8 posts tagged “america”

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American Dark Age

A friend just came back from New York. I asked her how things were like, with all the recession and other cheerful news coming from over there.


She just said, "America has entered into the Dark Age!"

But apparently there was a silver lining to the arrival of American Dark Age, namely all kinds of designer shops doing ridiculous sale and many things getting super cheap. (If you really think about it, this is not such a good news, but at least it was a good news for her:-)

Japan's not doing that fine either, but Japan has pretty much been in its own Dark Age for more than a decade:-) So I guess we have been better adjusted to it; must be hard for the American people, until the first half of 2008 things were looking pretty normal. 2008 for them must be like 1991 for us Japanese.

2 comments Tags: new york, japan, news, america, economy, dark age

Peaceful revolution

Obama's victory speech was very, very powerful and inspiring. Especially because he spoke to the world, and reached out to the Americans who didn't vote for him. I'm usually very cynical when it comes to speeches from politicians no matter who or where that politician is from, but that speech was very inspiring. I can't remember the last time I felt any emotional support for America as a nation.  


... Also, it's very refreshing to see an American leader who can speak without "Ah", "Hm", "Oh", and doesn't show the world you can take over the office by cheating and bending the rules, speaking Texas version of Engrish along the way:-P

(^o^)/ Bye Bush! 

5 comments Tags: politics, news, america, election, obama

Dumbest remark of the month

"A woman was presiding over the proceedings. A man would have led it differently. That's why it failed."


A Japanese Liberal Democratic Party brass, on the reason why the U.S. congress rejected the bailout bill

(And for the record, Japanese Diet has seen more than one female chairperson but it never hindered any proceedings as far as I can recall)

11 comments Tags: quote, japan, news, america, finance, wall street, stupid remarks …

How big is too big?

The U.S. federal government and FRB may now have something to regret in weeks/months to come by letting Lehman Brothers to go belly up and file for bankruptcy while saving AIG because it's "too big to fail" without showing any criteria as to how big a financial institution has to be to be saved. If Lehman is not big enough, then most of them would be not big enough. Their reason for bailing AIG seems to be primarily the "influence", but what's gonna happen if an insurance company smaller than Lehman (how you compare the size of an insurance company and an investment bank is another problem) goes into crisis mode? Is it all up to the feds to decide? A bit too much of unpredictability... But I guess they don't want their hands tied as they can't predict what kind of situation they will be facing in the (probably near) future.


Also, AIG insures all kinds of things, from airplane to business loans to personal life insurance. Seems to me any defaults will be incurred by the federal government; are the American taxpayers aware of this? And this could lead to a moral hazard (you know you can rely on your AIG insurance if things go wrong, as the Uncle Sam will eventually be bailing you out by way of hurting the balance sheet of AIG- and if AIG asset turn out to be not enough, they would probably have to put some government money into it). Did they really think this through? Or maybe they just didn't have enough time....

1 comment Tags: business, random thoughts, news, america, finance

Correction

On the comment section of my post about RepCon, I mentioned Sarah Palin believes in Creationism. Although I did hear this on CNN, there doesn't seem to be corroborating evidence to back it up- at least, I couldn't find anything concrete and reliable on the Internet. So I'd like to correct myself; Sarah Palin may or may not believe in Creationism.


... However, it does seem true that she wants the kids in Alaska be taught both "traditional" history and the history according to Creationism, just to give them "alternative view". This is basically the same thing as the Japanese schools starting to teach, aside from "traditional" history, more "old-fashioned" version where Japan the country has been created  2,600 years ago by the first Emperor who was the direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, but anyway... :-P

5 comments Tags: cnn, usa, news, america, election, presidential election, wrong information …

Random thoughts on RepCon

Watching the U.S. Republican National Convention on CNN, some random thoughts went through my head, such as-


*Sarah Palin looks just like how I would imagine Britney Spears would look like at that age.

*And her son's being shipped out to Iraq on September the fecking eleventh?? Can you say "blatant publicity stunt"? Are the Iraq war veterans and 9.11. victims and their families letting them get away with this?

*True, regarding the Iraq occupation, McCain seems to have better understanding; and if the U.S. pulls out troops from Iraq, at least some of them would have to be redeployed to Afghan sooner or later.

*The audience is strikingly dominated by the white- and the old. 

*I know I'm seriously misguided here, but somehow any version of Star Spangled Banner other than the way Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock sounds weird to me (which, after all, is the only version that I know and have been listening to). No machine-gun sound at the end? Meh.

*From what I have seen in the last couple of occasions, the U.S. presidential election is probably becoming more about demography than about political debate. Being born into what kind of environment seems to be a big deciding factor- such as, your family goes to one of those fundamentalist mega-churches or your family lives in coastal states and so on. I mean, whoever gets picked as candidate, there don't seem to be big swing in support rate; seems to mean that, ultimately, people are already predisposed to either party no matter who's going to represent that party.

*At least, whoever's going to win won't suddenly abandon his office in a year, which is apparently the new trend in the Japanese politics...  (> x <)

6 comments Tags: cnn, random thoughts, republican, america, election, presidential election

Watching DemoCon on CNN

So I was watching the U.S. Democratic National Convention on CNN, it was more entertaining than I first thought. The whole thing's got more of the show-biz vibe than the Japanese politics!


You know, I have this theory on how the American people have been getting subconsciously ready for the prospect of an African American President; movies and dramas. Aside from The West Wing, most memorable Presidents in movies and dramas in recent years have been played by African American actors, don't you think? (I mean, have you watched 24? I thought President Palmer looked -and behaved- more presidential than his real-life counterpart)

And I'm surprised this guy McCain still has the same level of popularity as Obama. Interesting thing about the American politics is that it's personal- as opposed to organizational. The President as the person is the question, not what kind of team s/he can put together. For me, supporting McCain because Obama lacks experience in national security is like refusing a CEO because s/he doesn't have the accounting background and may not do well with keeping the company's books. Who cares as long as s/he can hire someone who's good for the job? Top dog doesn't have to know everything, s/he just needs to pick the right people to do the job. Top dog's real job is to lead, to point where the whole team's effort and hard work should be directed. Obama seems to have that idea.
I suspect that, at least some of the people who say they choose McCain for national security reasons, are saying it because it looks bad to admit they just want to see the white face in Oval Office. I may be wrong or biased, but it would be interesting to see Obama side putting up an ad that basically says "would you still choose McCain if he's black?"

I personally don't like McCain because he's sneering all the time and that, for me, is not inspiring leadership. 

4 comments Tags: cnn, politics, news, america, election, obama

Michelle Obama for president!

As I was sipping my afternoon coffee watching CNN in this "Break Room" in my office (procrastination is my motto of this month), Larry King Live was on and he was interviewing Michelle Obama. I came away thinking, she would make so much better President than her husband would! In fact, I got the impression that she's more intelligent, can communicate better and knows how to present her cases (I don't know anything about her background; I wonder if she's an attorney. She certainly would make a good one) than any of the official candidates. And I sense in her Koizumi-type charisma that just makes the others shut up and listen to what you have to say. I wish she would be running!

5 comments Tags: america, election, koizumi, obama