Recent Publications
The Softer Side

Artist: Tomoko Ikeda
Title: Pensive Traveler
Owner: moi

I'm a total fan of her work. I even made it to one of her Exhibitions in Ginza, Tokyo—I was the only dude who didn't speak Japanese (well, I speak some, but not enough). Check out her website. 


In 2009, she published a beautiful photographic book of her doll art collection, Scenery of Time.

DEBTOR NATION

National Debt 1960-2011

MY NEW BOOK....

How I lost my moorings in Tokyo. Read Chapters 1 & 2.

@Ronnie_Baker: Genuinely funny, entertaining & well written. Highly recommended.

@lothisoft: Great read, got very sad towards the end but what a fantastic finish. Are you writing a sequel?

Buy it at Amazon.com

 

 

Chapter 1 ♦ AIRMAIL FROM AFTERLIFE

1976

One rainy summer day, I packed my backpack and went to America. I was seventeen. I knew what I was doing: I was escaping from the debacle at home. And I was looking for something. For what exactly, I didn’t know, but I’d go look for it in America. There, the heat burned in my nostrils. Lawns were brown. Cars were big and air-conditioned. Girls went gaga over my accent. Guys thought I was cool. And I fell in love with it all.
          Three years later, I was paying my way through college in Texas when the notion of home, distant and convoluted as it had become, blew up with gratuitous violence. A Boeing had crashed into a mountain in Turkey, killing all 155 people aboard. I heard about it on the radio. But I didn’t connect the dots.
          A few days later, I found a message from the operator in my campus PO Box. Telegram, call Western Union, it said. I called from one of the pay phones. My heart was pounding in my temples, and I had trouble hearing the lady on the other end.
          “I’d read it to you,” she said. “But it’s in German. I think you better come by and get it.”
          “I’m fixing to go to work. Can’t you try to read it to me?”
          “Oh dear.”
          “Is it long?”
          “Two lines.”
          “Can you spell it?”
          “Well, I guess I could. Are you ready?”
          I pulled out a notepad and pen. “Ready,” I said, though I knew that I wasn’t ready, that I’d never be ready for whatever she was about to spell.
          “E-L-T-E-R-N new word,” she said, “A-M new word M-O-N-T-A-G new word M-I-T new word F-L-U-G-Z-E-U-G new word I-N new word D-E-R new word T-U-R-K-E-I—”
          “Stop! Please.” I couldn’t write anymore. Parents on Monday with plane in Turkey.... German sentences, even in abbreviated telegram style, had the main verb at the end, but I didn’t want to hear the main verb, didn’t want to hear it spelled out letter by torturous letter. “Thank you. That’s enough.”
          I’d escaped the debacle at home and had gone as far away as possible. But this wasn’t what I’d had in mind. I stood there in a daze, brain deadlocked, numb, clutching the receiver, drowning in abysmal emotions.
          Then I went to work. It was just a part-time job, but now I needed the money more than ever. Afterward, I drove to the Western Union office and picked up the yellow slip of paper with twelve lines of all-caps alphanumeric gibberish and two lines of readable text. It was from my sister, sent from the town where she was staying with friends. But it didn’t include their phone number. And my brother was on vacation somewhere. So there was no way to reach him either.

Next....

TESTOSTERONE PIT, the novel

Wolf Richter

Chapter 1    Circle Jerk

It was Saturday, the biggest day of the week, and everyone was working bell to bell, over forty salesmen, though Ferronickel didn’t know exactly how many he had because some hadn’t shown up and might have started selling cars some other place, and because he’d hired a bunch of new guys an hour ago.

“It’s a beautiful day,” he sang in a basso profundo voice as he marched across the showroom in his asymmetric gait. He was the general sales manager at the Ford Superstore. His Tabasco Sauce tie was loosened, his collar unbuttoned. His gut that hung over his belt strained his shirt. He had puffy eyes and was full of mean energy, ready to explode, ready to force things to happen. He blew out the door, came to a halt on the porch that surrounded the showroom on three sides, and lit a cigarette.

Al Millikin, one of his four sales managers and perhaps the best closer in town, was watching Mad Boxer work a customer on the truck lot. Potential deal.

“Why can’t he bring that guy inside and write him up?” Ferronickel said.

“He ought to tell him we got free pussy on the showroom,” Millikin said.

“Don’t give me any ideas for our next live remote.”

“Come to think of it, that would be a hell of a lot more effective than the classical rock-and-roll shit we’ve been doing.”

“For our male customers.”

“We could alternate. Free pussy one day, free Godiva chocolates the next. We’d have both ends of the spectrum covered.”

“You’re a fucking Einstein, Millikin.”

