AI synthetic Touhou fan-art: Youmu and Sanae standing against Tojiko, Futo, and Futo in Touhou 13 ~ Ten Desires - Tool: ChatGPT plus

 

Posted on my pixiv page: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/147796476

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4Htb42KpQzk
NicoNico: https://www.nicovideo.jp/shorts/ss46607508

Lately, I’ve been busy with my main job and have no air conditioning in my room, making it hard to focus on creative work due to my primary research duties. Today, I scanned a rough sketch and finished it using a mix of AI tools. I also made this as an example of creating free AI art with ChatGPT. 

The prompt grew iteratively. Each unsuccessful generation revealed another ambiguity, so I kept adding more precise constraints until the result came close to the composition in my mind. In that sense, the final prompt is almost an archaeological record of my negotiations with the model.

The image is not only my idealised vision of Touhou Project, but also my own philosophical allegory. The three figures above represent hereditary, ritualised authority and the power of tradition. Sanae, as a modern progressive arriving from the twenty-first century, and Youmu, imagined as a solitary and disciplined swordswoman, confront them from below. Together, the two heroines represent different aspects of the player—essentially, different aspects of myself.

The input prompts are as follows: 

Misumaru Tamatsukuri empowering Reimu Hakurei for the day of Misumaru 9th June - Touhou Project fan-art

 

 Posted on pixiv: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/145787570
Misumaru Tamatsukuri empowering Reimu Hakurei for the day of Misumaru 9th June (6 can be pronounced Mu so taking M, and then 9 is written 九 in Kanji which is slightly different from 丸 (maru) ) 
Because there is a word saying "The sphere of Misumaru" in Katakamuna-Utahi, the power is described with Katakamuna letters. 

 

From a free image:

The idea of Japan joining the EU, why not.

"Japan will join the EU!", I would like to shout on the 1st April. 

Added on 31st March 2026

There is a possibility that the great circle distance of the sea route between the European Union (EU) and Japan will be significantly shortened under this global warming. The new arctic sea route is emerging due to the ice meltdown. Although there are still various challenges to explore this route, it is demanded all the more than before now. 

The recent Middle Eastern incidence and the unstable political situation in South Asia may alert Japan and Europe to explore the alternative trade route. North American countries are focusing on the possibly high market potential in this Arctic route. On the top of the trade route between the EU and Japan, this area is essential for shipping the natural energy resources such as petrol oil and natural gas in this region. It is the common geopolitical interest for both the EU and Japan to secure the exploration of this trade route is necessary rather than expectation nowadays. 

Furthermore, we must not forget that the legal code of Japan has been based on the legal positivism of the continental Europe since the 19th century! The legal code of Japan is one of the examples backing up the proverb saying "All roads lead to Rome". Yes, the continental European legal code is originated from that of the Roman law. 

Japan also kept the exclusive trade tie with the Netherlands from the 17th to the 19th century. When Americans landed on Japan in the 19th century, Dutch was used as the intermediary language between American and Japanese individuals at their first encounters.  It might sound plausible Japan could closer to the EU than the USA in terms of this regard especially since the first arrival of Jesuits in the 17th century, 

Added on 1st April 2026

Of course, I know there are non-negligible drawbacks in this case scenario. First of all, the EU is heavily bureaucratic which frustrates individual habitants in their daily life as well as their economic and scientific activities. Secondly, their macroeconomic policy still faces the challenge which even the first governor of the European Central Bank (ECB) has pointed out. They have not fixed the problem of the fiscal policy under the European common monetary (EMU) policy while the characteristics of fiscal policy agents in the member states are still not harmonised enough. The aforementioned heavy frustrating bureaucracy tends to keep this kind of required reforms being slower than expected.

Originally written on 4-5th February 2023 

The followings are considered to be the conditions to join the European Union (EU) or any other possible economic and political union of countries/states. 

- Microeconomics:
  1. The high cross border trade (export and import) frequency
  2. The labour and capital mobility across the border

- Macroeconomics:
  3. The synchronised business cycle (boom and recession) among the member states
  4. The balanced fiscal policy neither disrupting the fiscal and monetary policy conducts nor depreciating the economic credibility of the entire union.

- The other aspects:
  5. Cultural and historic tie among the member states
  6. Geopolitical diplomatic interest

Japan fulfils these conditions except for the forth one because of the massive national debt of Japan. The second and third conditions might be questionable but they are not insignificant at all.

