'Disaster Capitalism' & the privitization of Japan's public Bank

To those that don't know I'm using the term coined by Naomi Klien in her book "The Shock Doctrine" in which she exposes a global pattern of nefarious individuals, corporations and other "special interests" in collusion with governments taking advantage of disasters, natural, or man-made (as in war, financial, etc.) to advance their own interests (while everyone else gets royally bleeped over).

So, while there may not be any connection here, I did however find it an eerie coincidence, in this article that I just read, it explains how the Japanese government can afford to rebuild after the disaster because they own THE largest depository bank in the world, the Japan Post Bank. In other words, it's a public bank, owned by the people, but of course, there are some other individuals who would love to get their hands on it, and now they just might be able to.

Japan Post Bank is now the largest holder of personal savings in the world, making it the world's largest credit engine. Most money today originates as bank loans, and deposits are the magic pool from which this credit-money is generated. Japan Post is not only the world's largest depository bank but its largest publicly-owned bank.

Source

The article then goes on to explain that, how in the years prior to the crisis there were "plans" by some government officials to sell of the bank to private investors (transferring Japan's publicly owned debt along with $3.2 trillion in assets to private hands)...however it was met with massive resistance by the public and some official in the government and the plan was put on "hold". However, this all changed after the crisis.

But now there is talk of reverting to the neoliberal model, selling off public assets to find the funds to rebuild.

As horrible as it is, the devastation of the earthquake presents Japan and its political class with the chance to push through the many reforms that the DPJ [Democratic Party of Japan] has long promised and the country so desperately needs.

In other words, a chance for investors to finally get their hands on Japan's prized publicly-owned bank, and the massive deposit base that has so far protected the economy from the attacks of foreign financial predators.

The Japanese government can afford its enormous debt because the interest it pays is extremely low. For the private economy, public debt is money. A large public debt owed to the Japanese people means Japanese industries have the money to rebuild. But if Japan Post is sold off to private investors, interest rates are liable to rise, plunging the government into the debt trap it has so far largely escaped.

Those familiar with the Naomi Klein's book, know that these "neoliberal" reforms is also what happened in Chile in the 70's, Argentina roughly a decade ago, Bolivia in the 80's, a host of Asian economies during the Asian financial crisis. This video offers a better explanation of disaster capitalism than I ever could, so I'll just link it down below, and in the meantime, also check out the article.

Of course bad people will always try to take advantage of other human being's misfortune, however the privatization of Japan's (and the worlds) largest public bank as a result of this disaster just seems a bit too fishy for me, and the fact that this horrible event was the "push" that these private investors needed in order to move on with their "reforms", the fact that upon the suffering of millions, a small group of wealthy individuals are going to make an immense profit while simultaneously forcing a large part of the Japanese population into debt servitude (usually inflation is not far around the corner). However, I could just be reading too much into it, it could all just be a coincidence, I don't know. What do you think?

Meeneecat
I did not know this about the Japan Post Bank.
You are right about this possibility. We should all watch very carefully.

Also we should be watching the Republican governors around the US as they step up their "budget crisis" solutions as spelled out in the Shock Doctrine. Their game plan is known, but it is not known by enough people.

I like that graffiti in the vid.

This is my

second and third line ^_^

Originally posted by TerryMcGuire
Meeneecat
Also we should be watching the Republican governors around the US as they step up their "budget crisis" solutions as spelled out in the Shock Doctrine. Their game plan is known, but it is not known by enough people.

Yes exactly, this is a trend that is going on all over. The "budget crisis" is another good example, much of it manufactured or over hyped (when businesses do it, it's considered "leverage", aka, a "good" thing) a clue to which you can see in all the tax breaks, earmarks and welfare being given to corporations and the wealthy, all while simultaneously services for everyone else is being slashed and defunded...including selling off of public assets to private investors who then turn around and inflate prices for everyone else. Consider this sad case of the parking meters in Chicago, where they privatized their parking meters, selling them off to J.P Morgan Chase for a one time payment of 1.16billion and in exchange they get the rights to all the profits from the meters for the next 75 years!!!:

The parking meter company projects total revenues of more than $75 million and net income of about $58 million in 2010, after a second round of rate increases go into effect across the city on Jan. 1. In the first 10 ½ months of operation ending Dec. 31 of this year, the company expects $32.7 million in net operating profit, for a 70 percent profit margin.

Financial experts who reviewed the data say Chicago could have made out much better in the long run had it just kept the meters. The private company, Chicago Parking Meters LLC, paid the city $1.15 billion in February for the right to reap all parking fee revenues for 75 years. Under the deal, rates immediately quadrupled at most of the city’s 36,000 meters.

Source

This "privitization" trend is also partly responsible for job losses (or more accurately, transferring jobs out of America and overseas):

ABC News did a story about Florida's privatizing its food stamp operations to J.P Morgan - which in turn contracted a call center in India to process the claims. Imagine that. Florida gives taxpayers' money to J.P. Morgan, which to make a greater profit uses that money to hire people in India, putting Floridians out of a job. Then out-of-work Floridians have to call India to get approved for food stamps. Now that's ironic.

Source
Source

And then there's the privitization of our prison system, including juvenile detention centers, which means that there's a huge profit motive for arresting, prosecuting and warehousing as many Americans as possible to make a buck...and of course once a person is locked up, in general American's couldn't give a rat's bleep about these people's "rights"...so of course it becomes "good business" to deny them medical services and letting them go hungry (they spend more money feeding the police dogs than the prisoners in some states!)

The list goes on and on, privatization of wars (paying for the bombs to blow everything up, then paying for the contracts to rebuild everything we blew up), private armies being used overseas and domestically, privatization of "public" education, privatization of certain emergency services like police and fire departments, the push to "privatize" social security, privatization of roads and other public infrastructure, privatization of water, privatization of public utilities, and on and on...and in the end, the public and the taxpayer is the one who ends up getting royally screwed.

