Since 2006, I've started up several projects. Some have made a lot of money, some lost a lot of money. Actually, all in all, it's been a string of failures and near misses for six years in a row. There have been some, though, that were just on the verge of huge success but something out of the blue happened and ruined the plans.
It doesn't matter how old you are! Keep your dreams!
One time, I helped a new China based airlines increase its Japan traffic by well over 300% in less than a year. I had them all over the TV and in many major publications. They were hot. Then, one day, I wake up and see the news that the Chinese government revoked the airlines' license because this up-start was seriously eating into the profits of the state-run airline. I was the first time in aviation history that an airlines had their license revoked. More than 4,000 Japanese were stranded. It was a major news story here and I had to spend the rest of the next six months running around and apologizing the upper management at all the big networks.... Another time I helped a company that had lost $140 million dollars over the last decade turn a profit in less than 2 years. I thought for sure there would be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for me that time. Not so, the president had to retire and a new president came in and he wanted to run that company like his own little fiefdom and give jobs to his crony friends. I resigned and that company started losing a million dollars (more) a year again. Another time I helped a company raise $4.5 million dollars from Intel only to have our company president steal more than half that money and run away to Hong Kong. That was another big story and scandal in Japan. The names have changed and the people are different but I've basically had this sort of story repeated over and over in these last seven years. That can get quite depressing. But it's OK. Did you know that Colonel Sanders failed 99 times before he finally hit it right and became rich at 63-years-old? I just turned 55 and can count (what I consider) to be six failures in a row... If I use the colonel as a yard-stick, I've got 93 more to go before I become a millionaire? Yikes! I have gotten lucky (again) and it was because I kept trying. Just this year I propped up another brand new company with great goals and dreams only to be stopped by Japan's archaic system. Before I ran into a brick wall, I was out selling and looking for investors. I met a guy who is very famous and has a golden reputation for starting new companies and making them hugely successful. While I tried to talk him into investing, he declined. Nevertheless, six months later, I was contacted by him. It seems he was impressed with my salesmanship and aggressiveness; he had heard that my new project had run into a car crash so he asked me to come work for his new company. It's a wonderful new company too with a fantastic idea and product. I accepted the job eagerly. There is a moral to this story too. You can never give up; you must keep trying. I had made up my mind seven years ago that I was going to keep at it. I was going to make a million dollars. Of course I haven't done it yet but I have to keep trying and stick to it. You too. You can never give up. And that's the lesson here: If I had sat at home waiting for the phone to ring or something to happen, it wouldn't. I had to go out and make something happen. For this holiday season I want you all to have a very safe and healthy end of 2012. Things might look rough for some of us, but remember, we must always keep on trying. We can never give up. Keep at it and keep knocking on the door and someday it will open and a bright new day will come shining in for you and your family. Stay positive and good luck! For More Related Subjects, please read: Winning at Raffles, Bingo and Life are Exactly the Same! Here's 5 Simple Tips on How to Win at All of Them! (http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.jp/2012/02/winning-at-bingo-and-winning-at-life.html) Pocket Notebooks: The Secret of Millionaires and People Won't Listen? (http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.jp/2011/06/pocket-notebooks-secret-of-millionaires.html) Make Your Own Success (http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.jp/2011/07/make-your-own-success.html)
The worst part of blogging is getting mail from idiots who think they know what they are talking about. Dave from Texas tells me that, "you are part of the problem" when it comes to Japan's economic conundrum. You see, Dave thinks that government spending of over 237% of GDP is not the problem. Dave also thinks that the current rate of Japanese under the poverty level of 15.7% is somehow caused by privately run businesses trying to compete for good employees under the free market system. In "Japan is Collapsing," I wrote: I am angry at the stupid Japanese government for taking our tax money and bailing out these zombie banks and keeping the status quo intact at the expense of the people and our children's future. I am furious that the situation has gone on for so long. I am angry that it is not only us who is feeling the pain but everyone else I know... I get angry when I read the news and see that 15.7% of all Japanese are under the poverty level. I get pissed off when I see that our debt to GDP is over 237%....
