Japanese Mayor, Disgusted With The Government's Crisis Response, Appeals For Help To The Entire World

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/02/2011 15:18 -0400

The mayor of Minami Soma city, located 25 km away from the Fukushima plant, had decided to bypass the traditional channels in requesting assistance out of disgust and frustration with the government's handling of the disaster, and instead is appealing to the entire world via this soon to be viral video clip which was recorded over a week ago but is only now making the rounds. In the clip, mayor Katsunobu Sakurai says: "We are left to ourselves... we risk dying of hunger." Minami Soma, once a city of over 70,000 and which may now be down to as little 20,000, is asking for volunteers to do what the Japanese government refuses to do: namely to help those most in need of if not help, then at least potentially life-saving information. The mayor expresses his disappointment at the lack of support from the central government for the city’s remaining residents, and accuses the government of not providing sufficient information to help in the decision making process. Making things worse is that the remaining citizens, many of whom who are trying to evacuate, are unable to do so as there is no gas or means for transportation. Unfortunately, by the time the Japanese crisis is done, cities like Minami Soma, far beyond the 20 km evacuation zone, will be nothing more than ghost towns. And while we have already seen a few minor attempts at popular backlash against TEPCO and the government, the general population may soon be reaching a tipping point of discontent. Will Fukushima be the straw that breaks the traditionally peaceful Japanese population's back into an expression of violent disagreement with the government's handling of the consequences of the March 11 earthquake, which for now can only be classified as deplorable?

Attempt To Pour Concrete On Fukushima Pit Crack Generating 1 Sievert/Hour Fails; New Unmanned Drone Photos Of Reactors

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/02/2011 12:42 -0400

After prior reports that radiation in and around Fukushima had breached the dreaded barrier of 1 sievert/hour were attributed to some PR apparatchik not knowing how to carry the decimal comma, we once again get confirmation that previous attempts to refute what some saw merely as scaremongering, were in fact more lies. According to Reuters, the soon to be nationalized TEPCO said it had found a crack in the pit at its No.2 reactor in Fukushima, generating readings 1,000 millisieverts (1 sievert) of radiation per hour in the air inside the pit. "With radiation levels rising in the seawater near the plant, we have been trying to confirm the reason why, and in that context, this could be one source," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), said on Saturday. He cautioned, however: "We can't really say for certain until we've studied the results." Since at this point nobody believes anything coming out of Japan and TEPCO, most are just expecting for the concrete to come: "TEPCO has begun pouring concrete into the pit to stop the leak, he said." Alas, as always happens when horrible plans go awry, this latest attempt to fix the problem with the nuclear (pardon the pan) "solution" is failing. "Public broadcaster NHK said late on Saturday that water was preventing the concrete from hardening and the pit was still leaking." In other words, recent horrendously planned attempts to cool the reactor by pumping water on it may well scuttle the Plan Z option of entombing the reactor. And if that doesn't work, then Japan is straight out of plans. 

Chris Martenson Exclusive: New Photos Of Fukushima Reactors

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/01/2011 18:18 -0400

Zero Hedge friend Chris Martenson has procured and analyzed the latest set of Fukushima overflight photos from DigitalGlobe. His key takeaways: (i) The situation on the ground is still not stabilized. (ii) At current scope and resources of the response effort, it will take weeks to months before TEPCO is in real control of the situation.(iii) The aftereffects will occupy TEPCO and the Japanese government for years. Read the full analysis inside.

A Visual Presentation Of What Happens To The Market During Rising Interest Rate Cycles

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/02/2011 11:58 -0400

While it is no surprise that there is nothing in this world that can derail the optimism of Goldman's David Kostin (GS S&P 2011 target 1,500 until Jan Hatzius and his double Bill Dudley say otherwise), in his latest Weekly Kickstart he does provide a useful visual analysis of what happens in a period of rising interest rate cycles. Of course, this is only to create the illusion that rates are indeed set to rise: as we indicated said illusion was roughly two times stronger this time last year when the market once again didn't remember what a downtick looked like, and yet it all turned out to be a function of QE1, which upon ending on March 31 caused a correction, and QE2 a few months later. We wonder how many professional investors actually are naive enough to equate constant pumping of billions of dollars into the market by the Fed with economic improvement. But while we will get our answer in the next several weeks, here are the key signs to look for in the latter part of the interest rate cycle. 

Things That Make You Go Hmmm - What The Red Pill Really Tells Us

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/02/2011 14:21 -0400

"On March 14th Bear Stearns collapsed and the first real domino of the financial crisis (at lest as far as public recognition of the situation was concerned) had toppled. However, it wasn’t until September, as Lehman Brothers tottered on the brink of insolvency, that a group of highly influential bankers and politicians decided to take the red pill. The failure of Lehman Brothers was the catalyst that plunged the world deep into The Matrix - an alternate reality in which, everywhere you looked, things were happening that a mere 24 hours earlier, would have seemed unthinkable. We all know about the TARP, we remember wild swings in markets, plummeting oil and commodity prices, frantic deleveraging and nervous Central Bankers and politicians telling us that everything was going to be OK. But as the days and months have ticked by, the reality inside our own Matrix has become more and more skewed. Markets recovered, an eerie calm was gradually restored and slowly things began to return to a semblance of normal. But what is normal in this new paradigm? Is it normal for the Fed to be buying 70% of all Treasuries? Well it certainly wasn’t until we took the red pill and entered The Matrix...It surely must be clear to anybody that, regardless of the fact that the unemployment situation has stopped deteriorating quite so rapidly and has even begun to show signs of improvement in places (‘green shoots’ anyone?), regardless of the fact that corporate results have actually been, for the most part, quite good and the S&P is trading on decent multiples and regardless of the fact that ‘core’ inflation apparently isn’t a problem - the real world inside The Matrix, the one many vested interests would rather we NOT focus on, is an altogether different story." Grant Williams 

The Not So Funny Funnies...