"pubic-private partnerships"....it's a UN buzz term

Here's one site on China www.undp.org.cn...

I am objecting to your post without insults. Collusion between government and large industry is communism.

Most people including those that are not usually considered "greenies" do not look favorably on these plants. When private industry pays bribes to override the general welfare of the people you should be aware that you are in a communist system.

reply to post by Analyze76

I am objecting to your post without insults. Collusion between government and large industry is communism.

Most people including those that are not usually considered "greenies" do not look favorably on these plants. When private industry pays bribes to override the general welfare of the people you should be aware that you are in a communist system.

For the moment here I can see your point of view. But one could make the argument that this collusion is also what we see rampant in the US right now and that it is being brought about by those who preach free enterprise
from the lofty perch atop the pyramid built by capitalists.

reply to post by TerryMcGuire


Those that ran the U.S.S.R. were capitalists who used their people for save labor and jailed competition. I feel that definitions need to be known and I know the propaganda spewed as free market.

If you need a license for your industry you are in communism.

If you need to be "certified" you are in communism.

Those licenses and certs used to be for honest regulation..............they have been changed to "permission" with a collusion of government and "private" industry which is communism, nazism, socialism.

nazi was gutter slang for national socialism for those that would like to argue with me that nazi was right wing.(it just so happened that the country doing it was white people)

reply to post by meeneecat


Maybe one day, ATS will permit the awarding of multiple Flags and Stars

If that ever happens, hope I'm around to belatedly award Platinum, Gold and Silver Flags and Stars to your posts

reply to post by TerryMcGuire


No, not communism, but it is corporatism. Qualifying corporatism in America as capitalism as a "different kind of capitalism" won't work because corporatism is, quite simply, not capitalism. There are three basic principles to capitalism (a free and unregulated market place, massive competition, a stable currency backed by wealth where all can agree upon its value) and none of them are in effect today in, America or any other nation.

Originally posted by Analyze76
I am objecting to your post without insults. Collusion between government and large industry is communism.

Most people including those that are not usually considered "greenies" do not look favorably on these plants. When private industry pays bribes to override the general welfare of the people you should be aware that you are in a communist system.

I'm not sure what you are referring to about "plants"...I don't mention anything about "plants" in my post...nor do I offer any definition of government and corporate collusion. My post is about the privatization of Japan's public bank (basically turning it into a private, corporate owned bank, much like the FED here in the U.S., and thus imposing debt slavery on much of the Japanese population while enriching a select few), and specifically how a national disaster is being taken advantage of in order to accomplish this goal (hence "disaster capitalism")...However, I posit that, none of my post is in opposition to what you are saying. One can make a good argument that this is socialism for the wealthy few individuals at the top; the global bankers/financiers and shadow elite, meanwhile everyone else gets royally [snipped] over. Although, personally, I happen to feel "communism" is an inaccurate way to describe this, whereas "fascism" is more accurate, which is the marriage of state and large industry/corporate interests which

"seeks to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy."

(Source).
An even more accurate term might be simply "corporatism". Whereas communism by definition

"is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless and stateless society structured upon common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, and the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production and real estate."

(Source)
However the privatization of Japan's largest public bank, will necessarily create two classes of people, a tiny class of wealthy "profiteers" (in collusion with the state) and a large class of "debt slaves" that will give way to increased "wage labor"...thus the privatization of the bank is contrary to the communistic idea of common (public) ownership and a classless society.

reply to post by Analyze76


reply to post by TerryMcGuire

Those that ran the U.S.S.R. were capitalists who used their people for save labor and jailed competition. I feel that definitions need to be known and I know the propaganda spewed as free market.

If you need a license for your industry you are in communism.

If you need to be "certified" you are in communism.

Those licenses and certs used to be for honest regulation..............they have been changed to "permission" with a collusion of government and "private" industry which is communism, nazism, socialism.

nazi was gutter slang for national socialism for those that would like to argue with me that nazi was right wing.(it just so happened that the country doing it was white people)

So you believe that the soviet leaders were capitalists and not communists. That they used the rhetoric and many of the precepts of communism to line their own pockets? I can see that point of view. One could argue the same case for China and North Korea. But in that case, just where are the communists?

You also state that licensing and certifying are now communism though in the past they were not. Here I fail to see the line between what was once honest and is now bad.

I can understand the idea that licensing and certifying are now "permission" handed out by the collusion of government and private industry. But do you suggest that this collusion is communism rather than capitalism as you suggest in the case of the soviet leaders?

I must admit your last thoughts there lost me with the communism, Nazism, socialism, rightwing, white people stuff.

reply to post by meeneecat

...a national disaster is being taken advantage of in order to accomplish this goal (hence "disaster capitalism")... One can make a good argument that this is socialism for the wealthy few individuals at the top; the global bankers/financiers and shadow elite, meanwhile everyone else gets royally [snipped] over. Although, personally, I happen to feel "communism" is an inaccurate way to describe this, whereas "fascism" is more accurate, which is the marriage of state and large industry/corporate interests which
"seeks to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy."
(Source).
An even more accurate term might be simply "corporatism". Whereas communism by definition
"is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless and stateless society structured upon common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, and the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production and real estate."
(Source)
However the privatization of Japan's largest public bank, will necessarily create two classes of people, a tiny class of wealthy "profiteers" (in collusion with the state) and a large class of "debt slaves" that will give way to increased "wage labor"...thus the privatization of the bank is contrary to the communistic idea of common (public) ownership and a classless society.

I agree. It's corporatism.

Seems international "free trade" agreements have created a global corporate government - that doesn't work. Now they're going to expand into space and bugger that up too.