And I really get angry when I read that these idiots in government want to raise our taxes and keep with the failed policies of these last twenty plus years. And it really really astounds me that the people who got us into this mess can get reelected again. What a farce. Dave then writes:
Well, things can't be so bad-- I mean you still have a very exclusive international school full of rich people, right? Did you ever think that one of the problems with Japan's economy is that everyone assumes a paternalistic company to pay for all these benefits for their employees? When businesses are burdened with such costs, the money's got to come from _somewhere_. Companies will either: stiff the employee wages, borrow, suck off the gov't teat, or go under. Mike, with all due respect, you might be part of the problem...
Riiiiiight! Japan's economic problems are due to the efforts of private businesses! Dave is a fricking genius! I responded: Dave is a prime example of the poor education people get through public schooling. For some bizarre reason he thinks that private businesses (that create jobs and build the economy) are "part of the problem" whilst he ignores the fact that Japanese government debt is now over 238% of GDP and we have 15.7% of all Japanese under the poverty level in Japan today. He also fails to recognize that Japan has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Dave is completely ill-informed and naive. Jeff B. also blasted Dave in the comments section for thinking the government had their own money and because Dave fails to realize that all the money the government has in the first place is money they took it from privately run businesses. Dave is a total statist fool. But Dave isn't the worst one - he doesn't deserve the "Total Idiot Award" in the last 24 hours (Sorry Dave). That award goes to someone else even dumber. To prove to you that public education is in the pits and that you must work your ass off to send your kid to a private school or homeschool, read this next letter that I received concerning my article entitled, "Atomic Bombs: Race Hatred and Mass Murder." The reader commented: "I think you have a very warped sense of history. Japan was, after all, the first country to use a nuclear weapon on Korea. Second, the actual documents show Japan was looking for a CONDITIONAL ceasation to the war. (sic) Japan's own treatment of the Chinese was the real war crime. So don't be so high and mighty. True, the bombs killed many innocents, but it was total war by all sides. Your generals were to blame, not the U.S."
Jesus! "Total war by all sides" but "Your generals were to blame" incredible! It gets worse, he even spelled "cessation" wrong. Then he writes, "Japan was, after all, the first country to use a nuclear weapon on Korea???" What the heck? Have you ever heard anything like that before? He's kidding, right? Is this what they are teaching in school or did this guy get this from reading comic books? No! I dare say that this guy doesn't read at all.... I mean, how could he with a ridiculous statement like that?
If you ever needed any evidence that US public education was sh*t, you just found it with the comments by Anonymous. Mr. Anonymous! Please send me the names of the schools you attended. I want to publish that list so that people know where NOT to send their kids!
And if you ever needed evidence that blogging was an exercise in frustration (or becoming a Zen Master) then just read the dumb stuff people like Dave write.
God help us all if this is the education level of the people we are producing today.
I suppose the best recourse on this holiday weekend is to not argue with idiots and drink more.
Happy Thanksgiving! May the rest of this year see you and yours healthy and prosperous!
My son and daughter along with two friends (Ko & Takashi) visiting us for turkey in 2010
Yesterday, I posted about how messed up the Japanese economy was in "Japan is Collapsing." The response to that article was amazing. Thank you... Too bad the article contents are true. Interestingly, just two nights ago I had dinner with some high ranking executives from Germany's biggest television network. They were in Japan on a fact-finding mission and had visited several Japanese corporations who told them all sorts of nonsense stories (spin) about Japan. The most ridiculous one was given to them by a spokesman from either Nissan or Docomo (they couldn't recall which company told them - Jet lag and all). The spokesman told them something along the lines of, "The Japanese work so hard because of their samurai ancestors." I was asked by several of the visiting German delegation if this statement was true. I told them it was "...total and complete bullsh*t!" Actually, I've heard this "samurai ancestors" romanticist nonsense before. It's not true at all. Folks, there might be only a handful of people in Japan who have "samurai ancestors." 95% of all Japanese have peasant-class ancestors and the other 5% or so have merchant class ancestory. The samurai were low-class paid killers and "worked" (if you call it that) for money killing people or being body guards. Their only dedication, generally speaking, was to whoever paid them the most. That certainly doesn't translate into long and hard hours sitting at a desk all through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s that most Japanese dedicated during the so-called Japanese economic miracle. And a big reason that Japan is messed up today is that she doesn't have the people with the leadership qualities like she used to and her people don't work hard and dedicate the long hours like they used to. For more on that subject please refer to: Why Korea Beats Japan:
"...the biggest problem for Japanese companies versus Korean companies in manufacturing may not be simply issues with design and ease of use, but it has a lot to do with corporate culture in Japan.
