Krugman, Abe, IMF, BOJ, FED, RBA – idiots, the lot of them, without a cent of wisdom and/or experience between them. Praise the lord for Kyle Bass and the Freckle – there may be hope for the world yet. Get off your high horse, it's getting tired. The data and severity of the global economy situation these past few years, Japan not being exempt, is known and well documented. You want to keep screeching that the sky's falling, I get it, Chicken Little, really. It's just that the rest of us would love to do their best to improve things in the meantime, whether the methods are to your liking or not, and also diversify and hedge and place our bets across the board with a long-term view when things are low here and there. You'll survive, I promise you, even if not everybody thinks you're a genius and the preacher of the one true gospel. So will Japan. And the people investing in it. Not everyone lost their pants when the economic manure hit the fan in the US too – speak to some of the people around here, they've actually been doing quite well, in most parts, and hope to continue and do so LONG TERM, past any temporary malaise. Enjoy your strategy and try to accept that not everybody in the world agrees with you and/or wants to dive into the pool of despair with you, Freck. Bummer, I know, but that's how it goes. And PLEASE try to come up with something new instead of jumping up and down with the same battered old signs every time new information presents itself. It's a bit embarrassing. At least the "superficial, unconvincing, weak" tripe that I post here presents some occasional new data every now and then…

Yes, we've heard it before, you'll quote the economists who don't agree with the ones I quote and vice versa – the reasons both opinions exist is because no one knows what'll happen (including you, as shocking as this may sound).

So you’re basically saying the increase IS due to increasing material price…considering McDonald’s Japan pride themselves on using local produce, it almost sounds as if the two decade long trend of deflation is being arrested/reversed…nah, couldn’t be.

Right…how about the wallstreet journal, CNBC & business week then (to name only a few)? Wishful thinkers, the lot of them, I take it –

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324789504578380473664467496.html (WSJ)
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000165927 (CNBC)
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-29/japans-property-market-comes-back-to-life (BW)
http://qz.com/66531/after-more-than-two-decades-of-stagnation-japans-property-market-may-be-coming-back-to-life/ (Quarz)
http://www.worldpropertychannel.com/asia-pacific-commercial-news/-japan-office-market-2013-abenomics-japanese-real-estate-trusts-6764.php (WPC)

I can go on and on and on, (as could you, I’m sure) but you get the point – this is no more “wishful thinking” than your own “wishful thinking” of pending doom and gloom – reality is neither euphoric nor suicidal – it’s just reality, and it can point in oh so many directions, which is what I was saying in the original post – that these MAY be signs of capital growth returning over the next few years, and certainly are better news than we’ve been seeing come out of Japan for the last two decades or so. While this may not be the case (only time will tell, certainly not you, me or Paul Krugman or Kyle Bass), it certainly also isn’t the case of sure-fired destruction you’re trying to portray here. So no, you’re not over the top in your Japan bashing – you’re just over the top in bashing anything which doesn’t subscribe to your own investment preferences. Basically, your attitude has been, is and most likely will remain “it’s my way or the highway”, without really giving too much regard to what it actually is you’re bashing in this particular case. And before you accuse me of blaming the messenger, I’ll remind you that the messenger doesn’t really exercise any real discrimination between the subjects of his various messages either (US yesterday, Europe tomorrow, and the flavour of the moment happens to be Japan for you).

Not sure which foreign investors you’re referring to – maybe you’ve run across a great many acquaintances who hold this view. Personally, my view (and, as far as I can tell, that of the vast majority of our clients), is nothing of the sort. As mentioned countless times before, we invest in various countries in currencies, and not with funds we would need in a hurry either (as I suspect most savvy RE investors do). We did this when the yen was at 85, we’re still doing it when it’s at 100, and will most likely continue doing so if it hits 145 (to which “there are predictions” as you mysteriously allude…not even “most predictions” ) – if and when it drops (something that we certainly don’t claim to hold the crystal-balling exclusivity to, and nor do you, we normally leave the funds in Japan, to utilize further purchases, improvements, etc (because the further it drops, the better the deals become normally). If and when it rises, we may choose to bring our incomes back home. In any case, this is – I repeat as I’ve done dozens of times in these discussions with you – A LONG TERM PLAY. Your panic mongering may strike a chord with investors who were planning to withdraw their income every month or six – certainly not a strategy I’ve ever advised anyone to pursue in international REI, in Japan or anywhere else in the world, and certainly not a strategy I hold to be very wise, regardless of where in the world one invests, as it shows immense lack of planning and risk analysis.

