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Japan's WTF Chart

Tyler Durden's picture




 

By now everyone has seen some iteration the following chart of relative sovereign debt/GDP values, in which Japan is an outlier:

As well as this chart of sovereign interest to revenue, in which Japan is also an outlier:

And certainly this chart showing Japan's straight diagonal line of debt/GDP:

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But how many have seen this chart showing global sovereign debt as a percentage of total government revenues? 

Is there now any doubt after seeing this why the proverbial four horseman are really just one giant black swan, only not one of failed bond auctions or something quite as dramatic, but something as simple and mundane as the smallest uptick higher in rates which would blow up the entire global financial farce, starting with the most imbalanced domino of all - the land of the rising sun?... And that at least Greece is not Japan?

Source: Harvard Business School, 9-212-091, Hayman Capital Management,

 

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Tue, 05/15/2012 - 23:49 | 2430307 i_call_you_my_base
i_call_you_my_base's picture

"Its like a reality show but really stupid."

 

?

Tue, 05/15/2012 - 23:48 | 2430304 Seasmoke
Seasmoke's picture

these charts are sizzling

Tue, 05/15/2012 - 23:48 | 2430309 Tom Green Swedish
Tom Green Swedish's picture

We need more Harvard Calculations.

Tue, 05/15/2012 - 23:50 | 2430310 devo
devo's picture

Does that chart count taxes (i.e. capital gains) on bonds as government revenue? Because I am sure any actual investors buying them aren't holding to maturity. If it doesn't, then the situation is even worse.

Tue, 05/15/2012 - 23:54 | 2430323 punxsutawney phil
punxsutawney phil's picture

ever heard of Kamikaze

 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 00:26 | 2430348 billsykes
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Ok so japan has hit the big one since the 90's but why isn't their country gone to shit?

American cities like detroit, and lots of parts of all the major cities look pretty rough, 3rd world rough, and have for a long time. But anything I see of japan looks super clean and modern and pretty cool. Less the nuclear thing why do they look in better shape than the usa? Infrastructure, manufacturing, and employment wise.

This is just my impression and some google earthing but if america could look like this by getting into more debt- let er rip. (never been to japan, but all over usa)

Even the manufacturing seems more robust and cutting edge even with being so close to china and korea.

What am I missing, where am I wrong zh'ers or am I?

 

 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 00:35 | 2430389 earleflorida
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*USSA debt/ratio is ~ 60% [sheeple public] / 40% [foreign sovereign's] Note: Our Debt could be well over the 125% mark [well over?] that has been told the public,... just get the figures from the BLS? 

** Japan's debt/ ratio is ~ 100% internal [Japanese own most or all the debt]

jmo

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 00:53 | 2430412 Vlad Tepid
Vlad Tepid's picture

I have plenty of anecdotal ideas but the bottom line is that their country hasn't gone to shit because they don't have cities like Detroit.  Take that anyway you want...there are lots of ways to take it.

Osaka, the statistical shame of Japan, has 3.4 crimes (pickpocketing tops the list) per 10,000 people annually.  NYC has north of 300 and they don't approach places like Detroit and East St Louis.

Japan is a country that is not based on entitlement detached from achievement, so when no one can achieve (low employment, electricity shortage, no export orders) the society doesn't cannibalize itself trying to gain a phantom thing they are "entitled" to.  The US...well I wouldn't even call it a society anymore - more like a collection of competing ethnic, political and socioeconomic tribes.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 01:32 | 2430414 guinea
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I've lived in Japan for awhile.  Japan has a homogenous population, low crime rate, healthy people.  So you're not going to see anything like Detroit.  Japanese people don't shit in their own beds like some of us do.  But Japan doesn't feel like a wealthy country when you visit, nothing like the super modern portrayal from our media or Japanese anime.  It's orderly but seems stuck in the 1980s.  The country is covered with concrete apartment buildings with no insulation or central air.  You'd swear you were in China or Eastern Europe, but more orderly.   Believe me when I say I prefer winter in South Dakota or New England over winter in Tokyo; it's like the walls aren't there.  The 9pm subways are packed like sardines with people (90% men) coming back from work or dinner with coworkers.  People work a lot but aren't really productive at work, they're just at the office because Toshiro in the next cubicle is also in the office.  Shinkansen is pretty awesome but then you go buy the ticket at the ticket counter and it's like the 1980s with five different people stamping your one ticket. Surplus employment is rampant in Japan.  Again, feels like 1980s.  Everything is expensive considering disposable income, and the only restaurants with a decent line is McD and Chinese food.  All the other restaurants taste the same: rice, noodles.

