian emerging markets’ own companies followed through this wave, with the likes of San Miguel Corp of the Philippines buying NatFood of Australia at one time (before reselling/divesting).

It seems that the ever-predatory financiers of the West will have nothing like a permanent alliance with the Asian taipans & nascent oligarchs. Just like in politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies among global corporate owners. What is nasty about the matter is that the western oligarchs are showing their fascistic, if not racist propensities too soon.

The Toyota-bashing will sooner or later find its equivalent in other industrial and commercial concerns. The goal of the western financiers is to eventually take over the eastern assets, such as what the Mittal steel exemplifies, where Lakshmi Mittal is but the nominal controlling shareholder of a steel giant that is actually now owned and controlled by the pals of George Soros & House of Rothschild.

Whether the zaibatsu-bashing will sooner or later lead to a crack in the Trilateral Commission—created by the same predators to consolidate the wealth and powers of the Northern oligarchs (West + Japan)—remains to be seen. The zaibatsus won’t take slights that easily, and surely enough they won’t take betrayals from their Western counterparts lightly.

The zaibatsus possess enormous quantities of precious wealth that the Western financiers (whose wealth is largely useless debt papers and bills) could only salivate upon: gold bullions. Such bullions were amassed by the Imperial Japanese state in Asia during the heydays of militarist onslaughts (‘36-‘45). Stashed safely inside underground bunkers and cross-island tunnels, they were utilized to bankroll the industrialization of Japan (by zaibatsus, with Emperor Hirohito’s blessings). These must must be worth hundreds of trillions of dollars today, if we estimate them to be at least two (2) million tons.

Whereas the western financiers cannot operate alone as they have to collaborate with each other (e.g. Venetian, Dutch, German, English financiers coming together in gigantic trusts), the zaibatsus can go it alone and wage business offensives using their enormous assets. The same zaibatsus can also finance wars so facilely, such as they’ve done for the USA’s wars in Iraq (early 90s & 2001-02).

The zaibatsus can always choose to go their own way, foment new militarism in Japan, and create a new sphere of influence that can rival the western powers’ (if one can call bankrupt states in the West as powers). Note that at this time, within a span of less than a year, Japan can create nukes arms and unleash its version of the Tesla Earthquake Machine (TEM), simply by employing networks of yakuza and global mafia families to get their WMDs to terror groups, while reserving their own military assets for more ambitious confrontations.

How the latest brickbats between the western oligarchs and zaibatsu-Asians will figure in the forthcoming Philippine elections is something worth observing by strategic research analysts. Whether the Philippines remains in the sphere of influence of the western oligarchy, or move closer to zaibatsu orbit via covert maneuverings, will be contended in the next polls.

The Philippines may decide to install a nationalist government, and stay clear from the line of fire between two potential oligarchic adversaries. And, hopefully, the new government in Manila will sharpen its observation of changing oligarchic templates, and position itself to forge the ASEAN into a regional power later free from encumbrances with the aforesaid contending oligarchic factions.

[Philippines, 23 March 2010]

2009 ECONOMIC FORECASTS: DEPRESSION, INTERVENTIONISM, REVERSAL

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

2009 will be another bleak year economically, more so for the North (USA, EU, Japan are topmost). The recession that began with the subprime mortgage bubble burst in America in 07, will ensue with even mightier turbulence, as there are no coherent policy solutions of a strategic nature that can salve the economic ailment on a global scale.

As already articulated by this economist/analyst in various articles, the policy environment must be changed and regulatory mechanisms strengthened to immediately gain business confidence and reverse the tide of catastrophe. On the domestic front, the solution begins by following a New Deal type of policy set, which will bring back the fervor of production-driven growth and full employment. On the international/global front, a new financial architecture must be agreed upon via a global summit called for the purpose, akin to a New Bretton Woods.

The only intervention mechanisms we observe today are bailouts of failing financial and business institutions, which are toxically immoral as those criminal oligarchs are even rewarded for their sordid looting and corrupt practices. Only Russia and China have openly resorted to a New Deal type solution, in consonance with the practices of the late regime of Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the USA. As far as the international-global front is concerned, the concurrence of a new treaty that will resonate a new financial architecture is nowhere in sight.

