--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tartbrain <no_re...@...> wrote:
> Odd example perhaps, but one I was thinking of earlier. Japan has suffered a 20 year deflation and their economy has gone sideways over those years. Did their aggression during the 30's and 40's set up chains of events that led to the 20 year slackness of their economy? Maybe thats too far of a stretch. But their economic policies of the 70's and 80's surely had its effects on their 20 years in the desert. >From what I have read, the banks were reluctant to write off bad loans, and just kept them as non performing assets on the books. Also, for cultural reasons they did not seem willing to let businesses fail. > But if evil exists and must be fought, then why did we not go to war against Britain, France and other major colonial Empires that for 100's of years invaded, overran, exploited and treated the locals viscously and harshly? Japan, it can be argued, while vicious in its aggression of the 30s through Asia, was simply replacing older colonial empires with a new one -- an Asian one which is perhaps a step better than European ones. But discussing the reality of geopolitics, past and present, is difficult due to the prevalence of secular many sacred cows. The US initiated a steel and oil embargo on Japan because Japan overthrew part of the French colonial regime in Viet-Nam. The horror. Kicking an exploitive colonial imperialistic power on its ass. The poor imperial French. The meanie Japanese. And the embargo directly led to the Japanese attack on the Philippines and Hawaii six months later. > Interesting points.