Reginald Pierce, another sales manager, a big guy with a shortish Afro, was jumpy and his eyes darted about. He fretted about Whacker Packer, Hackman Jones, JoAnn Delouche, and several other salesmen who’d formed a dope ring by the plate-glass window. If left alone, they’d make up rumors, complain about dealership coffee, and infect each other with morale problems. He singled out a young guy.

“Freddie T, are you going to participate in a circle jerk?” he growled. They called him Freddie T because of his unpronounceable Greek last name. “Or are you going to sell something?”

It startled them; they’d forgotten all about selling. And they drifted apart.

Lou Massago gesticulated on the phone in one of the closing booths. He wore a white button-down shirt, a red and blue tie, slacks, and ostrich-skin boots. A scar curved upward from the right corner of his mouth, giving him a lopsided grin even when he was serious. His eyes were set close together and peered out from under his bushy eyebrows with ferocious intensity. But he had a soft voice when he wanted to, and now he wanted to because he was talking to a customer about a 15-passenger van that had come out of the rental fleet. There were ten of them. They were scratched and dented and had too many miles on them, and they were overpriced, and no one could sell them, but he was king of sales, and if he could sell them, it would prove he could sell anything.

He hated working the phone. He needed his customers in front of him, needed to stare into the whites of their eyes. But no one had sold any of those vans yet, and to prove he was king of sales and could sell anything, he’d decided to sell them all. Besides, the Saturday rush hadn’t begun yet, and calling old customers was more productive than standing around waiting for something to happen.

Next....

Friday
May252012

Germany Walks Away From Greece

Greece’s exit from the Eurozone has reached critical mass and is now a routine topic at all levels of government. While heads of state still hue to the line that Greece should stay, out of the other side of the mouth comes but—now that the focus is on Spain, the one problem the Eurozone can’t digest. And after Spain is Italy, which is beyond bailout. And now word is out in Germany that Greece is a “failed state.”

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Thursday
May242012

Currency Wars – The Making of the next Global Crisis

Contributed by Casey Research. The US is devaluing the dollar to boost exports and improve the economy, says investment manager and author of Currency Wars, James Rickards. But the devaluation comes at the expense of other countries. And they fight back by devaluing their own currencies. Hence the currency war. But devaluation makes imports more expensive and thus is a hidden tax on the people.

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Wednesday
May232012

The Natural Gas Massacre Gets Bloodier

The plight of natural gas driller Chesapeake Energy could almost make you feel sorry for CEO McClendon. He lost his chairmanship after his conflicted entanglements and an in-house hedge fund had seeped out. The company announced it may run out of cash next year. Fitch, in downgrading Chesapeake, estimated that the shortfall this year would reach $10 billion.... All due to the low price of natural gas and the ugly economics of fracking.

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Wednesday
May232012

Death Of Globalization Will Shatter China

Contributed by Chriss Street. Populist movements sweeping the world are a threat to China, globalization’s biggest winner. The rebellious tone of the Arab Spring, Socialist victories in France and Greece, Argentina's nationalizing oil assets, Indonesia's 50% tax on mineral exports, and the Occupy movement here in the US  represent a new rise of nationalism and an enormous rejection of China as the world’s biggest exporter.

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Tuesday
May222012

“Nuclear-free Japan:” Figment of the Imagination

Nuclear power is galvanizing Japan, stirring up public discussions and outright dissent with demonstrations and all, a rare occurrence in Japan. It has divided the country in two: those who want nuclear power generation to resume so that a stranglehold can be lifted from the economy, and those who want a “nuclear-free” Japan. But there is no quick way out, even if everyone wanted it.

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Monday
May212012

The Confiscation Conundrum in Europe

No one likes paying taxes. You’d think. And it’s not just income taxes but a slew of other taxes. In San Francisco, we already have an 8.5% sales tax—but propositions to increase the state portion are worming their way onto the November ballot. And if it passes, it’s our own @#%& fault. In Japan, efforts to raise the national consumption tax have led to a groundswell of opposition and a nasty political fight. But what the heck happened in Europe?

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Monday
May212012

“This Is the Bottom for Gold”- John Hathaway

Contributed by Casey Research. In an interview with Louis James, John Hathaway, one of the more successful fund investors in the precious metals field, discusses the US's economic outlook and why he's delighted by the current bearish sentiment toward gold. And he isn’t afraid of going against mainstream investment trends.

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Sunday
May202012

Ganging Up On Germany at the G-8

They’d wanted to “blockupy” Frankfurt, Germany’s money capital, for four days with concerts, marches, and speeches to protest against the power of banks and austerity policies. But the city issued a blanket prohibition—highly controversial in a democratic nation. And on Saturday, when demonstrations were allowed, they became the background to the G-8 meeting at Camp David: a three-pronged attack on reason—with President’s Obama's reelection at stake.