In the absence of genuine solutions that can stabilize ailing economies on both the domestic and international fronts, the downward spirals will continue, until the economies of the North will hit rock bottom depression that will be worse than the one that crashed the USA, UK and Germany almost a century ago (USA, UK, Germany were then the world’s top industrial & military powers). In the absence of capital control policies up North, capital flight will ensue at dizzying speed, draining their respective countries of trillions of dollars and/or euros at levels far higher than the 2008 drain.
The smart money that will sneak out will find better shelters in the South (emerging markets notably East Asia + India).

The possibility of North-based companies transferring their headquarters to the South is not entirely ruled out. The other option is for the corporate owners to transfer domicile from the North to the South, leaving their ailing mother companies in the hands of trusted stewards. The era of distance remote control-type management by corporate owners could very well begin this year, which will modify corporate governance by no small means.

The positive light for the global economy is that finally the corporate and state leaders will see light at the end of the tunnel and call for a global conference to carve out a new financial architecture. Laissez faire, a cadaver doctrine before the 2nd world war that was revived by the monetarists and greedy financiers, will finally lay to rest as it gives way to dirigist or interventionist economics.
Stronger regulatory mechanisms may be charted this year too, at least on paper.

New Deal, Keynesian, and welfare state doctrines will be blended together to produce an eclectic admixture. Since New Deal has an international facet into it thus rendering it more comprehensive, as the late FDR cogitated the need for international cooperation and development for all countries to end all wars and foment lasting peace, this doctrine will more or less be followed. We will not be surprised if, after the Davos conference, the shape of the future will already be definitively of the New Deal type.

Conclusively, even if the Northern economies will flatten down to zero and/or negative growths, the downward spiral may stop by the last quarter of the year. The full effects of the intervention solutions won’t be felt this year though, as it will take some more years to get them to galvanize. So let us brace for more turbulent winds, while hoping that the storm would finally stop so we can enjoy a delightful holiday season comes December.

[26 January 2009, Quezon City, MetroManila]

WILL ZAIBATSU OFFENSIVE BE ACCOMPANIED BY NEW JAPANESE MILITARISM?

Erle Frayne Argonza

In a previous article, this writer articulated the success of the Japanese Zaibatsu offensive. As one ought to realize, the success of the Zaibatsu offensive came at the expense of other markets, notably the North’s. Intellectually bankrupt as they are, the policy makers and technocrats of the North never foresaw the catastrophic consequences of predatory policies more so those concerning finance that came from their Japanese partners.

Today, Zaibatsus are well prepositioned across the globe, and it doesn’t matter anymore whether their headquarters will still be based in Japan. They have already fanned out beyond their boundaries, thanks to gullible states and market players in host countries that aren’t equipped to read the psyche of their Japanese partners. Japanese market presenters carry the mien of humble partners who bow in deep respect before you during business meetings, so who could ever suspect the rather cold-blooded nature of such gestures.

What the world must observe with greater focus these days, when global fascism is rising, is the resurgence of Japanese militarism. It may come in the form of ultra-nationalism, or ultra-conservatism, and may have nothing of the ‘Hail Emperor’ mantra of the previous Empire. But seeing the rise of predatory Zaibatsus, focused observers can never miss out on the possibility that the economic offensive may be accompanied, at some juncture of global economic crisis, by a very resurgent militarism.

Japan was very badly isolated during and after the 2^nd World War, and till the early 1970s its moves at extending cooperation came with enormous suspicion, more so from the Asians whose countries were “burned down to the ground” by invading Japanese military forces. There surely was a colossal repackaging of Japan’s image, from wartime arrogance to new era peace-loving and humble advocate. To prove their sincerity, they even crafted their new constitution such that offensive forces were banned and only defensive military forces allowed.

No one ever heard of Japan getting involved in the arms race for many decades, and till these days the mindsets of somnambulistic folks tend to regard the Japan of the present as the peacenik country of post-war yesteryears. Even my old folks, who suffered miserably from the cruelties of Japanese forces during the war, have come to forgive Japan, though they still harbor the pains during moments of reminiscing.

The peacenik image is a product of its own context, this one must be reminded about. Japan was in high growth for many decades, than it matured onwards till it reached consumer society proportions around the 1980s. Then came the ‘globalization’ voodoo economics, and the rest was history.

That was then. The situation now is different. The global economy is crashing down, the plunge still hasn’t ceased, and the EU-USA experts just couldn’t learn from Japan’s ‘bailout’ mistakes. As the economy falters, anxieties arise within a country, and tensions across borders will increase. Superstition and groupthought (fascism) are rising, and before long we will see the fireworks of another world war ensued in the hottest spots of the globe.

