dagon comments

"We will likely see the effect of wage increases by companies gradually," a labor ministry official said.

MMT could be used to subsidize wages and create broad based prosperity.

Instead QE is a basic income for the Japan Inc. investor class.

https://www.cnbc.com/2013/12/18/qe-the-greatest-subsidy-to-the-rich-ever.html

By LDP design.

A full frontal display of a lack of any formal training in economics. What you see is a symptom of a lack of competition, oligopoly and sometimes monopoly.

I would not be bragging about your "formal training" in the dismal so-called science of economics that gave us the Chicago school, Hayek, Freidman, and David Stockman who has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy, which much of modern neo-liberal economics actually is.

The extractive neo-liberalism, where these workers will still suffer, abides in the defenders of the economic plans of Biden and also in his rightist opponents.

The alternative is provided by a different economic paradigm.

"Taro Aso's exact net worth is unknown it is estimated that his net worth is $5 billion US Dollars."

How does he get away with this, when the inheritance tax on even Y200,000,000 is substantial?

Easily, as do the other oligarchs who don't work for you and keep paying taxes for the little people.

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/10/83b734bcc16e-1000-japan-firms-people-named-in-pandora-papers-on-tax-havens.html

“Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on X,” Musk wrote in a post Sunday on the platform. “All proceeds will go to charity for veterans.”

Musk's professed inspiration, the Scottish Socialist author Iain Banks, would be looking down from an orbiting GSV and say " Musk, you are no Special Circumstances agent. "

He said he would support televising the trial, and dismissed speculation that it could wrap up before the 2024 election

Imagine this happening and with Trump in the Oval Office.

Guaranteed he would just go full dictator, as his conservative corporate backers are looking forward to.

https://prospect.org/politics/2023-07-18-donald-trump-plotting-make-himself-dictator/

And he said that some of the pandemic hiring frenzy has receded. “During COVID, a nurse, an RN, could ask for and get $100 an hour,’’ Lupario said. But hospitals are “not paying $100 an hour anymore. They’re paying pre-COVID rates at $75 to $85 an hour. Those same nurses that were making 100 bucks an hour are sitting on the sidelines maybe waiting for somebody to offer them $100 an hour, not realizing that they’re probably not going to get it.’’

I bet the HMO execs, hospital administrators etc did not suffer a downturn in their income and investments.

That is Late Stage Capitalism and all to evident in this economic news.

A ministry official said the second consecutive year of decline is "unusual" but expressed the view that the trend is unlikely to continue, citing the possibility the figure will start to rise again as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic wanes.

Usual LDP mouthpiece misdirection and it was happening before COVID in the US and UK and is now even catching up with the better BMI and diet Japanese.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/18/austerity-cuts-life-expectancy

Both the US and UK are regressing in life expectancy and have been for a decade.

The culprit is Late Stage Capitalism embraced by the oligarchic leaders of these ostensibly democratic nations and their neo-feudal agenda.

World leaders are working round the clock to feed the hungry, offer shelter to the homeless, education to the kids and grown ups, healthcare facilities for the citizens, and recreation possibilities to the elderly.

What sort of Panglossian alternate reality do you live in good doctor?

And in the personage of Dear Leader Kim you could not have chosen a worse example for such comments.

The Dear Leader undoubtedly received a marksmanship score that had never been recorded before in the history of humanity.

Joe Biden, America's oldest sitting president, needs young voters to win again. Will his age matter?

More than his age or wastrel son, his neo-liberalism should matter.

That’s a departure from 2020, when Biden called himself a “transition candidate” and pledged to be a “bridge” to younger Democrats.

Make way for Bernie and the Squad.

On Friday, 7-Eleven issued a recall of its Pickled Plum Shiso, Sesame rice balls in Saitama Prefecture after two customers found cockroaches inside them.

I would argue that if Japan had a litigious culture like in the US, where this would mean a big payout from the corporation for a lucky consumer, it would be better for the socio-economic culture.

Corporate negligence and criminality is forgotten with a bow, and companies continue with the same practices and executives never receive a comeuppance.

If courts would assign large settlements for such negligence it would also be a type of wealth redistribution.

We sincerely apologize for the extreme trouble and inconvenience caused to our customers. In future, we will strengthen and enforce thorough quality control and strive to prevent a recurrence.”

Yeah right.

His 299 YouTube videos have amassed more than 276 million views among them.

A low-level grifter like this can cause chaos.

Imagine one that has a bigger megaphone and more zealous followers.

Could be a preview of 2024 in many other locations in the good ole US of A.

Late Stage Capitalistic society provides a fertile ground.

The Loch Ness Centre in Scotland is calling for “budding monster hunters” and volunteers to join in what it dubs the largest search for the Loch Ness Monster since the 1970s.

And that same picture is used, since the days of "In Search Of..." narrated by the late great Leonard Nimoy.

Now with everyone having a high spec camera in their pocket at all times they haven't come up with anything better? As with UFO pics it calls into doubt the whole business.

Saudi Arabia was set to host talks on the Ukraine war on Saturday in the latest flexing of its diplomatic muscle, though expectations are mild for what the gathering might achieve.

Maybe they can instruct them about dismembering dissenting journalists with saws can lead to peace.

And it is always a suspicious, and odd fact that support for authoritarians is so broad based.

The supporters of 45 will support Russia and Putin and be silent about other oligarchs East and West.

Although, to be fair, I've seen similar among human coders!