Remember that the foreign tourism is accounted as export&import!  The EU members and Japan trade not only physical items but also tourists a lot with each other. 

Also remember that Japan had had the international trade with Europeans more than the others since 17th century till the end of Shogunate era! In particular, during Tokugawa dynasty, lasting for approximately 300 years, the Netherlands was only the country which was permitted to trade with Japan implementing the national isolation. Before then, Spanish and Portuguese were the major diplomatic partners until they were banned from it. 

Both the EU and Japan very often share the remarkable foreign diplomatic and geopolitical interest. For example, both frequently suffer from Russian aggressions and the geopolitical interests of containing Russia. Both the EU and Japan are required to maintain their sea-lane for both economic and political stabilities so that they had better share their sea-lane and its security.

Thus, I have actually posted on a social network page of European Federalist to request Japan to join the EU to fill the membership position of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). 

PS. This is just a simulation which is not feasible in real so that please do not take this issue seriously.

 

 

 

 

 

Manifesto Fictosexualism!

 

I would like to declare for the manifesto insisting on the rise and the full right of Fictosexualism! 

This is one of the glorious cause of supporting Progressive Libertarianism /  Classical Liberalism!

I follow the ethics of my admirable philosopher Jeremy Bentham saying "The greatest sum of pleasures with the lowest sum of pains is the principle of moral and legislation." Nobody harms and an individual gains the happiness from being fictosexual!

I sincerely despise the staunch Christians, feminists, and the staunch structuralists, persecuting my personality trait!

Redit: Japanese political compass 2024

 

Japanese political compass found in https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalCompassMemes/comments/1c0a5ca/japanese_political_parties_on_the_compass/

This is still very rough and a wee bit inaccurate. Yet, it depicts the rough idea of the distribution of these political parties. According to it, I am the very centrist in Japan as I have a highest number of match with the manifesto of 国民民主党 (National Democratic party). Maybe NHK党 (The party for abolition of the national TV Broadcasting station) too, but found not practical enough to be a mainstream political party. I have to disagree with 公明党 (Komei party) as it is likely to be against the separation of religion and politics stated in the constitution although I have a compatibility with their moderately liberalist stance. .... I have to say that the position of 日本維新の会 (The party of Ishin) should be economically far right wing and socially more authoritarian; just slightly more liberal than the 自民党 (LDP).

 

Serious cyber incidence: Nico Nico Douga system down

 

The whole system down of Dwango Co,. Ltd. & Kadokawa group is a serious incidence especially in Japanese network. All the websites and the whole network server of Japanese video posting sites Nico Nico Douga (the potential competitor of YouTube) is completely down, and the recovery will take at least 1 month plus. This cyber incidence should be considered as a national cricis of Japan as Nobuhiro Tsuzi, the outsourced agent of the cyber security department of Japanese police, and Hiroyuki Nishimura, one of the initial founders, say. The vulnerability of Japanese server centre and the cyber security is questioned. Also, the shut-down of Nico Nico Douga causes the significant loss of the opportunity for the market competition and the entertainment creators. There are also various resources of BGM and pictures shared among many creators including YouTubers are stored in Nico Nico sites. Mr Tsuzi and Mr Nishimura, one of the initial founders, suspect it will take more and this cyber incidence is considerably serious.

 

Example of a badly performing stock exchange price in TOPIX

This stock exchange price is one of those which are registered in Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) market.

The TOPIX stands for the Tokyo Price Index of this market.

While exchanging the stocks, investors refer to the index of the average stock exchange price of a particular market they belong to such as the TOPIX for this company. 

The passive trading aims at modestly keeping the profit by buying and selling those stocks more or less following the index by referring to the index price.

The active trading aims at aggressively increasing the profit by buying and selling those stocks outperforming the index. 

Those stocks registered in the prime market usually follows the price movement of the index. 

However, since this month, this company's stock price has started deviating from the counterpart of the TOPIX, and it is substantially underperforming. 

The majority passive traders will be very likely to omit this company's stock from their fund portfolio.

It is an opposite phenomenon from what active traders usually expect for unless they expect for the stock price returning to the index. 

 

In addition, we must also focus on the international market. 

The aforementioned price is based on the value based on Japanese Yen (JPY).

