The main problem is US financial behaviour. The anglophone MSM is keeping quiet about it like some totalitarian propaganda machine. Running $2 trillion dollar deficits and printing dollars without any US GDP growth to back them up is simply inexcusable. Japan and China are forced to act because the nearly $3 trillion that they have in US reserves are going to become worthless if the US keeps up with its current fiscal policies.

If true this could be huge. On the other hand :

Fujii Leaves Intervention Door Open



Isn't it great when politicians from the same government can talk about completely different things on different days?

The common average Japanese as well as their government wants the US troops out.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/6269279/Japan-threatens-to-kick-out-US-troops.html#

How much will they regret that stance? German citizens for example were eager to see US troops leave after the Berlin wall came down, but once they started leaving the good people of Germany discovered they had gained a lot of economic wealth from hosting the troops.

Tanada, can you provide some numbers to quantify all of this alleged benefit? How many billions of dollars per year do the US bases in Japan contribute to the Japanese economy? There is always going to be some job losses and business closures when bases shut down, the same thing occurs in the US itself. But this localized pain can't be treated as some great loss for the country as a whole.

Roughly 50,000 US service personnel are deployed to Japan all the time for a three year duty cycle. Most of them have wives and children along with them. The Japanese government defrays a lot of their expenses to the USA government but their full salaries are paid by the USA. While a large portion of their purchases are items brought in from the USA through the military PX system they also spend money for local goods and services, be it restaurant visits or local vacation weekends. I did a quick google but wasn't able to find any firm figures, I don't think anyone actually knows just how much impact they have on the local economy.

I still do not see any numbers. The economic benefit of US bases is highly over-rated especially in an economic powerhouse like Japan.

Japan currently funds this to the tune of $5 billion annually. (The official name of this program is ‘Host Nation Support’, but to the annoyance of Washington, within Japan it is referred to as the ‘sympathy budget’.)

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affa ... &id=105160

$5 billion for 50,000 troops, that's $100K per troop. Don't think a GI makes that much money.

It's official, Japan will withdraw its Afghan naval support ships from the Indian ocean.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6875642.ece#

Just another update. Seem high level US-Japan relations are deteriorating quickly over US bases in Japan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/21/AR2009102100746_pf.html

Thanks toast, those were interesting links.
Last time a US colony leader rebeled against the IMCC, his country was invaded and he was murdered! ( Sadam and Iraq )
It's clear Hatoyama is making a inflammatory break from the US and it's western IMCC masters.
How will the US deal with this insurgent leader? It will be an interesting measure of the IMCCs influence in Tokyo to see what they can do about Yukio Hatoyama. Will Hatoyama be framed in a scandal? Will a pro-US Tokyo parliment majority overrule all his anti-US policies? Will he ben assassinated? Will the US bully him into line?
I'll be watching. Hopefully we'll get a WebsterTarpley take on this soon.

Its all part of what I predicted years ago about the Asian countries (including Japan) changing their policies towards the US in the wake of China's rise.

There is a slightly different mindset in the East, I'd say more of a respect for a hierarchy. When it is apparent there is a new top dog, everyone lines up. China is catching up to the US as the pre-eminent power in Asia.

This will be economic, cultural and security-based.

Japan, Korea, Taiwan are all going to line up behind China's leadership. Indonesia and the Philippines may take a little longer.

Japan's debt to GDP is at 218%. Pretty much unsustainable. Like the US Debt load, the UK's and the Eurozone. More Green Shoots. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... erica.html

Yikes.



10 year bonds are paying 1.42% (bloomberg is still showing 1.38%) and 5 years is showing .66% yeild. Are yeilds priced at the raw maturity price, or is the cost of CDS somehow factored in? Otherwise, if the 5yr is only paying 66 bps and it costs 63bps to insure them, who in their right mind would finance any debt from Japan?