news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_on_re_as...pan_okinawa_election

search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20100127n1.html

Charles, what conclusion do YOU draw? You evidently believe these events are related. So, is it that Japan's credit downgrade is a punishment because the people of Nago don't want a US military base?

But then Fox News could no doubt find some neo-con to argue that not wanting a US base is a symptom of Japan's declining creditworthiness - or vice versa.

Seems to me that if one believes these two events are linked, one can (will!) draw whatever conclusion one is predisposed to draw. And that one will only find a link between events if that supposed link bolsters one's predisposition.

Anyhow, thanks for the post. Your juxtaposition of the events is interesting, and atimes.net will run a poll to find out what readers think.

Thank you David, for your interest in my posting.

As you well know what we have here is a correlation of events and as any researcher knows full well correlation does not prove causality.

As for myself I was merely posing the question in an effort to try to find out what other people with a fair amount of professional expertise in regard to markets and credit ratings might think about this.

I realize that in an ideal world markets are supposed to operate independent of politics.

However, we are in a crisis situation to a large extent IMHO precisely because markets to a large extent have now become captive to the politics of the moment.

One the world stage this began many years ago with the use of the economic boycott.

US politicians have consistently cut off American businesses from many key markets all around the world in their pursuit of political and military type goals that can never be achieved by such means.

All that these short sighted politicians have done is to further increase the isolation of the US and give a real advantage to those nation who prefer to ignore such boycotts.

The economic boycott movement ratcheted up and moved into another dimension with the politicians in Washington creating laws to enforce secondary boycotts on those nations and businesses outside US territorial jurisdiction who were ignoring the initial boycott attempt.

So sooner rather than later Washington had cut itself off from the world and as the American economy began to wither on the vine as is presently the case, it had only a military option at its disposal which in a lot of ways it can not really exercise because even this has severe persistent limitations.

So my feeling is indeed that the politics of the moment have so invaded markets that it is totally pointless to speak about any kind of a free and functioning market system.

What we are witnessing IMHO is a persistent and growing market failure that will soon replace the so-called "Great Depression" of the 1930's.

The politicians are responsible for this to a very large extent and so should be held accountable.

I see no such effort to hold them accountable for their mis-leadership and that is what really scares me more than anything about the present moment in our history.

People have a convenient way of forgetting the lessons of history which is why they have to be repeated until learning takes place.

It was the politicians of the 1930's with their short sighted self serving solutions that created the right conditions for WWII.

One again returning to the science of learning and behavior I make mention to one of its fundamental theorems that states: "The harsher the punishment the faster the learning."

Thank you David for your interest in my thoughts on this subject.

I apologize for my slow response to your posting and am looking forward to being able to read the results of your proposed poll on this subject.

www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/LB06Dh01.html

This article on today's ATOL deals with some of the technicalities of the rethink in policy now going on in Japan related to the basing issue.

However,just dealing with minute technical issues rather than dealing with the larger principles involved ignores and obfuscates the real issue at the heart of this matter which in indeed a matter of principle or law.

That issue of international law could be summed up by asking the question should any nation defeated in war have to pay for the indefinite military occupation 60 years after the fact of its national territory.

I suspect that purely as a question of existing international law that the answer to this question is probably no.

Any student of history knows that all such military occupiers who at one time seemed to be one the right side of history, so to speak, and who overstay the purpose of being the occupying power do in fact put themselves on the wrong side of history with the results that follow on from such a recalcitrant policy.

The history of the Neapoleanic French Empire is case in point for this reality of statecraft.

In the last decade of the 18th century and the first decade of the 19th the new French Republic was seen as a fresh liberating breeze blowing away the old monarchial order.

All this began to change with the empire period.

You know the story from there.

The present leadership cult in America today is surely and certainly headed for its own Waterloo.

We can only hope that it will be a non nuclear Waterloo.

However, I am not really too sanguine about that.

Japan as the only nation on Earth to be the victim of a calculated nuclear attack certainly has a range of feelings on that subject that no American can ever really understand.

Japan should have the right now in the 21st century the same kind of full sovereignty that other nations have a right under international law to enjoy.

That means being free of what in effect is an ongoing and indefinite military occupation that has nothing to do with what happened as a result of WWII and everything to do with the ongoing positioning of the US military for the next war in Asia with the planning for the use of nuclear weapons in that theatre of opperations being an ongoing and essential ingredient thereof.

Charles,

The poll:

An Okinawa town votes against hosting a US military base. A few days later, S&P downgrades Japan's credit rating.

Results (still running):

- The downgrade is a punishment for the vote: 40%

- Anti-US sentiment really does reduce a country's creditworthiness: 0%

- The events are not related: 60%

Thanks for your considered responses.

- Allen (aquicke)