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Sunday
May202012

Horrific Moments of Greece’s Year 2011, in Video

Greece suffered in 2011. The economy tanked. Unemployment jumped. The government, up to the gills in debt and cut off from the capital markets, went begging, and in return had to implement painful economic reforms. With their livelihood threatened, people demonstrated, and strikes paralyzed Athens, and street battles were fought with batons, teargas, and Molotov cocktails—horrific absurdities captured in an awesome and shocking video.

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Saturday
May192012

Precious Metals Market Manipulation?

Contributed by Doug Casey. For many years, a meme has floated around that the prices of gold and silver are manipulated, which is to say suppressed, by various powers of darkness. Not an unreasonable assertion. The last thing the monetary powers-that-be want to see is gold skyrocketing. That would serve as an alarm bell, possibly panicking people all over the world, telling them to get out of the dollar.

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Friday
May182012

Rumors, Denials, and Visions of Chaos in the Eurozone

While the G-8 leaders are schmoozing with President Obama during their slumber party at Camp David, and while the NATO summit, protests, and rallies are wreaking havoc on the streets in Chicago, Europe is re-descending into rumor hell—where good rumors, as we found out last summer and fall, are head fakes that cause huge rallies in the markets, and where bad rumors, though passionately denied by all sides, turn out to be true.

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Friday
May182012

FHA Sub-Prime Defaults At 9% In California

Contributed by Chriss Street. The American taxpayer is about to be saddled with another multi-billion bail-out of sub-prime mortgage loan losses  from the stealth Federal Housing Authority (FHA) lending program that has been offering ultra-low 3.5% down payments since 2009. Delinquency rates are already at 9% in California and expanding rapidly across the United States.

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Thursday
May172012

Prudent Fiscal Policy and Political Suicide

Newly appointed French Minister of Economy, Finance, and Trade, Pierre Moscovici surprised the world: “A country that indebts itself is a country that impoverishes itself,” he said and proclaimed that the government would cut the deficit because “public debt is an enemy for the country.” Powerful words, reasonable and refreshing. What a difference from what we’re getting dished up in the America.

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Wednesday
May162012

The Greek Extortion Racket In Its Final Spasm

A sad incident got picked up by the German national media, made even sadder by the very fact that it got picked up: in the tourist town Monemvasia in Greece, some local guys accosted a 78-year old Dutchman who has lived there since the 1990s. They thought he was German. So he corrected them. “German or Dutch, it’s the same thing,” they told him and broke his jaw and nose. While the financial noose around Greece tightened.

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Tuesday
May152012

“Confiscate, Secretly and Unobserved”

When inflation isn’t particularly hot, it’s praised as something desirable.... Alas: “Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily.” John Maynard Keynes.

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Tuesday
May152012

JP Morgan Fiasco Means Higher Interest Rates Ahead

Contributed by Chriss Street.  If there were an Academy Award for best acting performance by a CEO, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan would surely win the Oscar for his dismissal of a $2 billion derivative loss as “a complete tempest in a teapot.”  The Fed's policy of loaning money to banks at zero interest encourages derivative trading, but not lending to American businesses. Now, fallout from the fiasco exposes the bloated derivative activities of major banks and may force the Fed’s hand.

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Monday
May142012

Beloved Banana Republic of California

The horse-trading sessions in Greece will most likely lead to new elections, and the inevitable: Greece’s exit from the Eurozone. The uncertain consequences for Greece and the rest of Europe will confound jittery financial markets. And while all eyes are fixed on Greece, a tiny economy on the worldwide scale, a much larger economy is heading deeper into fiscal disaster: California.

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Sunday
May132012

Sunday Photographer

Tokyo, June 1996. Satoru-san is already at the izakaya near Mita Station when I get there, and I’m early. Despite the swelter, he’s unflinchingly dapper in his charcoal blazer, gray shirt, and silver tie. “I’m sorry I’m early,” he says, perhaps his standard greeting when he isn’t late, which he probably never is. “I benefit from my freedom. My wife doesn’t allow me to drink. Like many Japanese, I lack the enzyme that breaks down alcohol.”

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Saturday
May122012

Drilling Down into Oil & Gas Prices

Contributed by Karen Roche and JT Long of The Energy Report. Since November, oil went from $90 to 110 per barrel. Has it established a floor that will stick? Or, as Porter Stansberry predicted, is it getting ready to crash? He said that using the same sorts of technologies that brought on the glut of natural gas will lead to finding too much oil and driving its price down.

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Friday
May112012

The Endgame: “Greeks feel hopeless”

On Thursday, rumors that Greece would have a government goosed the stock markets in Europe. While everybody was out to lunch in Frankfurt, the DAX ran up 110 points. In Athens, the ATHEX, which appears to be on a multi-year trajectory toward zero, jumped 4.2%. But on Friday, when it became clear that the rumor was just a rumor, the index resumed its downward trajectory. And Greeks went to bed without a new government.

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