Frankly speaking, from what I've seen, Korean companies will continue to beat Japanese companies for the long foreseeable future. There's no way out. Why? Because inside a Korean company, there are no factions fighting for position like what goes on at a Japanese company. Also, Japan doesn't have the leadership it once had; there are no more good leaders, definitely in politics and there is a terrible shortage in business in Japan too.
My Samsung friend put it this way,
"At a Korean company everyone is on the same bus and we are all going the same way. At a Japanese company, the leaders have a very difficult time getting everyone pointed in the same direction."
He's absolutely right.
At a Japanese company groups are struggling within, and against each other, to gain power. At Korean companies, I think they feel it is "Korea versus the world!"
When I worked as an executive at a major Japanese TV station subsidiary, I saw a consistent in-fighting between three or four factions for power. When faction "A" would come to power, the other factions seemed to not put in their best effort. In fact, I saw times when the other factions would actually drag their feet and become a hindrance to the efforts of the group in power.
It was infuriating to me as a foreigner who wasn't inside of any group to see people protecting their friends and their position as the number one work priority rather than the success of the company business or the project.
It seems to me that the success of the project would automatically protect one's position. But no! These folks wanted success for sure, but only if their group was the one in power when that success occurred.
I saw this same problem at a Sony subsidiary, another TV network I worked at in the mid 80s ~ early 90s; and you can readily see this same problem in Japanese politics anytime anywhere.
I was, and am still to this day, astounded at the immaturity of some of these people."
I wrote that article at the end of September. It's been only two months but I only see things getting worse. Also the other night, the COO of the German television network told me that he still thought Sony was a great corporation. I told him,
"You do know that Sony lost a billion dollars last year?"
He said nothing and drank his wine. Sorry to burst his balloon.
The agency slapped a speculative rating on each firm, pointing to their weak balance sheets and declining position in the global electronics sector.
Fitch said it cut Panasonic by two notches to BB, while it slashed Sony's rating by three notches to BB-, with both firms given a negative outlook.
"The downgrade reflects Panasonic's weakened competitiveness in its core businesses, particularly in TVs and panels, as well as weak cash generation from operations," Fitch said in a statement.
"It also reflects the agency's view that the company's financial profile is not likely to show a material improvement in the short to medium term."
Fitch also cast doubt on Sony's prospects, saying a "meaningful recovery will be slow, given the company's loss of technology leadership in key products, high competition, weak economic conditions in developed markets and the strong yen".
Panasonic was also downgraded to one level above junk by Moody's earlier this week.
I just wonder what took them so long to downgrade these companies... All they had to do was to go and check out and talk and work with the people I do and they'd have known 5 years ago that Sony was headed for the trash-can. Heck, when Sony unveiled their MP3 player that was to compete with the iPod years ago and called it the "Walkman" you knew they were out of good leadership and good ideas. Look for Sony to be emblematic of the rise and fall of Japan's economic miracle. ------- This morning, I also received a mail from my good friend Mish Shedlock and he wrote that I could reprint his entire blog post about Japan (that I referred to yesterday) in full and I wish to do so here. Mish has the most wonderful insights and I find his blog to be a "Must Read" everyday. I think you should too!
Japan's grand experiment of decades-long QE coupled with Keynesian foolishness is about to take one last gigantic leap forward before it plunges straight off the cliff into a massive currency crisis.
