Yukio HatoyamaThe New Prime Minister of Japan

We are currently standing at a turning point in global history, and therefore our resolve and vision are being tested, not only in terms of our ability to formulate policies to stimulate the domestic economy, but also in terms of how we try to build a new global political and economic order. I would like to conclude by quoting the words of Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, the father of the EU, written 85 years ago, when he published Pan-Europa.

"All great historical ideas started as a utopian dream and ended with reality".

"Whether a particular idea remains as a utopian dream or it can become reality depends on the number of people who believe in the ideal and their ability to act upon it."

Excerpted from “My Political Philosophy”, by Yukio Hatoyama, Prime Minister of Japan

The above excerpt, as well as the entire text, would not mean much unless Mr. Hatoyama were not the head to the government whose country is the 2^nd largest buyer of US treasuries.

still enjoying the internet while it's here

By now, most of us take the internet for granted, not unlike any utility resource. Its popularity is seldom considered together with its vulnerability--technical, behavioral, political, etc. In fact, I would ponder as whether or not the vulnerability of the internet grows with its popularity, especially beyond reaching some adoption threshold.

Here are two directions in which the internet as we know it today may go into:

1. Stuff of any value won't be free of charge;
2. Countries, or groups thereof, will enforce permanent or temporary "safe areas;" communications in and out of such areas will have to be cleared at router level.

In evaluating the above suggestions, just consider the "unipolar world" as a brief between bi- and multi-polarity, and the fact that advertising alone cannot pay for it all. In fact, if one really understood the eventual costs of the "free stuff," one might volunatrily want to pay for it, no strings attached. Just like paying to have your phone number unlisted...

Chinese VP Wang Qishan, center, holds the autographed basketball given to him by Obama

P072809PS-0458, originally uploaded by The Official White House Photostream.

The US-Chinese train has left the station long ago; We are only checking the roadmap and recalculating the schedule now.

back from the summit

yohaku-no-bi: beauty of extra white

The implicit magnificence makes you cry--for joy, or otherwise.

on the nature of work

Timothy Garton Ash, in a recent Der Spiegel interview implicitly talks about the nature of work in our society.

Garton Ash: [..]We must make the social market economy credible again as the central solution for the middle class.

SPIEGEL: How?

Garton Ash: There are two major domestic policy challenges for the European Union. First: Creating meaningful work for the majority of society. And second: the integration of fellow citizens of non-European descent.

In fact, it was Albert Camus who spoke earlier (cca. 1951) about work's lacking meaning. Making a living has become comparatively much easier than ever before. But we lost something in the process, which, despite Mr. Garton Ash prescription, won't be easy to come by.

It still can go anywhere

As Secretaries Clinton and Geithner went to China, I wondered if and how long before we had a roadmap for the reunification of Taiwan. Such roadmap would be a prerequisite of Chimerica.

However, some important voices consider the notion of a duopoly between China and America (Chimerica) a mirage and suggest that a way out would be for the US and other countries to speak to China with one voice. Moreover, from Der Spiegel, we learn that:

Last month, Beijing completed the last of a series of so-called currency swaps -- providing yuan to other central banks for use in trade with China -- with Argentina, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, and others. These arrangements theoretically removed any need for these trading partners to use the dollar as an intermediary currency in dealing with China. Last week, Beijing denominated a bilateral trade deal with Brazil in the two countries' currencies, rather than in dollars; the value of the agreement was not specified. The value of the other agreements comes to $95 billion (€68 billion). By way of comparison, US-Chinese trade amounted to $333 billion (€238 billion) in 2008.

So China is using bilateralism, not unlike the US has since the end of the Cold War, to grow its status. Moreover, China is coopting US friends as well into her bilateralism.

One can only ask, where is multilateralism when you need it? Bush, the president about whom the Economist wrote that there had been no multilateral agreement to his liking, and his neocon apparatus have a lot to answer for this. The most that camp could come up with was the group of democracies, through the writings of Robert Kagan, during John McCain's electoral campaign.

The challenge now is for Obama to convince the US allies, and the world at large, that there is in the self interest of everyone to continue to support Pax Americana, and the US dollar. In other words, it's worth paying protection tax, as it were. However, the challenge then becomes how to frame LARGE the loses of leaving the US shrinking umbrella when countries and peoples suffer what they may soon imagine as a deluge.

And, for whatever reason, I now feel compelled to make the following observation: There is no tax cut, or at least not as it's been defined by the conservative camp. It's only a taxation position along a continuum defined between front-loading and back-loading.

Trends in Work Attire 2009-2010

Beethoven was just like you and I, only that much more.