This means that the price plunge is much steeper in terms of the international market where they are traded with other than JPY.

 

This is the JPY price index compared to the major other currencies all together.

In this half year, JPY has already been substantially plunging. 

Some high-profile investors have purchased a massive amount of Japanese company stocks while the price dropped as though it were a bargain-sale for them.

In contrast, this particular company stock mentioned here does not seemed to be favoured by these investors.

These high-profile investors' action is so influential that it usually reflects the index performance too. 

Moreover, these investors also carefully refer to the fundamental of companies such as their executives' management skill, the potential of these companies' products, and the expected return of their profit. 

This price depreciation seems to imply the deteriorating fundamentals overall. 

This is why it is important to compare with the market index a particular firm belongs to.

 

Youmu Konpaku 「魂魄 妖夢」 みょんちゃん(Myon-chan) with 白桜剣(Hakurouken) & 楼観剣(Roukanken)

 

Youmu Konpaku 「魂魄 妖夢」 みょんちゃん(Myon-chan) with 白桜剣(Hakurouken) & 楼観剣(Roukanken)

Tool used: Clip Studio Paint Pro

These illustrations are posted in my Pixiv page so please visit https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/32334195!  

One of the reasons why I am fond of her is being familiar with her personality. Her diligent, deterministic, humble, and caring personality together with her attractive appearance capture my heart. Also, her girly characteristic unexpectedly appears on some occasions where her adorability is emphasised.

 

... Japan 日本 !

I have been criticising Japan since the beginning of this site establishment. This criticism of Japan is based on both the objective social scientific analyses as well as the subjective perspective based on my own life experiences. However, I have recently realised that the characteristics of Japan strongly and repeatedly accused seem to be originated from the political establishment explained in the recorded history. 

The Tenno regime has formed the totalitarian characteristics. This has based the highly stratified social structure transforming the majority citizens' personality to be subservient to their authority. The intensively cohesive social norms and values are definitely the derivatives of this stratified social structure. 

Even during the Shogunate periods from the 12th to the 19th century, this cohesive social structure thrived despite the relatively weaker influence of the aristocratic central authority. Yet, the subservient personality of the Japanese mass was hardly discouraged so that their loyalty to any authority was strong regardless of Tenno or Shogun. Perhaps, this unchangeable subservient personality was derived from the Japanese geographical isolation in the world where the enlightenment from the outside hardly reached there. 

Since the 19th century, Japan has adopted the Western style modern governance and capitalist economy. Some elites Japanese have successfully been enlightened to become progressive thinkers attempting to transform Japan to the modern nation state deserving the majority citizens. Nevertheless, the underlying characteristics and personality of Japanese people subservient to their authority has never changed. 

Even though some enlightenment ideal has been introduced, the true enlightenment for emancipating majority Japanese individuals from their superstitious loyalty and servile personality has hey never been achieved. This is the fundamental cause of perpetuating the political and social corruption hurting the Japanese majority mass as a suicidal attitude of themselves. It seems to have required much more fundamentally drastic reform in Japan to enlighten them.

There has been criticism by the social anthropological theory of this socially pathological trait is rooted in the establishment stage of the authoritarian figure shown in the recorded history. The original Japanese civilisation identity was originally related to the Shintoist shamanism which followed the tranquil communitarian paganism promoting more egalitarian and mutualist social norms and values.

There is certainly an attractive element in Japan and Japanese humans and their civilisation which has been retained since the prehistorical period. The prehistorical ancient Shintoist shamanism and pagan practices had brought up Japanese individuals as highly spirited enough to compassionately cohabit with neighbouring individuals and natural environments. Their virtuous characteristics such as diligence and humbleness must have been born out of this period. 

The authoritarian establishment introduced in the early historical record destroyed that prehistorical sacred pagan Japan. The social anthropological theory claims that the peaceful pagan tradition of the Japanese civilisation has been hijacked by the authoritarian oppressors. The subservient personality of the Japanese mass must be formed by that oppressive structuralist regime forcing the excess centralisation of politics and the unconditional subservience of the Japanese mass to these oppressive rulers. 

The Japanese indigenous individuals were conquered by the few numbers of arrogant nobles heavily influenced by the oppressive authoritarian totalitarianism. These oppressors hijacked Shinto by replacing the original peaceful egalitarian paganism with the oppressive authoritarian counterpart. Its indoctrination has imprinted the servile and intolerant personality into the Japanese mass. 

