Abenomics In The Wringer

Watching newly appointed Council On Industrial Competitiveness member and Koizumi revolutionaire Takenaka Heizo get batted around by the panel on this morning's Asa Zuba! program, after a long segment on Shimane Prefecture (#1 in public works spending per capita of all of Japan's prefectures) construction company executives exulting at the Abe government's proposed economic stimulus package -- a report played absolutely straight so as to infuriate viewers in the Tokyo Metropolitan District, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Aichi, Kyoto and Osaka -- one had to wonder whether or not the fix was in from the beginning: that the news mediaverse treated the Liberal Democratic Party with kid gloves and piled scorn upon Democratic Party of Japan-governments because it missed having a party in power so transparently stupid and self-serving in its ways that the stories just write themselves.

As for the articles skeptical of Abenomics, they keep arriving over the Intertube. (Link and Link and Link)

Meanwhile, its favorite party back in charge of the Prime Minister's Residence, Pravda-by-the-Palace has resumed its abject sycophancy, portraying the impossible (or at least highly improbable) as likely. (Link)