Last week Hiroko Tabuchi's article in the NYT, Rising Debt a Threat to Japanese Economy, painted a pretty grim picture of Japan's significant debt and what that could mean to the future of Japan. What many may not have seen is Paul Krugman's comment on his blog, Is Japan on the fiscal brink?, where he basically says that the market does not see any problem in Japanese bond yields being low- that the market expects this. If you were concerned by Tabuchi's article, which is more speculative, it's important to look at the market itself, as Krugman does, to see that that this issue is not much of an issue at present.
After the GLOCOM event on Oct. 20th, I'm headed to the Good Ideas Salon, Tokyo, where three people I know are speaking. I've known Peter Rojas since the early days of Gizmodo, where I was an early contributor. Danny is also a good friend as is Mark Dytham. Should be an interesting evening.
Just a quick note to mention that I will be attending the GLOCOM Forum 2009 event, as Kevin Werbach (who I know via Jerry Michalski) is speaking.
Japansubculture has an interview with Jake Adelstein, who was previously a police beat reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun (one of the major national daily papers in Japan), which is remarkable because Adelstein is obviously not Japanese.
I'm definitely looking forward to "Tokyo Vice" and may do a review once I've read it.