In order to overcome from the current distressful social crises, it is the time for Japan and Japanese to reincarnate the sacred spiritual prehistorical Japan! It is not worth to give up this attempt to fight back against the oppressive status-quo exploiting individuals with the millennium long indoctrination!

The alternative required for replacing the current dysfunctional world socioeconomics

The current entire world is a full of mess. This should be no longer called the functional order.  This is the disorder perpetuating various social diseases and social exclusion of majority individuals.  In terms of economic, political, and sociological perspectives, this world socioeconomic situation is undoubtedly dysfunctional enough to need an alternative replacing the current socioeconomic structure. Please kindly read the linked articles:

Economic issues:

Domination by Corporatism,The New Totalitarian

http://art-blue-liberalism.blogspot.com/2017/04/domination-by-corporatismthe-new.html

Monopoly of Corporatism Expands in Present Day Capitalism: Average Cost shifts Rightward

http://art-blue-liberalism.blogspot.com/2018/03/monopoly-of-corporatism-expands-in.html 

Let's be sceptical about Corporate Capitalism!

http://art-blue-liberalism.blogspot.com/2022/06/lets-revolt-against-corporate-capitalism.html

The current market economy is monopolised by the elite corporate tycoons. Even though the status-quo claims for the equality of opportunity to compete under meritocratic ethics, the income distribution mechanism has already become too asymmetric to merely rely on the labour market competition. Therefore, some degree of the equality of outcome for all the individual is required to accomplish the equality of opportunity more than ever.

Political issues:

Democracy of the modern world under challenge

http://art-blue-liberalism.blogspot.com/2022/07/democracy-of-modern-world-under.html

The Good Communism: Anarch-Syndicalism

http://art-blue-liberalism.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-good-communism-anarch-syndicalism.html

The Japanese Anarchist Communism

http://art-blue-liberalism.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-japanese-anarchist-communism.html

Crypto currencies based on the Block-chain technology e.g., BItcoin and the P2P networking are like Stirnerism in economy and finance!
http://art-blue-liberalism.blogspot.com/2022/06/crypto-currencies-based-on-block-chain.html

 

The decision making process is centralised more than ever. The nation state government no longer deserve their individual citizens. Not only the authoritarian political structure but also the counterpart called the Liberal-Democracy put priority on the interests of the few number of the politically powerful peers not allowing to reflect the opinion of the majority individuals.  By referring to the P2P (Peer To Peer) system, it might be far more effective to install the spontaneous order based on the multiple interactions of individuals without any centralised structure. The spirit of the participation will encourage these autonomous individuals to voluntarily improve their living standard by taking advantage of the remarkably developed information technology. 

Social issues:

Suicide and Community

http://art-blue-liberalism.blogspot.com/2021/11/suicide-and-community.html

Tolerating Uselessness

http://art-blue-liberalism.blogspot.com/2022/05/tolerating-uselessness.html

Manifesto Spiritual Libertarian - the Libertarian for the coming age of Ying 陰

http://art-blue-liberalism.blogspot.com/2022/06/manifesto-spiritual-libertarian.html

The polarisation between the ruling class and the useless class rises in the society of the entire world. Those who are not "conforming" of producing the enough productivity fulfilling the interests of the ruling class are often socially excluded. As the factors of production demand individuals with conforming skills and talents more and more, more individuals tend to be labelled as "useless". so that their meaning of living is taken away and eventually falling into the state of the Anomie (normlessness). It is the time to rebel against the fixed norms and values imposed by the ruling class to emancipate individuals and their spirit to imagine and eventually form the new alternative liberating the autonomous individuals!

Japan The End (Friendly investment advice)

 Many immigrant workers are now leaving Japan because of the current income decline on the top of the excessively hard-working environment. As a matter of fact, Thai wage is so higher than Japanese counterpart that it is not beneficial for these South-Eastern Asians to pay various high costs for their relocation to Japan. This phenomenon represents the end of Japan as an economic power house.

As having mentioned by means of the astrological analysis, Japan will be transformed to be something like the one in the Edo period during the coming two decades. This means that Japan will be furthermore socio-economically and culturally isolated from the rest of the world. The currently ongoing phenomenon caused by the economic power decline can be see as the prelude of the end of Japan!

