Education!? Ha. Couldn't even spell Shepherd.
Media==Churnalism eh? Agreed.
I don't ignore the .com, but I try to balance them out, sort of like reading Pravda as well as Time Magazine. Not sure my approach is any better, I can definitely see the logic and benefits of your way of doing it.
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You raise a lot of issues in your post that I'd love to talk about (not argue, just really interesting topics to think and talk about).
Yes, that para was so bad it's nearly funny.
Remember the old bong smokers joke? Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you! Yes, the article was a partial beatup, but that doesn't mean it is without meaning, While the US market indexes, along with the published rhetoric that the economy is improving, it's good to be reminded of the debt that's accruing, deflation etc.
Saying that the debt is being "exported" is ... and interesting conceit, I'm not really taking it literally, but as a quick alternate description of the beggar they neighber tactics mentioned lower down. China's financial rise has been predicated, to date, from wage arbitrage. There hasn't been new territories discovered, new technolgies discovered. Just commoditised humanity. And now some of Chinas neighbors are getting cheaper, some of the work is getting outsourced to Vietnam etc. Given the population differentials, this won't decimate Chinas production capaciity, but it will undermine it. If your primary edges is labour cost, what do you do?
Similarly, Europe has used up it's cheap labour capacity too. Wages have been "artificially" low because of the cheap labour from Turkey and the CE/E states. Don't forget the ECB deposit rates are negative and getting negativer. (Gwaarn, shoot me down for that word).
I've been to Japan twice, and I loved the people. As a nation, they are probably one of the best "soveriegn citizens" there are (ignore whales and blue fin tuna). But they are slowly starting to militarize again. ( I'll let you do the searches. Use Duck Duck Go, if you use google, they'll follow you!! haha Should have saved that for nasabear).
I've read a few books by Yukio Mishama - Nobel Laureate author, possible closet gay, and he had is own private army. The only reason that the Japanese authorities allowed him to have his own army is that it was a reminder to the japanese traditions, ie martial ones.
Hey on that map, should the US be bright read? What war haven't they been in?
As regarding warships and inflation. Historically, the biggest econimies have always had the biggest armies. As a quant ( actually, a statistical arbitrager), I'd bet on the Chinese and Japanese armies getting bigger from this point on. As for deflation and armies, you win the argument on this point.
As one of those asides I mentioned earlier, the article referred to the 1930s. No subtle. But from this little black ducks viewpoitn the reference was appropos to many trends occurring around the world. The tendency for world leaders to display "strength", the increasing compliance of media to kowtow to governments, and the willingness of corporations to collaborate with the government. Most obvious example is the Paypa/MC/Visa refusal to send money to Wikileaks.
All interesting, take care
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