EU-USA (West) and Japan (East), which comprise the pillars of the global economy, are now on the decline. If we study the behavior of their peoples well, whenever they experience severe crises, they undertake wars as  strategy to release or canalize collective anxieties. They identify a Bogey Man (e.g. Nazi’s identified the Jews, North Americans identified the Southern slave owners during the US civil war,…), and then transfer their internal anxieties and defects on the Bogey Man, and war ensues.

Such economic pillars just seem unable to manage their decline without taking down others. This is classic binary mindset, destructive and demonic. Such mindset is responsible for using nuclear arms, regarding the casualties  on their perceived enemies thereafter as mere statistics. And East Asia better prepare for the eventuality that this mindset will become dominant again in Japan in the short run.  

Demented minds in Japan have two (2) bogey men today: (a) North Koreans  and (b) Chinese. As this is happening, events have already shown the preparedness of Japan to mobilize its troops for missions outside the borders (e.g. Iraq war). Japan also possesses the technical capabilities to produce weapons of mass destruction such as nukes and probably the Tesla Earthquake Machine or TEM.  

Intelligence reports have it that Japan is capable of constructing WMDs and manufacturing new series military vehicles (e.g. aircraft carriers) in just less than a year upon call to action. We wouldn’t be surprised if we receive further intelligence information that such WMDs and vehicles are in fact already in place, needing supplementation in quantities and troop mobilizations.

It need not be overstressed that Zaibatsus are awash with money to fund militaristic or Banzai offensives for sustained periods. They already demonstrated this, during the Gulf War and Iraq War, when their coffers coughed up large sums by the tens of billions of dollars to pay the bills for the offensives while the USA provided the main attack hardware and human ‘warm bodies’ (like they were the Hessian Troops of the global oligarchs).

If ever that the USA-EU would fall into a state of totalitarian governance (police state, fascism), and Japan would follow along that direction, then chances are high that the North Atlantic Alliance (USA-EU) and Japan would form a new Axis Powers alliance. The North Atlantic powers would constitute the Western flank, while Japan would comprise the Eastern flank of the alliance.

It will be déjà vu for sure. If indeed such is the direction. Peace advocates still have time to scuttle new treaties up north that could redound to concentrating enormous powers in central governments that are undisguised fascist police states. There is still time, but time is now short.

Before long, Japanese slogans of Banzai! will be heard again across the Pacific. Just by hearing it, or reading it on the papers and TV, many middle class Asians will die of heart attacks. Let us just hope that it will only be a slogan of marginalized mad people in Japan and nothing more.

[Writ 15 November 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]

ZAIBATSU GLOBALIZATION ‘VOODOO ECONOMICS’ BOWING OUT

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

 

Let me share to you at this moment some notes regarding the ‘globalization’ experiment and the flawed policies that sustained it. There has been much ballyhoo about the global economy’s integration, over the last three (3) decades, as having been carved out supposedly by the Anglo-Saxon policy architects, using Thatcher & Reagan as the face for the ‘neo-liberal’ policy regime they installed.

 

Little do peoples across the globe, including experts who are so mired in their own parochial perspectives, know that the liberalization of country economies has a great deal to do with the Zaibatsu offensive. The West should better accept the facts: that their technocrats and policy shapers have run out of fresh ideas since the 1970s onwards (i.e. mentally bankrupt), a gap that they filled up by looking up to Japan and the NICs (newly industrializing countries) for copycat purposes.

 

Reaganomics, as neo-liberal policies of ‘privatization’ was dubbed (Thatcher of the UK preceded Reagan by a year), is as voodoo as one can get, seductive as any enchanting mantra-resonating principle can be, and was indeed potent in erasing the vestiges of the Regulated Economics doctrines that preceded the era. In the emerging markets, they were dubbed as ‘structural adjustment policies’ or SAPs, were imposed by the IMF-World Bank Group on debtor nations, and can be summed up as follows:

 

·        Core principles: Privatization, Liberalization, Deregulation

·        Subsidiary Principles: Tax reforms, trade liberalization, free floating exchange rates, diminished state subsidies for welfare, increased utility prices (revenue generation)

·        Governance Principle: Decentralization (local government autonomy)

 

Such policy reform measures, as far as developing countries or DCs were concerned, came in as very harsh, cruel ‘austerity measures’ imposed by the IMF. We citizens from the ‘margins’ can never forget these measures, the pauperization that they effected, the dislocation of marginal producers, the decline of health services and rise of morbidity rates, and so on. In the Philippines, our very own capital goods industries were either delayed or un-implementable (such as integrated steel), as the money allocated for their purposes simply dried as dictated by the World Bank.