True at this level but the difference is human coders are not exponentially iterating their coding skills like LLM.

https://blog.tryamigo.com/gpt-4-coding/

The old paradigms are gone

Do we want the world to have banned the camera, so painters can keep their jobs?

Prevent the development of the car, so horses can keep their jobs?

Ban the electric lightbulb because it reduced sales of candles?

Outlaw medical research so witchdoctors and scammers can remain employed?

Quite old analogies and a clear and present danger.

AI can tweak code better than most humans so....? Physical capacities and intellectual capabilities is the clear difference.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/01/chatgpt-write-code-computer-programmer-software

Swift's turnaround was the top story in most Canadian media on Thursday.

A busy news day in Canada.

Goldman Sachs analysts see generative AI impacting, if not eliminating, some 300 million jobs, according to a study published in March.

Goldman Sachs and the centraliztion of hyper-financialized capital is at the heart of the problem, not just LLM.

And this is patently different from other waves of automation and comparisons to Luddism, steam engines and factory automation.

When the majority of intellectual, "white collar" work is easily automated, as is happening now and would be happening faster without bureaucratic and capital inertia, there is no other place to go.

Human "labor' and ever decreasing compensation is at a dead end but there may still be creative outlets.

But the obstacle is late stage capitalism.

https://moores.samaltman.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/18/fully-automated-luxury-communism-robots-employment

Soon after, the campaign decided to move forward with the new merchandising plan.

Pence's campaign exposes all the inherent contradictions of the American evangelical-conservative political axis.

The base doesn't really want the too earnest theocratic politics Pence offers.

They want the flashy, hypocritical prosperity gospel theology with porn stars, worship of capital and displays of fake virtue that is personified by Trump.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1/15951874/prosperity-gospel-explained-why-joel-osteen-believes-prayer-can-make-you-rich-trump

This is unbecoming of America.

No that happened with Reagan, neo-liberalism, Iran-Contra and the whole conservative putsch in the 80's in the good ole USA.

Trump is the metastasis of that.

But the Dems defying and trampling over it doesn’t concern you in the least??? Wow! Now that definitely woke me up, and I didn’t even have my Kilimanjaro yet.

It is deifying no defying, and Trump does both.

Constitutional absolutism is a doctrine the Repubs use for the judiciary and legislation and leads to bad results like with the current 2nd Amendment issues and others.

Trump will wrap himself in the flag and Constitution, and also suspend it on a whim.

Under the envisioned system, which will require an amendment to the Road Traffic Act, bicycle riders could be issued so-called blue tickets such as for ignoring traffic lights.

Fining speeding perpendicular or diagonally through crosswalks when masses of people are crossing by bicyclists would bring in huge amounts of yen.

Studios, whose production has been shut down for weeks by the strike, are resisting demands to limit the use of AI in filmmaking and scriptwriting, in a dispute that is costing the entertainment industry million of dollars a day.

The studios are "fighting it because they don't want to pay," said Shatner.

Truth bombs from James Tiberius Kirk.

Pence was one of the few prominent Republicans to criticize Trump on Tuesday, saying that "anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president."

Deifying the Constitution is as bad as deifying a nonexistent spirit, both things Pence and the Republican Party are prone to.

Both are fallible human concepts, and require reflection and revision in light of current evidence.

"I NEED ONE MORE INDICTMENT TO ENSURE MY ELECTION!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform ahead of his Thursday court appearance.*

Unfortunately I believe this is the strategy and he might not be wrong.

Princess Aiko won’t have tiara made for her, in consideration of hard economic times

But, but the LDP, BoJ and Japan Inc are telling us the stock market is at an all time high, wages are rising, unemployment is almost non-existent and anyone can get a good job?

I guess Princess Aiko is smarter than any of them.

"This incident is really, really disappointing," she posted.

This comment shows how limited is the range of political discourse and dissent in Japan.

Disappointment is something you express when your promotional event is cancelled because of rain.

dropping out of a promotional event in Tokyo hyping its opening on Aug. 11.

If she actually does it and stands by her principles good on her.

Warner Bros Japan has been pretty clueless with the timing of the release Japanside and that the Barbie movie would be linked with a movie with a topic like Oppenheimer.

Man arrested for throwing dog at police officer in Kobe

Throw Mr. resident of Kobe to some feral Tosa dogs.

Japan's health ministry approved a coronavirus vaccine produced by Daiichi Sankyo Co., the company said Wednesday, the first time the country has authorized a domestically developed vaccine for COVID-19.

Japan's version of Operation Warp Speed: Operation Slow Motion.

Described as hallucination, confabulation or just plain making things up, it's now a problem for every business, organization and high school student trying to get a generative AI system to compose documents and get work done. Some are using it on tasks with the potential for high-stakes consequences, from psychotherapy to researching and writing legal briefs.

It could be that makes the LLM more human, as confabulation is part of the human psyche; especially now with all the fake news and conspiracy theories.

LLM for images also often display images that skew to the dreamlike.

Workers work near the venue of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting at Gandhinagar in Gujarat, India July 13, 2023. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File photo

These Gujarati workers look very enthusiastic about reaping the abundant benefits that flow from the G20's SDG proposals that have a direct and profound effect on their lives.

As the G20 leaders fly in private aircraft and utilize luxuriously conditioned accommodations, sequester their and their corporate cronies stupendous wealth in tax shelters unavailable to these workers, and lecture them about climate austerity.

All the Trump supporters, who coincidentally are the ones who talk about their wealth and successful investments and trumpet the virtues of capitalism, time to step up.

What is all your wealth worth if you do not use it to defend what you believe in?