Everything in Japan seems built with the original intention of tearing them down in 20 years with something better and more expensive/tasteful later as the country continued to grow richer (kind of like China today), except there was no more money to tear them down and rebuild again.  And that pretty much summarizes Japan.  Beautiful temples are surrounded by Soviet style housing.  Japanese travel brochures do a good job in cropping.  In many ways China today is a clone of Japan in the 70-80s.

As an American in the middle to upper middle class, I don't envy the Japanese much. But Japan does provide a role model for our poor: "just because you're poor doesn't mean you have to be a fuckface either and tear a neighborhood to utter shit."  It's not government policies that makes Japan not Detroit, it's culture.  Thus if America were to follow what Japan did to a tee in policy (go full retard on debt), we would be a Third World country.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 01:41 | 2430472 Vlad Tepid
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Very well put.  I especially like that analogy about being stuck in the 80s.  People that I (also as a middle class American) would call First World Poor consider themselves middle class.  Everyone does, except the homeless and a group called Burakumin, who have made a cottage industry out of being the urban poor.  But being "buraku" is almost hereditary and no one would enter there world just as few leave it.  And they only number in the tens of thousands.  By envisioning one's self as middle class and identifying others as the same, you will not covet (old word, I know) their stuff and feel entitled.

There is a great story about a West German diplomat (yes it's and older story but that's all the more important given the revelations above) who was traveling through Nagoya being guided by some middle-level foreign ministry and city industry types.  Whe their train passed a block of cement apartments like Guinea described above the ever-curious German asked his hosts, "Is that where the poor people live?" thinking it was a low-income project.  The guides immediately averted their eyes and several others redirected the conversation.  It turns out three of the men live in that same complex.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 01:03 | 2430426 CCanuck
CCanuck's picture

Been ask'n the same question. +1

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 01:17 | 2430449 walküre
walküre's picture

Fukushima vs. Katrina .. 'nuff said.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:50 | 2430556 Dasa Slooofoot
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American cities like detroit, and lots of parts of all the major cities look pretty rough, 3rd world rough, and have for a long time. But anything I see of japan looks super clean and modern and pretty cool.

Japan doesn't have the gift that keeps on giving--diversity.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 06:56 | 2430738 Ace Ventura
Ace Ventura's picture

Ding! Ding! Ding!  We have a winner.  +1

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 00:18 | 2430355 vegas
vegas's picture

What's a few thousand percent give or take? And 5 years from now what is next after quadrillion - pentillion yen? WTF indeed.

 

http://vegasxau.blogspot.com

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 00:34 | 2430386 Sizzurp
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Governments that borrow like Japan are a bankers best friend.  I mean what could be better, you loan the government money you create out of thin air through fractional reserve banking, then they pay you interest.  As long as you are the first to get the freshly created loot, the inflation doesn't bother you that much.  It's a game that goes on and on.  Meanwhile, the taxpayers, the little people, get the shaft as their cost of living goes up, along with their taxes to pay the banksters. What a system.  Banksters and politicians party on with free money and rule the world in an evil symbiosis. No wonder they don't want it to end, and they will do whatever it takes to keep it going.  It works until the burden becomes so onerous that the little people, the debt slaves, have no reason to continue to be productive. Then they revolt and quit paying.  As you can see from the charts, some serfs tolerate slavery better than others, and some government overseers are better at cracking the whip to keep the little worker bees in line.  Already you can see governments transform themselves from helpful public servants, to imperial masters ready to enforce their will upon you with whatever means necessary.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 01:36 | 2430425 CitizenPete
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Klye Bass warned of ignoring Japan for years.

