[fluffy0000]

What's the differences btwn a DPJ or LDP victory means for Japan 2009'?
As posted East Asia Forum Jan 20th 2009' and again from (note date) Nov.2008' -Pls also note Japan faced a decade of recession 1992-2001 'Lost Decade' with finger pointing and blaming US etc., Japan’s LDP and DPF face the future? -East Asia Forum Jan.20/09'
"All in all, Mr. Ozawa’s proposals are less ambitious than his rhetoric would suggest. And there’s still no indication of how a DPJ government will pay for the two new deals. Once again, Mr. Ozawa has borrowed a phrase from American political history only to drain it off its evocative power. The New Deal was an ambitious experiment in American governance; it is still unclear how a DPJ government will be a dramatic departure from the past, other than the fact of its existence.

Nov. 15 2008'
Mr. Aso (LDP) may yet pull off an electoral victory next year — it is increasingly certain that the next general election will not be held before April 2009 — but a general election will not substantially alter the situation (even with a DPJ victory, although a DPJ victory would at least ensure that the same party controls both houses of the Diet for the next several years/
The article ends on this cheery note:
Little wonder that Japanese are opening for an Obama of their own: the political system is broken and the economy is faltering. Neither the LDP’s nor the DPJ’s performance in the face of crisis has been particularly impressive. The DPJ’s greatest strength remains that it’s not the LDP, and even that assertion is increasingly questionable. Japan looks increasingly set to decline steadily, unable to take decisive steps to restore national dynamism. This is the bakumatsu, but with few signs of a restoration to come, despite Ozawa Ichiro’s determination to be the vehicle of that restoration.

Perhaps Japan should hold a lottery to pick a new ruling elite, choosing from among the eminently sensible housewives of Tokyo. I don’t see how they could be worse than the status quo.