Word: primed
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...falls into the hands of recipients. Obama needs to be realistic about what the "bad bank" can accomplish - namely relieving banks of some junk assets at considerable cost to the taxpayer. It won't jump-start consumer lending - at least not in the foreseeable future if the lesson of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's experience is anything...
...world's second largest, is contracting at the fastest rate among all developed nations. GDP growth in the last quarter shrank at an alarming annualized rate of 12.7%, Japan's worst showing since the 1974 oil shock. But instead of taking vigorous steps to counteract a worsening recession, Prime Minister Taro Aso is lurching from one embarrassing gaffe to the next, and seems in imminent danger of losing control of his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - and control of the government...
...Indeed, the only thing falling faster than Japanese industrial output is Aso's popularity, which according to a recent Nippon Television survey has sunk to a 9.7% approval rate, the worst for a Japanese Prime Minister since 2001. Even fellow LDP stalwart Junichiro Koizumi, the influential former Prime Minister, has publicly criticized Aso's blunders, calling them "appalling" and "laughable." Nakagawa's Yeltsin-like meltdown "is one more nail in Aso's coffin," says Robert Dujarric, director at Temple University's Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies. "It shows that he's incompetent and so is his administration...
...naming current Minister of the Economy Kaoru Yosano, 70, as Nakagawa's replacement. A fiscal conservative, Yosano will now wear three hats in Aso's government: running the ministries of economy and finance and the Financial Services Agency, which oversees banking. If things get much worse for the Prime Minister and he is forced to resign, there is even talk that Yosano, who was runner-up to Aso in the LDP elections in September, could replace him as the new head of the party and lead it in upcoming general elections against Japan's resurgent opposition party, the Democratic Party...
...fear is that additional recession-fighting measures planned by the Aso government will be sidetracked by Japan's chronic legislative infighting and revolving political leadership (the country is now on its fifth finance chief and third Prime Minister in two years). Japan's parliament, the Diet, has for the past several weeks been debating legislation surrounding a supplementary budget package that includes a controversial $21.7 billion handout to the Japanese public aimed at boosting consumer spending. But DPJ politicians - smelling blood in anticipation of general elections, which must be held by September but could come before then - might choose...