As having mentioned several times, the Japanese government are reluctant to implement any countermeasure against Japan's socio-economic collapse at all. Well, this is also the responsibility of Japanese nationals electing the same incompetent government perpetuating the multiple decade long recession. These Japanese national citizens are also reluctant to rationally evaluate their own political actions.

It is obvious that Japan will shift to the further decline of its economic and cultural initiative in the world. Because of the declining fertility rate and the reluctance of both the government and the general public for investment to education, the human capital development will be considerably slowed down.This will lead to the further productivity plunging. 

 Moreover, the current Japanese situation also deteriorates its best advantage of seducing consumption and investment which is the service industry. Japan used to be a popular foreign tourist destination because of its once high service quality of its hospitality businesses. By contrast, the declining motivation of Japanese citizens for their daily life as well as business has started to be discouraged.

Only the tradition left in Japan is its highly bureaucratic culture. These Japanese citizens are still loyal to their bureaucratic order even with its notorious inflexibility. The quality of their consistency in office works, factory lines, and corruption prevention in both private and public sector administration will remain as its little left virtue. However, it guarantees that Japan will become a more boring and inflexible place to live for majority autonomic individuals due to the very tight margin of deviation from its rigid social norms and values.

The level of creativity is dropping down in Japan. As seen in the current trend of the subcultural products such as its animation and gaming industries, the brand-new products attracting audiences with a fresh impression is slumping. Instead, most of the well sold products are those of the remakes of the old series whose original ones were created last century. 

Then, it is ostensible to recognise that Japan is not a feasible place to invest your precious financial resources even it has recently become cheaper to buy the assets there due to the current Japanese Yen (JPY) depreciation. The aggregate productivity of Japan will plunge furthermore especially due to the human capital decline. 

The best option to purchase the Japanese assets will be investing to only those which are merged or annexed to the multinational firm. The foreign executives are much more competent to replace the irrational endogenous policies and mentalities of Japanese firms. In addition, majority Japanese are subservient to their authorities regardless of their ethnic origin so that they follow the reformed management policies implemented by these multinational shareholders. Combining the rational management by foreign executives and shareholders and the loyal labour-force is an attractive characteristic for investors.

Only the legitimate and productive purpose of living in Japan for foreigners is having a Japanese significant other i.e., a spouse, a loving partner, a concubine, etc. Japanese tend to have their day-dreaming nostalgic image in foreign worlds and often seek the foreign DNA of these individuals coming from abroad. Therefore, even under the socioeconomic deprivation, living in Japan for these foreigners with a Japanese significant other might enjoy their stay in Japan because their significant other and her/his family and relatives will protect you somehow even in a socioeconomic hardship. 

Overall, it is already Japan the end, and its beginning has already taken place. There will be no such once a major economic superpower nation state called Japan: The remaining there is the empty shell of its unproductive inflexible bureaucratic structure and the hopeless mobs simply as the remnants of this ethnicity barely nesting this archipelago. Because of the coming decades of the macroeconomic winter, the aggregate investment volume in the world is likely to fall so that there will not be enough investment flowing into Japan. Nobody will not notice Japan's existence, the remote edge of the world which only the few will show their interest in the existence of, any more.

The Japanese Anarchist Communism

The current world socioeconomic situation is still gloomy. In particular, the socioeconomic situation of Japan is indeed depressing. On the top of the multiple decades of the income growth stagnation, the current stagflation (output stagnation + price inflation) perpetuated by the Japanese Yen (JPY) depreciation in the foreign currency exchange deteriorates individual citizens' daily life. The growing mental illness issues as well as the rising suicide rate are worrying as the sign of the moral and social crisis. Is it the problem of Japan itself? Or is it different from how Japan originally was? In the past, there was a political theory introduced as the antithesis of adopting the modern Western industrialisation and materialist ethics to Japan. So, let's evaluate.

In Japan, there were some politicians who were advocated to Anarchist Communist before the World War 2 (WW2). Even though this policy was not put into practice in real, this political movement was influential to the various contemporary rebellious political factions against the contemporary Western capitalist imperialism. This influence is non-negligible for explaining the spiritualism of the contemporary status quo Touseiha administration during the WW2 despite their different political characteristics.

