As became clear in the days before the DPJ's Diet members met Saturday to elect a party leader to replace Ozawa Ichiro, Hatoyama Yukio, one of the founders of the Democratic Party of Japan, has once again been selected to serve as party president...

How much longer can the US count on Japan to buy Treasuries?

And consumers still don't want to spend...

The Shinsei-Aozora marriage has just been announced. Official announcement to be made some time in May (this month!) and the happy day is some time next summer (holding company structure). One wonders about the shotgun nature of this union (but if it is a shotgun, there's really no doubt who's holding it).

It’s kinda like getting a job as a carpenter and your boss says, “Here’s a brand new shiny hammer, go build me a house.”

Surprisingly, given the howls of protest from within the LDP that greeted Suga Yoshihide's proposal to include a ban on hereditary candidates in the party's election manifesto, the LDP appears ready to include restrictions on political inheritances in the manifesto...

Rumors are flying about a proposed Shinsei-Aozora tie-up (these are nothing new, but recently the background noise on the subject has increased)...

I have to confess that when my alma mater Morgan Stanley announces earnings, it still tugs at the heart strings. We endlessly outperformed expectations, but laughed because we knew there were tons of latent profits sitting on the back books. The stock would rocket to trade at a luxurious five times book. We were the invincible Masters of the Universe.

The yen may well fall back over the next few days…

The great puzzle in Japanese security policy is why despite the consensus within the LDP in favor of a more robust, independent security and persistent worries about North Korea and China among the public at large Japan has failed to spend more — or the same — on defense and made legal and doctrinal changes that would enable Japan to meet threats originating from its neighbors...