So here we are in Japan. A relatively few miles across the ocean we have Mad Uncle Ernie (aka Kim Jong-Il) who sits out on the porch with a half-empty whiskey bottle beside him and his loaded shotgun across his knees. Occasionally he swigs from the bottle and raises the shotgun to his shoulder, pointing it meaningfully at anyone whom he thinks might refill the bottle. The other day he fired it in a pretty random direction.

Fight night at the Budokan, industry regulated ring size, judges take their seats, ring ladies and coaches ringside, announcer grabs the microphone to announce the fighters...

I am a survivor of the Japanese bear market. Twelve (or twenty - depending on your school of thought) long years of it. Call it "Financial Gitmo". The lessons of this incarceration were varied, and the experience invaluable - indelibly etched upon my brain for ease of retrieval when required in the future...

While the White House has not made the announcement official, the Nelson Report said that the Obama administration will be sending John Roos, Silicon Valley lawyer and major Obama fundraiser, to Tokyo as U.S. ambassador...

This article is the first in a series of proposals detailing how the Japanese government could launch projects that would result in massive fiscal stimulus as well as boosted corporate and consumer spending. It is important to keep in mind that the proposals put forth in this series are essentially insane, but would lead to government, corporate and personal spending on a massive scale.

Last week, I dropped in on the rock festival of investment conferences, the Las Vegas Money Show, at the posh and cavernous Mandalay Bay Hotel. A mild 95 degrees outside, I mingled with the Hawaiian shirt and cargo short wearing masses, with a sharp eye out for the next big investment themes...

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?

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).

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...