A former Japanese government bureaucrat 柳田国男 (Kunio Yanagida) was inspired by an Anarchist Communist philosopher Kropotkin whereas he was a strong Japanese nationalist at the same time. Yanagida had a unique attitude towards the issue of the Japanese monarchy Tenno system. He attempted to restore the pre-modern traditional Tenno system linked to the original Shinto shamanism while criticising the current modern monarchism strongly tied up with the modern nation state and its modern state capitalism. His own plan was to establish an Anarchist Communist state of Japan based on the decentralised pastoralist environment where all the autonomous individual habitants mutually cohabit together with their own free will.

Yanagida was sceptical about adopting the modernisation to Japan because its nation state and capitalism seemed to have deteriorated Japan and her citizens despite its promise for improving their lifestyle with the materialistic development. The modern nation state capitalism not only prioritise those elites living in the top structure but also discourages the voluntary contributions of individuals and their community aiding individuals together. The free trade which the modern capitalism insists on interrupts an autocratic individual living in their own unique lifestyle by imposing the instant materialist seduction. This seduction to the instant materialistic pleasure has undermined the peaceful pastoralist environment providing individual habitants with the humble but well-secured lifestyle.

The theory of Gaia explains that the centre pole of the world energy flow has already been shifting from London, the U.K. to Awaji Island, Japan (Known as the sacred birthplace of Japanese civilisation blessed by the divine pair of Izanami, the Goddess of creation, and Izanagi, the God of creation, in Shinto mythology). This implies that the political and spiritual domination is shifting from Anglo-Saxon regime to Japanese counterpart. Majority spiritualists describe that this is the drastic shift from the materialistic masculine 陽 (Yang) element to the spiritualist feminine 陰 (Ying) element. This may induce the decay of the modern industrialist characteristic of the modern Japan as well as the reincarnation of the mystic shamanistic matriarchy of the ancient Shinto-ist Japan.

By means of understanding this theory of Gaia, it can be worth off to re-evaluate the Anarchist Communism explained by Yanagida. The material prosperity will be lost furthermore due to Japan's further insolation from the global economic network caused by Japan's loss of its economic initiative. On the other hand, Japan will start focusing more on the non-material beings such as the local community network and the spiritual well beings. The interesting factor nowadays is that the number of Japanese citizens practising some spiritual rituals as their daily habit such as chanting mantra and playing Yoga is increasing. This phenomenon seems to gradually initiate the spiritualist pastoralism introduced by Yanagida.

The totalitarian state communism based on the nation state statism backed up by the orthodox Marxism is an obsolete rebellion countering the modern industrialism and the capitalist ideology. The orthodox Marxism contains an intensive Yang element which is the cohesive paternalistic autocracy inducing a high risk of provoking a war and other excess conflicts. Therefore, this intensive Yang characteristic will not be accepted by the world shifting to more Ying characteristics.

The idea of Communism should not be monopolised by the orthodox Marxists; There is a variety of Communism which actually challenges against the orthodox Marxian style and is compatible with Liberalism. There have been various new political philosophical movements of challenging the combination of capitalism and modern nation state government. Michel Foucault was a remarkable philosopher accusing the oppressive characteristics of the entire modernity. 

Foucault's philosophy is often criticised as an anachronistic because he seemed to romanticise the pre-modern feudalist society to a certain extend. Yet, his theory clarifies how the emerging modernity with its nation state and capitalism has deteriorated individuality of autonomous individuals by forcing the conformity to the ruling class interests and the entire monstrous mechanism of the modern nation state. His idea was to respect each unique characteristic of individuals not undermined by an institutionalised socioeconomic structure, and his policy is often introduced as the postmodern Anarch-Syndicalism. 

Perhaps, this postmodern Anarchist Communism introduced by Michel Foucault might emerge in the future Japan when the aforementioned energy power pole-shift from the Anglo-Saxon Yang to the Japanese Ying is completed. It will be the ideology combination of Foucault and Yanagida to establish a postmodern mutualist socio-economy if it is realised. This will be a synthesis of the pastoral communitarian cooperative virtue and the postmodern individualistic enlightenment challenging against the paternalistic authoritarianism of the modern nation state and capitalism. 

All in all, if Communism rises to counter Capitalism, this might be predicted to be in Japan by referring to both the political science and the theory of Gaia. Perhaps, the current suffering of Japan might be the birth-pang for transforming the current modern nation state capitalist Japan into the new alternative such as this pastoral mutual cooperative state of Anarchist Communist kind.

