I, for one, welcome our Japanese OverlordsFollow

Huh... I wouldn't be surprised if this story was in the local media and I just missed it but...



"We're owned by the Japanese!" just doesn't have the same panache as "We're owned by the Chi-Coms!".

If Toyota can't win our hearts, they'll buy them.

Hopefully Japanese control of our debt can finally force the government to institute a full country broadband network.

**** Canada, I just want a better cell phone network.

I stand by my initial comment.

Does this mean we get cheaper anime and manga?

Or at least more of it?

Dammit, I want someone to translate Earl & Fairy already.

CNN had a story about it yesterday.

No, for that to happen, the US Dollar would have to tank against the Yen. Really, the American dollar tanking would probably be good for you right now. Other countries would buy stuff made in the USA then, because they'd be cheap according to their own currency, regardless of whether or not you had liveable minimum wages and minimum welfare etc in the US.

This Bond thing is more like your country having a large credit card debt to China and a slightly larger credit card debt to Japan.

Right now "The Bank Of" China has decided to downgrade your credit score, and has put a new, lower maximum on your credit card with them. You are going to have to wait a long time, and be a responsible repayer of debts before China is going to raise your credit max again.

Actually, the US has been paying its interest just fine which, in terms of debt, is really what the debtor cares about. These are bonds so China can't "call them in" or anything; they mature when they're set to mature and if you want your money earlier, you have to sell them to someone else who'll wait for them to mature. The situation with China is more political than fiscal; China is trying to "punish" the US for weapon sales to Taiwan and meeting with the Dali Lama but, at the same time, China's economy is wholly dependent upon the US so they can't do anything to legitimately hurt us.

Some months ago China simply stopped buying American bonds. That's probably what's "dropped" their bond holdings, as old bonds have matured, and new ones haven't been taken out. The timing of the stoppage was somewhere in the middle of the whole GFC fiasco, but if you want to throw military strategy in there, sure, there's no reason why it can't be both, or one hiding under the other. I rather think that concerns about America's debt was what the Chinese publicly quoted for the halt in bond buying from the US.

I know that the US has been paying its debt just fine. But like the stockmarket... institutions get to justify their present behaviour by quoting what they are guessing future outcomes will be. I know China would crash and burn if the US crashes and burns, but they certainly took the opportunity of the GFC to do some diplomatic rubbing of the West's nose.

Edited, Feb 19th 2010 12:25pm by Aripyanfar

You pay attention to the news?

God, I stopped doing that years ago.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=wii+fit+balance+board&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=3546807772460967494&ei=6c5-S-nmDcyutgefvsHHDw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDIQ8wIwAg#ps-sellers

I ordered mine on Amazon.ca right after Christmas. It was supposed to deliver Jan 25-28th. Instead, on Jan 27th, I got an e-mail telling me it would ship between March 25-28th. Then, last week I got an e-mail telling me it has shipped. I got it Tuesday. It's lots of fun!