Ok, now I’m starting to get the picture. It doesn’t really matter how many players are active anywhere or how big/small they are, nor what their previous record is – when they align with your views, such as flocks of panicky investors shorting a currency after every unsavoury CB announcement , they’re “in the know” and are “fairly switched on cookies”. When they act based on an idea you’re not in agreement with, they immediately become “muppets, speculators, gamblers and sheep”. It all makes sense now. Pardon me if I don’t bombard you with the vast cadre of funds, trust and institutional investors that have been going stir-crazy in Japan since late 2011 – you can run some web searches if you want, or drill down through our news items from that Prologis link – you’ll find the well runs pretty deep, and has been for a while – it’s only that the message took some time to filter down to the masses. Goldman Sachs and TPG, I think, were the first major fund to kick off this trend, but were certanily not the last.

Much similar to your favourite graphs play, actually. When you can’t avoid showing that they’re in the green, it’s because they’re “barely just keeping their heads above water” and through no credit to their actions or policies (couldn’t be just dealing with tough global economic climates to the best of their ability, in similar fashion to any other market, because that doesn’t sit well with your gospel). When they’re in the red, however, regardless of how long it’s been after various measures have been announced, let alone trialled or implemented, it’s imeediate proof that afore-mentioned measures are failing.

Anything I’ve missed in your world-view?

Not sure what you wanted to say with those abandoned houses there – here's the summary of the article your zerohedge friend, who's intent, like you, on spreading his agenda of "short Japan, all hell is breaking loose!!!" conveniently forgot to incorporate into his so-called article/post – as he copied and pasted only the relevant parts, then added his own "spin" on them (a spin that exists only in his mind. the facts, however, are copied and pasted from the Japan Times – but the newspaper also continues to offer an explanation, which your friend didn't like that much -) Why have the figures increased even in urban areas?Hidetaka Yoneyama, a senior fellow of Fujitsu Research Institute and an expert on issues related to unoccupied houses, said many of the houses in question are about 50 years old and were built during the period of rapid economic growth from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. With the rising trend toward homes shared by only nuclear family members, the owners' children ceased living together and the house became vacant after the parents died. Even if children inherit the houses and land, the homes are usually eventually abandoned for such reasons as: — The legality of rights among family members is complicated and multiple heirs are involved. — The heirs live far away and do not have a good understanding of how to maintain vacant houses. — The heirs cannot afford to maintain the house. In some cases, if vacant houses are demolished, new homes cannot be built on the same land.The Building Standards Law stipulates that a plot of land with a building on it must in principle open onto a road at least four meters wide. A strip of land at least two meters wide must also connect to the road to allow for emergency vehicle access. But some plots with unoccupied houses do not meet these conditions. Also, if owners demolish abandoned houses and leave the land vacant, they will no longer be eligible for a reduction or exemption from the fixed asset tax for residential land. If a plot of land measures less than 200 square meters, the taxable value of the land alone would jump sixfold from the tax base before demolition of a vacant house on the land. As for the JGB market – we've chewed this issue to death, but here we go again – No, Freckle, rising government bond yields are NOT always an imminent sign of an economy spiralling towards oblivion – sometimes they reflect expectations for growth and inflation, for instance (here's a lengthier explanation – http://monetaryaffairs.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/jgbs-imitate-usts-post-quantitative.html), much in the same way that a grandiose public debt on paper isn't always what it seems in reality, particularly in countries where the households save close to 10% of GDP per year. In short, to go back to your favourite bushfire metaphor which pictures me as the blind optimist – you're screaming "fire, fire" and jumping up and down a lot at the first sign of smoke, regardless of its source (why? beats me…either you like a good panic for personal reasons, or it some other purpose) while the person (Abe, in this case) who's making the stew looks at you with a raised eyebrow thinking ("well, how the hell did he expect me to cook without it?"). Yes, it's a fire – a purposeful, controlled one. Sure, fires can go out of control if left unchecked, and cause some significant damage – but most of them don't, and can make for a great utility since about caveman day. As for the last link, please, can we not go into that here? )) I mean, conspiracy theories are great and all, I love a good yarn myself, but to bring it up in this discussion (eg "Japan will fall because Russia, Brazil, India and China are on a global dollar-deletion mission") is a bit too much even for a sci-fi buff like myself… Any chance to get some reference to the original news items, or are you just here to blow the fire some more with your back to the board again? If you are, I'll have to ask you to leave the classroom, we're here to discuss things – rationally – not have a muddy-screaming-panic-day-feast, as much as you love those. Focus, please.

not believing the above shows very little understanding of the Japanese people who traditionally own these "houses", or the state of the properties in question themselves. Yes, I believe the above whole-heartedly. The property obsession most of the western and asian world is in the midst of is quite lost on most Japanese folk, particularly the older generations who lived through the last bust of the early nineties. Read some about the Japanese financial mentality, particularly as far as property investment is concerned, then let's have this conversation again.

no, you're right, it's all the evil Russians and braillizans' fault. How could I have been so blind. Come on, man, you used to do better than that.