 

But there’s another set of policy architecture that wasn’t Anglo-Saxon, and didn’t receive their inspiration from the classicists (Smith, Ricardo) and the monetarists (Friedman, Hayek). This set of liberalization policies came from Zaibatsu country, and were crafted by Japanese technocrats. Not only policies, but also institutions were addressed by them, giving rise to the globalized economy that we have today.

Chief among those technocrats was Kenichi Ohmae, who in the 1980s was a think-tank executive. Further down the line were many other technocrats, who were organically linked to the Zaibatsus (landlord-industrialist-financier oligarchs), taking up cudgels for Ohmae.

Globalization, as one better realize, was never meant as any ‘win/win’ formula for nation-states in the arena of international trade as the liberal thinkers came to defend it later. It was outright a strategy to pre-position Zaibatsu corporate interests outside of Japan, notably the U.S. and European markets.  

At that time of conceptualization, Zaibatsus have already efficaciously penetrated the Asian markets, and had leveraged their investments’ entry via aid and technical knowledge diffusion (including sponsoring Developing Country scholars in Japanese universities & special institutes). The old doctrine of ‘Asia Co-prosperity sphere’ was finally won, without firing a shot this time (unlike Imperial Japan era expansionism).

In the 1980s, the clamor for mooring investments and trade in the Western markets became ever stronger. The offensive tactic adapted was rather two-pronged, which made the new voodoo mantra even more potent:

·        On the micro-level, permeate other markets with new concepts such as ‘Theory Z’ (decentralized authority, see W. Ouichi), total quality management or TQM, new tools for strategic planning, mergers and de-mergers. Till these days, the tools are considered sacrosanct in all sectors of society, including the Catholic Church that now uses ‘bottom-up’ planning added to strategic planning (my observations done in 2001-02 in a California diocese).

 

·        On the macro-level, blend  the Reagan-Thatcher ‘structural adjustments’ with the ‘globalization’ doctrine. The Zaibatsu technocrats fanned out across the globe, some of whom were positioned inside international bodies, and sweetened liberalization via a supposedly ‘win/win’ growth strategy for participating countries. This brilliant blending, which Western thinkers didn’t perceive at all as any subtle tactic by a predatory class (Zaibatsu), soon caught up fire and became buzz word for nigh three decades.  

Before long, the Japan Inc. was being bandied across the globe as worth any country’s emulation. Southeast Asia and Korea went for it. Even the former presidents of the USA admired the Japanese Inc. doctrine of renewed private initiatives and shift from macro- to micro-economics as stabilization and growth measure. Bill Clinton of the USA spoke so fondly of ‘globalization’ like some captive fan of an economic icon, and moved to negotiate the NAFTA.

Little do unsuspecting, gullible peoples across the planet, more so the policy experts of the West, realize that the Japanese voodoo economics was largely intended to permit Zaibatsu investments to breed and morph inside their economies. Using merger and buy-in tactics, the Zaibatsu agents made it appear that their sponsors came in for benign purposes or so. If there is any group in the world today that is enjoying its last laugh, it is the Japanese militarists of the past, who finally saw the success of their nation’s offensives and the decline of the West via ‘organized chaos’.

Around 1994, the magic of the Japan Inc. began to cramble. Recession came, and before long many banks and investment houses were catching fire. That was the origin of the bankrupt and immoral Bush-Paulson ‘bailout’, which began with the ‘crisis management’ tactic in Japan to save ailing banks and financial institutions. Eventually, Zaibatsu technocrats were forced to revive the Western tool of ‘interest rates’ intervention, to the extent of bringing down interest rates to zero percent and sustaining it there for many years.

There also came that moment, in the late 1990s through 2006, when Zaibatsu financiers suddenly were so awash with funds (liquidities), at a time when Western economies reached low growths. The ‘yen initiative’ package was therefore conceptualized as another last-ditch voodoo tactic, which was implemented by loaning out large funds at zero or low interest, which Western financiers than re-loaned at profitable interest rates. Many such funds reached the USA& EU realty subprime mortgage markets, to recall. Again, note the seemingly benign nature of the financial gesture.

