Shinzo Abe Has Met With Trump

I am trying to learn Japanese by, among other things, watching youtube. Youtube doesn't always distinguish well the difference between things about Japan and things in Japanese, and, of course, my brain often prefers the relative ease of listening to things about Japan, rather than struggling to hear and understand Japanese.

But this was particularly interesting:


Clearly full of massive misconceptions about Trump- this Dr. Curtis actually bought into that media empire propaganda that was floated in the campaign. It is particularly dumb, because media entities are losing money, while individual people, like Mike Cernovich, can out compete them with a laptop (maybe just a smart phone) while at a coffee shop in Vietnam. Media empires, as assets, perform poorly, and are likely to bleed money until their eventual death. Can't see Trump looking for that type of thing to be in his portfolio. I'm sure he prefers keeping the fuel tanks on his jet full.

Abe, according these guys, appeared to have enjoyed his meeting with Trump. It lasted 90 minutes, which was longer than expected. It was also a very non-traditional from a Japanese standpoint, as Abe made a stop in New York while en route to Peru, and had the meeting with only a translator to back him. One would generally expect a much larger entourage from the Japanese- more formality.

Seems to have been a meeting that reassured Abe. So far, this seems to be Trump's game plan- at least until he actually gets into the presidency. He appears quite capable of having amenable meetings with all sorts of people. Meanwhile, he also appears to be trolling the media, with a never ending stream of names of people who may or may not be joining the administration.

It is my understanding that Abe thinks like Bernanke and the central bankers. This is problematic. There still seems to be little to no recognition of how paralyzing private debt is in the system. And, so far, no realization that currency policies undermine long term planning, and for the Japanese, having babies requires long term planning. The Japanese are some of the most conscientious people in the world, so they undoubtedly they must make and save a lot more under the current regime than they would if the value of their money stayed the same or increased in value.

So far, Trump, by rights, ought to have Krugman singing his praises, because Trump seems willing to spend 'big enough' for the most ardent Keynesian. But no.
Nor do I think there will be much love between the Fed and Trump, so it will be interesting to see how this actually unfolds. Everybody wants to know the plan, but plans often have to be reworked as soon as they come into contact with reality. This is why Trump's incentives are so much more interesting- his incentives do not align with the Fed.

So there are issues specific to Japan, like how many troops we have there, and various treaties, but then there's this monetary policy issue. The further way from the globalist norm Trump takes us, the more likely members of the global cult of central banking will be disturbed.

Meanwhile, people are always trying to innovate an alternative to central bank currency, which has the potential to blindside everyone.