 

Perhaps all the Real Estate fortune tellers predicting an up swing in sales just down the road, or even those Austrians still believing a mark-to-market Real Estate crash adjustment will reset the market, might take a hard look at the demographics in the US.   How many 70yo couples do you think want to pay to mend a roof of a McMansion, or pay to cut the lawn, etc. They want to live in a condo next to the lake, or shore, or golf course.  Real Estate was one of the biggest economic drivers in the US and "investors" still cling to it as the place to be "when gold sells off".  Bullshit.  Residential Real Estate is basically done for the next decade plus some.  Millions more homes are heading to default. Even BAC has announced their program for pinciple reduction because some genius finally did the math and figure out that a 24 month average forclosure to settlement and a 45% recovery rate was not as good as marking down the balance sheet 10%, having someone continue interest payments, and continue to work the faucets on and off. 

Wallstreet needs a new fix.  Look for a WAR coming after a fixed election near you.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 01:14 | 2430441 q99x2
q99x2's picture

At least in the US, when food gets scarce, we can become cannibals without the fear of radiation poisening.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 01:16 | 2430443 CustomersMan
CustomersMan's picture

 

WAKE THE FUCK-UP !

Japan is NOT to blame for the terrible charts. They are hard working and honest in their dealings. A Unique Tragedy has befallen them. If you want to just talk about charts and ignore the millions of Japanese that will likely die as a result of the Fukushima/ And Now Diachi  catastrophe, DO SO AT YOUR Own RISK.

 

There is proof for those open to reason, that Japan DID NOT SUFFER anything like a 9.0 EARTHQUAKE , no big buildings destroyed like they were after a 6.5 earthquake,.. a huge difference that cannot be explained away, and the tsunami was caused by other factors, along with the shutdown of the Siemens Software that controlled critical systems, by STUXNET.

 

Look to where STUXNET originated.

 

 

In other words , their DESTRUCTION was planned, the #3 Economy in the world destroyed. Look elsewhere, and elsewhere is the company and country that held the security contracts for the power plants in the months leading up to the DESTRUCTION, a new outside company,  from of all places, Israel. What wonderful business partners and friends.

 

Do a little looking at the facts. Japan could be the U.S.A. ,.....the enemies are the same and our destruction is only a short time off, as I believe we are also on the list. The people and State invloved in Japan's destruction has dreams of ruling the world.

 

While your busy trying to make a buck off whatever you trade, they control the financial pipeline, and your going to take it in the backside, while they laugh at you some short time down the road.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 01:51 | 2430483 Vlad Tepid
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What can I say that hasn't been said before?

STUXNET was a system specific virus.  The region hit by the earthquake was rural and didn't HAVE skyscrapers to knock down.  There is plenty of video footage of people falling over, cars bouncing on their wheels and toppled buildings.  Recent Japanese buildings have been engineered to withstand very powerful earthquakes.  There economy was in touble long before these woes and they are far from being destroyed.  Millions of Japanese will die, but from OLD AGE, not as a result of the Fukushima radiation - unless they cease maintaining the disaster zone.  Grow up dude.  By all means, mourn the dead.  Don't mock their plight with incoherent ramblings.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 06:40 | 2430719 Money 4 Nothing
Money 4 Nothing's picture

Didn't we bomb them once before? Seemed to bounce back from that one. Have hope.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 01:18 | 2430448 tongue.stan
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Japanese people as a race are soon to be pretty much extinct, I think, because they are presently being irradiated to death. Tokyo should probably have been evacuated, they dump nuke "debris" into tokyo bay, they've been burning debris and therefore releasing radiation back into the air for about a year, they basically have 3 china syndromes still going, they put millions of tons of radiated seawater into the pacific, and spent fuel is ready to kick it up a notch. Godzilla Fukushima wins. So sad. How long till they all die?