Just as when the realty markets were beginning to sneeze in America, the last voodoo measure was pulled out. The ‘crisis management’ was already folded up earlier, as Japan’s economic growth was propelled up anew by the Asian markets notably China’s. Just as when USA & EU needed the Zaibatsu loans very badly, and ditto for portfolio investments, they were pulled out, thus ensuring the crash of both economies.

Japananese voodoo economics is now bowing out, as the compass of policy initiatives at present is pointing to the reconstruction of macro-economic, New Deal type measures intended to attack problems both on short-term (bail out on productive sectors) and long-term basis (induce physical economy rather than predatory finance). But the withdrawal of the voodoo regime is not being done without witnessing its catastrophic results.

That’s surely tragic for the West or North. I wonder how Zaibatsus & technocrats perceive peoples outside their borders: whether they regard the latter as human beings worth co-partnering with, or as hungry lizards that must subsist on crumbs of investments & finance from Japan that have been buttressed by enormous tons of gold acquired through production and plunder of occupied lands, across the 2,000 years of Japan’s existence from kingdom to nation.

Honestly, I don’t know the answer. But if the Zaibatsus are receiving flaks from outside their borders, it wouldn’t be a surprise. There are no more borders for Zaibatsus by the way, just an entire planet with seamless web, cocooned in all corners by their corporate money.  

[Writ 14 November 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]  

CONTINUING BOURSE PLUNGE DOWN NEAR DEPRESSION LEVEL

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good afternoon, Fellows of Planet Earth!

The planet’s bourses are still plunging as of yesterday (Friday), a day that was dabbed as ‘black Friday’ in Japan which saw the Nikkei plunge by 10%. ‘Bloody Friday’ may be a better term, as the word ‘black’ in ‘black Friday’ could be construed as a racial slur.

This gentleman is among the economists/social scientists in Manila who forecast, way back in the late 1980s yet, that the Western economies led by the USA will experience another horrific depression this decade. We were then following the trends of a yawning gap between the ‘financial economy’ or ‘virtual economy’ and the ‘real economy’ based on the GDP statistics. The American economist Lyndon LaRouche devised a very potent graph of the event which he termed as ‘collapse function’.

As of late 2007, debts in the USA already exceeded the GDP by four (4) times. That means that, in the event of a bubble burst (which came from the realty markets), the economy will come crashing down. It is simply impossible for a $13 Trillion GDP to pay up for debts approximating $50 Trillion last year. In the secondary debt markets, financial derivatives exposures breached the $120 Billion mark in the USA last year, and that all the more exacerbates the weakness and fragility of a $13Trillion economy that simply doesn’t have the money to pay up for ballooning private and public debts.

My own forecast is that the stock market plunge across the globe, which is now in the vogue of a ‘freefall’, will continue till next year yet. At its best, the Dow Jones index reached past 13,000 points about less than a couple of years ago. The same index had already shrunk below 10,000 points at its worst. By next year, the Dow will further shrink by as low as 8,000-8,500 points, the range that actually represents the real value of the entire US economy.

1 Point in the US bourse is equivalent to $1.5 Billion more or less, at its best. A shrunken size would deflate the value to around $1 Billion. At 13,300 points, the Dow index represents a value worth $20 Trillion, which seemingly exceeds the GDP of the entire federation. But that amount is largely speculation, the speculative value exceeding beyond 50% of the real value of the commodity lines traded.

8,500 points in the Dow index would yield, at deflated value, around $8.5 Trilion dollars. That same estimate is the real value of the US economy in GDP terms, per year, as of today. The value of $13 Trillion includes the value of speculation and fiction, on account of the predominance of the ‘virtual economy’.

As I’ve already explained in a previous article, the Bush-Paulson bailout, allocated an amount of $700 Trillion, is a faulty measure to salve the financial ailments of the USA. It follows from the flawed Japanese ‘crisis management’ bailout of huge banks that went in the red last decade, a tragic measure that flattened Japan’s growth to almost zero for around ten years at least. It is a band aid solution to a gargantuan problem that is equivalent to cancer, and everybody knows that band aid doesn’t cure cancer.