For years, proponents of aggressive monetary policy have offered this unusual piece of advice as a way to end Japan’s deflationary slump and invigorate the economy. Print lots of money, they said. Keep interest rates at zero. Convince the market that Japan will allow inflation for a while.
Japan’s central bankers long scoffed at such recklessness, which they feared would ignite runaway inflation. But now, the bank’s hand could be forced by an unlikely alliance of economists and lawmakers who have argued for Japan to take more monetary action after more than a decade of weak growth and depressed prices.
Championing their cause is the former prime minister Shinzo Abe, who is favored to return to the top job after nationwide elections next month. Otherwise deeply conservative, Mr. Abe surprised even his own supporters by calling for the Bank of Japan to be much bolder in tackling deflation, the damaging fall in prices, profits and wages that has choked Japan’s economy for 15 years.
In escalating remarks over the last week, Mr. Abe has said that he will press the Bank of Japan to act on government orders if his Liberal Democratic Party wins the Dec. 16 election and even rewrite Japanese law to reduce the bank’s independence.
In a speech in Tokyo on Thursday, Mr. Abe said he would call for the Bank of Japan to set an inflation target of 2 to 3 percent, far above its current goal of about 1 percent, with an explicit commitment to “unlimited monetary easing” — an open-endedness that has caused jitters among some economists. The bank’s benchmark interest rate should be brought back to zero percent from 0.1 percent, Mr. Abe added.
He went even further over the weekend, saying in the southern city of Kumamoto that he would consider having the bank buy construction bonds directly from the government to finance public works and force money into the economy, according to local news reports. That raises concerns, however, the bank may be called on to bankroll unrestrained spending on more roads and bridges that Japan does not need.
Economists cite several missteps by the central bank that have entrenched Japan’s deflationary mind-set and made consumers and businesses wary that the bank’s policies will stick. In early 1999, as the country’s economic woes deepened, the bank lowered a benchmark interest rate to virtually zero and said it would keep rates at zero until deflationary concerns disappeared. But an economic uptick in mid-2000 caused the bank to raise that rate to 0.25 percent despite protests from the government that the move was premature.
Monetarist Mush
Anyone who thinks an interest rate hike from 0% to .1% or even .25% has much influence on economic growth has "monetarist mush" for brains. Seriously.
The NYT does not name the economists, but I have no doubt they exist. Highly respected (for no reason) Richard Koo is one of them.
I have written about Koo on numerous occasions. From Japan's decade long experiment resulting in public debt of a 1,000,000,000,000,000 yen (a quadrillion yen), Koo reckons Japan failed to defeat deflation because it did not do enough!
Japan is in a crisis alright, and it was entirely self-made, by politicians listening to clueless economists all begging Japan to do something.
One Thing Worse
Central banks are bad enough on their own, but history shows that one thing worse than central banks acting on their own is central banks acting under control of politicians.
Committing to a little inflation will push stock prices higher, while a weaker yen will bolster Japan’s exporters and strengthen corporate balance sheets. Incomes will rise, fueling consumption and raising tax revenue for the government, said Kozo Yamamoto, a lawmaker of Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party. “Basically, it’s what the Bank of Japan should have been doing for the past 15 years,” he said. “A few percent of inflation is nothing to be worried about.”
US Populist Position
It's not just Japan loaded up with populist fools. The US has its share of them as well.
For example, Ellen Brown wants to end the Fed and put California politicians (state politicians in general) in charge of printing money to support "growth" as well as union causes.
As I have said, the one thing worse than having a Fed in charge of monetary policy is having politicians in charge of monetary printing!
Inflation will not raise consumption. People do not stop buying things just because prices are falling. Computers are proof enough. Prices of computers and electronic goods have been falling for decades, yet every year the volume of merchandise sold reaches skyward.
History suggests people buy things when they need to or want to not just because prices are rising. Government interference and tax breaks can shift demand forward by a few months (for no real economic benefit of course). There is only so much room to store things.
How much food or clothing can you store? Will you buy a coat you do not need, just because prices are going up? US QE Example
Take a look at the US.
