Japan Stocks Drop as Sarkozy, Merkel Reject Bigger Bailout Plan

[Poll_Blind]

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek

Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese stocks fell for the first time in three days as German and French leaders said they wouldn’t expand a fund to end Europe’s debt crisis and housing starts in the U.S. dropped, reviving concern that exporters’ earnings will be curbed.

Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s largest carmaker, lost 1.4 percent. Sony Corp., Japan’s biggest exporter of consumer electronics, dropped 1.9 percent after talks in Paris yesterday between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Inpex Corp., Japan’s No. 1 energy exploration company, declined 2.3 percent on lower crude prices.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 0.8 percent to 9,039.47 as of 9:31 a.m. in Tokyo. The broader Topix index dropped 0.5 percent to 774.98 with three stocks retreating for every two that rose.

The Paris meeting “confirmed debt issues cannot be resolved in a short period of time,” said Hiroichi Nishi, an equities manager in Tokyo at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-08-16/japan-stocks-drop-as-sarkozy-merkel-reject-bigger-bailout-plan.html

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I realize we are in a tough economic situation but I am convinced if we could get a real goddamned jobs program going, we could pull ahead of all this shit and start clawing our way back to something like leadership in the global market.

That's just my pleasant delusion of the moment. I cling to it now and again.

PB

[JDPriestly]

1. What do you do while waiting to get work?

You clean house or fix up your house or apartment or revise your resume or get out and network or, if all else fails, you go back to school. You don't just sit idle.

Yet millions of Americans are sitting idle because they have finished cleaning their houses or apartments (assuming they aren't homeless) and can't afford to do any of the other stuff.

Give people things to do and pay them enough to live on at a simple level.