That explains the jittery situation of the post-bailout law scenario. Financial traders and investors who still recall well the Japanese fiasco just couldn’t be appeased by a repeat of the same band aid solution, this time to an economy almost three times bigger than Japan’s (in real value). For as long as no strategic solution to the global financial crash is in site, the stock markets will be jittery till next year, and before long we would see both the USA and Europe plunge back to the depression years of the mid-1920s to early 1930s.

Let’s see what will happen to the election fever in the USA. Some liquidity will be produced by the election spending there, and the optimistic pitch created by the electoral situation may somehow drive back the bourses up a bit. That is just a temporary respite from the blazing flames of the crash, rest assured.

[Writ 11 October, 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

IMMORAL U.S. BAILOUT ECHOES JAPAN’S 1990s ‘CRISIS MANAGEMENT’ FLAWS

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

It’s been some couples of weeks now since the financial downspin in the USA took a further plunge as mega-banks sought help from federal government for rescue. The closure of the Lehman Brothers and the S.O.S. by other big banks that are now in the red rocked the global stock markets to a new round of instabilities and volatilities, even as the US economy is in danger of another Great Depression.

As I’ve already expressed in many articles of mine, the US financial collapse, an event that economists in many parts of the world forecast as early as the 1990s yet, is bound to happen, on account of many factors. The key factor, as this analyst and fellow ‘nationalist economists’ have been saying since 1998 yet (when I was actively involved with a group of economists in Manila called the Independent Review circle), is the widening gap between the (a) ‘virtual economy’ based on predatory finance that produces mere fictitious values and the (b) ‘real economy’ or ‘physical economy’ that produces real values.

The serial liberal economic reforms that began in 1971 yet, which saw the collapse of the gold standard and the dropping of fixed exchange rate (FER) in favor of ‘floating rate’, and onwards through the liberalization-privatization-deregulation-decentralization (structural adjustment policies or SAPs) of the 1980s, and onwards to the GATT-Uruguay Rounds that created the WTO in 1994, took its catastrophic toll on the economies of the planet, but most specially the USA’s.

The Nixon-era financial-monetary reforms and the Reaganomics (SAPs) were the policy culprits of America. They dealt the final death blows on the dirigist policies of New Deal, initiated by Franklin Roosevelt but which was inspired by dirigist policies of earlier luminaries (i.e. Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Friedrich von List), provided the impetus that created the strong, gigantic ‘physical economy’  of the country, and transformed it into a world power economically, politically and culturally. Without dirigist economics (interventionist) and the New Deal, Middle Class America wouldn’t have been possible. The neo-liberal reforms simply wiped out whatever was left of the New Deal by the 1980s, and with the liberalization of the financial –capital-monetary markets, the predatory financiers had their field day of looting the middle class purses under the rubric of portfolio capital and derivatives operations.

Had the US policy makers just labored a bit and assigned their staff to scour the world for some related experience of bank-financial collapse, their researchers could have easily ‘discovered’ the experiences of Japan in the 1990s. By the early 1980s, when Japan clearly demonstrated its sterling industrial and technological capabilities as the base for its wealth production, the Zaibatsus and the policy makers decided to go the liberalization way, confident as they were that the fruits of decades-old ‘physical economy’ build up can’t just be easily wiped out by predatory financier operators.

Japanese technocrats (both in Japan and overseas) also theorized that the key to producing a sound, healthy, mighty Japanese economy was in the realm of micro-economics more than public policy. Never mind if the policy environment will shift from the protectionist-dirigist policies of the post-war decades to liberal policies, provided that at the level of production and organization, capacity and internal potency can be demonstrated. The likes of William Ouichi’s ‘theory z’ comes to mind, or ideas that spawned strategies and tools dovetailing on quality control, team building, and decentralized operations. The world was so awe-inspired by the ‘Japan Incorporated’ model that was based precisely on the micro-economic route, and was extolling the Japanese corporate firm to the hilt as the new champion of the globalizing economy.

The USA that had demonstrated its strength on macro-economics—In the terrain of public policy—as the route to economic might, must have been seduced by the Japanese ideological onslaught at one point, that it so sonorously echoed the Japanese technocratic jargon of ‘globalization’. But when Japan’s financial system began to buckle down in 1994, which then impacted on the rest of the economic sectors, the US politicians and technocrats simply didn’t pay attention, fixated as they were to the seductive results of the ‘virtual economy’ (bubble operations) on the GDP of America.