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 01:52 | 2430491 Vlad Tepid
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I guess just like how the Ukrainian people are extinct from Chernobyl?

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:14 | 2430521 tongue.stan
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fuku is 85 chernobls of cesium. and the death  from it are not done yet. and it was sarcophagussed within months. and they evacuated around it. and fuku blah blah.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:36 | 2430539 Zgangsta
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Yes, they are doomed.  Pretty much all of the people in Japan now will be dead within a 100 years.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 03:04 | 2430574 tongue.stan
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"Yes, they are doomed.  Pretty much all of the people in Japan now will be dead within 10 years."

 

There, fixed it for ya. Normalcy bias is a very powerful survival adaptation.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 03:05 | 2430580 Zgangsta
Zgangsta's picture

"Yes, they are doomed.  Pretty much all of the people in Japan now will be dead within 100 years."

Fixed your fix for you.  Okinawa is over 1,000 miles away from Fukushima.  You might as well be saying all Koreans will die as well.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 03:48 | 2430609 tongue.stan
tongue.stan's picture

might as well. if the spent fuel pool 4 tips over or goes dry might as well include the west coast of the us. wtf, lets just call it the northern hemisphere. 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 04:53 | 2430659 writingsonthewall
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Don't worry - I hear the best way to protect yourself from radiation is to bury your head deep in the sand!!

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 06:38 | 2430714 Money 4 Nothing
Money 4 Nothing's picture

"Don't worry - I hear the best way to protect yourself from radiation is to bury your head deep in the sand!!"

According to TEPCO, burying spent nuclear fuel rods in the sand where they landed will protect everyone from radiation.

Fixed.

 

 

 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:03 | 2430505 Zgangsta
Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:07 | 2430512 Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath's picture

...and people buy the Yen as a safe haven! haha... Sometimes it does boggle the mind!

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:06 | 2430513 tahoebumsmith
tahoebumsmith's picture

At this point, I don't think they really care how much debt they rack up. It would be like spending $50,000 on credit cards in Vegas knowing you you are going to die from cancer in the next year. 6 out of 6 samples taken in Toyko showed 40+ times the pre-fukishima acceptable radiation levels and considered the samples as nuclear waste.Thanks GW BLOG and others like Fairewinds for keeping these events in the spotlight. We are talking about 50+ million people. Japan is a bigger problem then Europe, you haven't even bought the popcorn yet...

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:35 | 2430536 Bunga Bunga
Bunga Bunga's picture

Don't worry, Japan has a built in self destruction mechanism.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:38 | 2430542 Convolved Man
Convolved Man's picture

So what's the big deal?

 

That debt/gdp ratio is just the result of dividing a large number by a very small number, or a really large number by a much smaller number.

They've got bullet trains and we don't. 

That's absolutely shocking.

Obama says so.

 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:41 | 2430546 dolly madison
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How come the Nordic socialist countries have a lower debt/GDP ratio than more free market countries? 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:45 | 2430550 Bunga Bunga
Bunga Bunga's picture

Because they tax the rich their fair share.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 03:09 | 2430583 guinea
guinea's picture

Oil money.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 04:48 | 2430598 The Swedish Chef
The Swedish Chef's picture

I can answer that, at least in the case of Sweden. As for Denmark and Norway, yeah it´s prolly oil money...

 

In the late eighties, three bright socialdemocrats, Erik Åsbrink, Bengt Dennis and Kjell-Olof Feldt, decided it was a good idea to deregulate banking, which previously had been thightly controlled. Keep in mind that "deregulate banking" is New Speak for letting banks create billions of currency units out thin air. It has nothing to do with free markets.