QE has put a floor (for now) on asset prices but it has not done a damn thing for wages.
I come in at about the 3:00 mark, but the first few minutes of Lauren are entertaining as usual.
Average Hourly Earnings vs. CPI
Average hourly earnings has been falling for years and lagging CPI inflation since September 2009. Simply put real wages have been declining. Add in increases in state taxes and the average Joe has been hammered pretty badly.
If inflation and QE forces wages and hiring up, then why didn't it?
The fear for Japan should be rising interest rates not deflation. If interest rates rise a mere 2%, interest on the national debt will consume 100% of government revenues.
When that happens a currency crisis awaits. I have long stated a currency crisis would happen far sooner in Japan than the US, and I believe we are about to find that out soon enough.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Read more at Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.jp/2012/11/doorsteps-of-currency-crisis-economic.html
Thank god for Zerohedge! Just when I'm in a slump and have a problem with a topic, this stuff comes up: Sexy Japanese Young Women Love Men Who Own Japanese Government Bonds:
Why You, and 312,000,000 Other Americans Are On my ‘No Fly’ List... It's because of the TSA putting their hands down my pants every time I go to the USA (which I don't do anymore) and poor service on US based carriers....
I think I'm flying Cebu Pacific Airlines from now on! Americans think the TSA and that BS is worldwide, but it is not. Just fly on a non-US based carrier and go to another country. No surly customs agents, no ridiculous pat-downs and body searches. And they are happy that you are visiting.
I just came back from the store and was so surprised at what I saw. They were selling "Sports drinks" for people's stupid mutts.
Sports drinks for dogs? You kiddin' me?
Probably the only thing stupider than those dogs are the idiot humans who voluntarily feed their animal these sorts of junk foods. I'll make it simple: Humans are vegetable and fruits eaters. You can easily discern that fact by looking at our teeth. Dog on the other hand have canine teeth. Meaning they have evolved as flesh eaters... Not just any flesh; raw meat. Your do needs to eat raw meat to stay healthy. They don't need a balanced diet; they don't need to eat vegetables and they certainly don't need to eat processed food packed with chemicals. I've even heard of a company in Japan that make fermented bean crackers for dogs as a snack and idiot humans have some sort of weird idea that these things are healthy for dogs. Wrong!
Yeah, look at how eager this dog is to tear into fermented soybean (Natto) chips! Down boy! Down!
But don't believe what I wrote and linked to. Here's proof that plant material in your dog's diet is very bad for their health. From the Canine Cancer website:
What causes the mutations in the cancer genes? Each day of your
dog's life all of the genes of each cell are subjected to a barrage of
insults that have the potential to cause a mutation. Toxic chemicals can cause
a mutation in DNA. One category of toxic chemicals comes from within the
cell. These toxic chemicals are normal products of daily chemical activities
within each cell.
For the most part, cells have developed mechanisms for
detoxifying these waste products. However, some of these toxic waste products
escape the protective mechanisms of the cell and attack the cell's DNA.
Another category of toxic chemicals are components of the normal
diet. Every diet contains plant matter. All plants have developed various
chemical mechanisms to evade being eaten by their natural predators: insects,
bacteria, fungus and viruses.
The chemicals that are toxic to the natural predators of plants
are also toxic to the living cells of your dog in many instances. Some of
these naturally occurring chemicals can cause mutations in the DNA. A third
category of toxic chemicals is the man-made chemicals. There is a long
list of man-made chemicals that are known to cause mutations in the DNA of
cells and result in cancer.
So there you have it. Little Scruffy may love eating potato chips and junk like Natto chips and "Pet Sweat" but it's poison and you shouldn't give it to them...
But, hell, why not, right? Most people feed their kids crap like Twinkies and chips and Coke, so if you give your child's body a "barrage of insults" why not let the dumb dog in on the fun, right? Wrong. Don't feed your dog plant based food and certainly don't give them anything but water (milk when they are little) to drink.
Otherwise you increase their risks of cancer... And you'll see that there's nothing more fun than a puppy with cancer. Cancer is a real barrel of laughs.
