The most important piece of the French President’s visit to Japan was to discuss a cooperative agreement with the Japanese Prime Minister on the development of new and improved nuclear powered electricity-generating facilities. The Japan Times and Bloomberg both reported that “Hollande and Abe discussed nuclear energy and agreed to promote joint development of a next-generation nuclear reactor as well as to support private-sector efforts to export nuclear power technologies to emerging countries.” Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and France’s Areva Corp. are two of the main developers of nuclear technology for domestic purposes. As I have written previously, the issue of nuclear energy is a vital link in the ABE economic plan. Prior to the 2011 tsunami and Fukushima disaster, Japan produced most of its electricity through nuclear power generators. The tragic outcome from the tsunami forced Japan to curtail most of the nuclear generators and become more reliant on imported energy, especially liquified natural gas (LNG).
Posts Tagged ‘Abe’
Notes From Underground: Kuroda Sings Karaoke … “We Didn’t Start The Fire”
April 7, 2013Yes, the U.S. and Canadian unemployment data were well below market expectations. Nonfarm payrolls in the U.S. were half of the consensus number and under the 110,000 NFP that we wanted to see so as to test the resolve of the recent equity market rally. Not only were the jobs created numbers weak–manufacturing actually lost jobs–but the important average hourly earnings were flat (0.2% increase expected) so there is no growth in consumer spending potential. As poor as the data release was, by day’s end the SPOO and DOW rallied well off the lows made early in the day. The impact from poor economic fundamentals was not strong enough to overcome the continued release of central bank liquidity into the global economy.
Notes From Underground: The Fed’s Dilemma
January 7, 2013The Fed’s policy has painted itself into a proverbial corner. A ZEROHEDGE piece shows that in the age group of 16-55 there has been a loss of 2.7 million jobs during the previous few years, while in the 55-69 age group there has been a gain of 4 million jobs. This has been a recurrent theme of Notes From Underground during the last two years. The FED‘s policy of financial repression has resulted in an outcome that its beloved models failed to predict. The baby boomers haven’t been able to retire because their saving plans have been undermined by the zero interest rate policy. Zerohedge shows that debt-ladened college graduates are unable to find jobs and thus are struggling to repay education loans. Recent college grads are forced to live at home and are not creating new households.
Notes From Underground: Moody’s Hits France With A Yellow Card
November 19, 2012Well, Moody’s downgraded the France’ sovereign rating from AAA in what was an obvious bow to reality. MOODY’s, WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG? This will really be a bitter pill for President Hollande as it was only last week that the “French cock” was crowing about how well the bond markets were evaluating his performance as the leader of France. I reminded readers that the recent performance of the French debt had more to do with Mr. Draghi’s aggressive actions than any policy put forward by the Hollande government.