 

The result was that Sweden was overwhelmed by easy and cheap credit, a completely new phenomenon in the Swedish society. It doesn´t take a genius to understand where this ended. In five years time Sweden experienced a phenomenal commercial real estate boom and of course a bust. It was of epic proportions and led to recession that lasted for years. So while Cool Britannia and Clintonomics made the nineties a party in the anglophone world, Sweden suffered great hardship.

 

So our political leadership made a pact, not unlike those we see the EU aristocracy desperately trying to peice together: official expenses could not exceed the tax revenue. Pretty simple, huh? It cost Swedes some social benefits, mostly through smaller adjustments, like that you don´t get paid for your first two days of sick leave or the freezing of certain benefits at certain levels( who can keep up with inflation any way?). 

 

You could call it "austerity" or just simply good book keeping. But today we see the results. Gov´t debt isn´t overwhelming, the gov´t system has no problems financing itself and we don´t need to take any rash decisions. Unfourtunately my fellow countrymen have used the tax cuts of the last six years of right wing government to increase the personal debt load and there has been an epic real estate bubble but waddaya gonna do? People are just plain stupid.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 07:26 | 2430791 riphowardkatz
riphowardkatz's picture

Which free market countries? Quit making stuff up there isn't a free market country in the world. Free market doesn't mean too big to fail, it doesn't mean a central bank that controls interest rates, it doesn't mean a government that buys bad assets, it doesnt mean subsidized housing loans, it doesnt mean forcing banks to lend more to homeowners, it doesn't mean government artificially destroying the return on savings by issuing a gazillion in treasuries.

 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 02:52 | 2430559 giovanni_f
giovanni_f's picture

Firstly, Japan has an industry catering to its asian neighbours. Most of the debt is intra-japan. It will be cut some day, believe the unbelievable or not, when a new yen will be introduced. Government debt  is nasty in every respect but it will simply be cut, problem solved. The <insert your trillions here>-pound gorilla is the banking sector debt which will materialize out of nowhere for most, in particular for those who constantly ingore the derivatives issue. And it is here where you would see the U(K+S) rank first on any bar chart by a long shot. If one were to just count in the quadrillion++ of derivatives. The bars representing the U(S+K) would be reaching so sky-high there would be hardly a pixel left for the rest of the world's portion (combined). And no, Greek debt is not a poblem for the Euro. It is a problem for CDS underwriters. National debt can and will be restructured. But what will be left from a rotten to the core UK with the remains of its finance "industry" laid out in the morgue?

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 05:20 | 2430677 blueridgeviews
blueridgeviews's picture

Looking at those charts gives one the impression that the rest of the world has a lot more time to print money.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 06:16 | 2430693 zerohedgeJUNKIE
zerohedgeJUNKIE's picture

Don't emulate JAPAN. Just REBOOT.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 08:26 | 2430937 giovanni_f
giovanni_f's picture

Americans are too obese to emulate Asians

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 06:26 | 2430701 VyseLegendaire
VyseLegendaire's picture

I thought that last chart was the national denial/cataclysmic danger quotient.  Guess I was wrong. 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 06:28 | 2430704 The Reich
The Reich's picture

Based on statistics? Well,...

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 06:47 | 2430722 Jacks Cold Sweat
Jacks Cold Sweat's picture

KICK JAPAN OUT OF THE EUROZONE         N O W !!!!!

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 08:20 | 2430917 Bogdog
Bogdog's picture

I don't get it. Why have the Japanese not been reduced to a bedraggled rabble of street urchins, begging for scraps from their fuedal lords? What sustains the facade of normal? Why has their society not imploded into utter destitution yet? We buy their debt? China? They buy their own? W T F ???? Someone please 'assplane this to me.

Certainly, due to demographics (no new kiddies being produced) the situation can only get worse from here.

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