To recall, Japan suffered miserably for the bailout mistake it pursued. Dabbed as ‘crisis management’, the state went on a binge of saving ailing banks and financial houses, the very same measures that the Bush-Paulson team is now embarking on. Alarmed at those events than in Japan, which led to a 10-year recession & almost zero growth, I began to raise howl about the ballooning portfolio investments in the Philippines by 94-95, and was among those experts who forewarned the state officials that Japan’s ‘crisis management’ was seriously flawed, was tantamount to giving incentives to looters instead of criminalizing, them, and should never be enforced in the Philippines or ASEAN in case that the portfolio bubble will burst in Manila and the region (the bubble burst in 1997).

To repeat: Japan suffered miserably from that fiasco. Recession howled like unstoppable forest fires for ten (10) years, and were it not for the high growth of East Asian markets, Japan couldn’t have risen back to appreciable growth by 2005. Interest rate was compelled to be brought down to zero percent, a precedent that many countries affected by financial meltdowns were aloof to emulating. Bankruptcies,  corporate closures and downsizing led to dislocations and unemployment. For the first time in many decades, former decent Japanese executives and employees who lose their jobs and had their remaining mortgaged properties confiscated, were rendered homeless and starving, and forced to reside in the streets as paupers and vagabonds..   

Sitting with my fellows in the Independent Review circle from 1997-onwards, we took turns in exposing the maladies of the neo-liberal reforms, spoke in diverse media (TV, radio) to forewarn the public of the imminent financial collapse in East Asia (the meltdown took place beginning in June of ’97), and by 98 were of the consensus that the USA was next in line for a meltdown of even catastrophic proportions than either Japan’s or South East Asia’s (97 meltdown). The very destructive effects of predatory finance saw the decline of industry (de-industrialization), agriculture (land use conversions, decay), infrastructures (some huge infra were even privatized), S & T (low priority in budgets & education), and transport & communications in the USA. If the neglect of the ‘physical economy’ will continue for another ten (10) years, it will be too late for salving the US economy as a whole. Any catastrophic bubble burst and financial-monetary meltdown could bring the economic house down, collapse consumption, and render the US economy much like unto a Latin American economy past 2010.

 As I recall then, we experts from the Independent Review circle strongly opined that the ‘crisis management’ tactic was immoral and extremely perverted. How in the world could the state ever reward criminals at all? The bankers and financiers looted the Japanese purse by probably worth trillions of dollars, they should have been criminalized for their sordid crimes, and yet they were even rewarded! Unbelievable! This is one excellent narrative for the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!

Fortunately for the Philippines, there was no large-scale bailout of any bank as a result of the 1997 Asian meltdown. Those realty and construction companies affected by the crisis, affected precisely because they over-exposed themselves to ‘hot money’ foreign portfolios that simply dried up as the same portfolios were pulled during the first month of the meltdown, were immediately able to cope up by retooling and re-engineering their strategies and tools. Interest rates were lowered, excess liquidities were flashed out in well managed manner that deserve our central bank accolades from the Bank of International Settlements. In less than a year after the meltdown began, we were back to consumption patterns like there was no recession at all. We didn’t take the Japan route, luckily. By 2001 and onwards our growth patterns were back to appreciable growth, and the local bourse moved up as well.

Today, all over the ASEAN + China-India-Korea (minus Japan), the Asian meltdown seems like an ancient event down memory lane as things have been moving fast. We just can’t believe that our mighty economic partner, the USA, didn’t learn its lessons from the 2001 recession there and from the flaws of the Japanese bailout. ‘Bailing out the rich’ isn’t the issue here, but rather ‘bailing out the criminals’ which is a gross disincentive for the legitimate SMEs and other market players that didn’t receive the same favor.

If we were to seriously search for appropriate short-term tactic for salving ailing financial institutions, the answer lies in a proven approach to corporate ailments: bankruptcy reorganization. The economists Robert Reich (former US secretary of Labor) and Lyndon LaRouche (Executive Intelligence Review) have been airing this solution very strongly, and I am myself bent on accepting this micro-economic short-term solution as an exemplar for the rest of the world. I would not be surprised if the eminent economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman would air a similar advisory, and they should better air their counsel strongly.

The entire planet today is watching the horrific bailout in the USA, almost forgetting that this copycat bailout already flattened Japan for a decade at least before. Each one of us should look at our own backyards and make sure that our respective states won’t emulate the rather devious and insane bailout of Japan Incorporated and the Bush-Paulson team.

[Writ 04 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]