To divert Stagflation, the conservative macroeconomic measure prevails

 

The whole world is struggling with Stagflation which is derived from the combination of two words, stagnation (of the output) and (the price) inflation. This is also called the bad price inflation by all the economic theoretical perspectives regardless of their controversiality of defining the inflation effect on economy. The lacking aggregate supply repressing economy causes both the cost push for the suppliers and the real income depreciation of consumers and investors. This is the macroeconomic phenomenon nobody welcomes.

The last major Stagflation in the past took place in 1970s when the oil price shot up while the dependency of the major economies on the oil was already substantially high. At that time, many economists especially from the self-proclaimed liberal side or the left-leaning side supported to increase the aggregate demand. Their assumption supported the Philips curve theory assuming that the price inflation rate and the unemployment rate are negatively correlated to each other. Their main reasons are the inflations lowers the real wage of employees (i.e., the cost of employers to hire), and also stimulates the entire market economic activities. Then, they suggested that the perpetuation of the inflation was more tolerate-able than the perpetuation of the declining output.

These pro-inflationary economists expect that the inflation of both the demand push (good) and the supply short (bad) stimulates the market economy with a high incentive of consumption, investment, and production supply. Then, this stimulated market multiplier is anticipated to increase the output growth which offsets all the negative effects of the inflation. Therefore, instead of controlling the inflation, they tolerated the ongoingly rising inflation by overestimating the positive effects while underestimating the negative effects of leaving the high inflation at the contemporary time period. This is why they advised the contemporary government to inject more money instead of tightening it.

Nevertheless, in reality, the negative effects of the price inflation such as increasing  suppliers' costs and depreciating the real income of citizens were more significant than their assumed positive effects. The inflation has rather discouraged the production motivation of suppliers because of the surging cost prices. The incentive of consumers' consumption expenditure and asset investment was hardly stimulated. These citizens rather suffered from the lack of reasonable employment opportunity and the depreciation of their real income taking account of their living cost. The excess money backed up by the government expenditure flowing into the contemporary economy did not seem to have improved the quality of the contemporary socioeconomic environments.

This is the time that the anti-inflationary conservative economic theorists, most notably Monetarists, emerged as the counter-revolutionary against these self-proclaimed liberals and the left leaning economists. They claimed for the extermination of the price inflation even by incurring the negative output gap (slowing or penalising an economic production level) in the short run. Their conservative measure against the inflation was detested by many contemporary citizens whereas it succeeded in stimulating the macroeconomic performance deserving these citizens in consequence later.

First of all, the interest rate must rise for suppressing the excess flow of money even as well as preventing the real interest rate from being substantially low. Secondly, they are highly sceptical about the positive effects of the price inflation such as the incentive for suppliers supplying more and the motivation of investors and consumers purchasing more. Instead, they insist on the bad side effects of the perpetuated inflation rather than the temporary shrinking output level.

 Nowadays, the US government and the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) as well as the European central banks are aware of this lesson in the past so that they decided to raise the interest rate and tighten the money supply even by slowing the economy down further with still hunting socioeconomic sufferings from the pandemic. What the current US government under the Democratic party administration is imposing some unnecessary regulations on business activities in spite of the still stagnant world economy, which seems to be rather irrelevant to suppressing the inflation. Therefore, the current US policy of the interest rate as well as the quantitative tightening are something not to blame for the current stagnant performance of the US economic policy.

On the other hand, the current Japanese government performance under this currently ongoing Stagflation is notably poor. They are reluctant to raise the interest rate even with both the surging price inflation and the Japanese Yen (JPY) value depreciation in the foreign exchange. The reason of both the current government and the Bank of Japan (BoJ) rejecting the interest rate rise has been explained in another article so please kindly find it to read. In addition, they still keep their loose money supply as favouring their peer corporations while the majority Japanese citizens are suffering from the income shortage in their daily life. 

The other suspicious phenomenon is that the opposition parties present no effective policy against the current stagnation. In Japan, no party promises to raise the interest rate at all whereas their manifesting policies are only the temporary countermeasure against this ongoing Stagflation such as tax cut. Even if tax cut may offsets the real income depreciation by sparing the disposable income, the steadily increasing price level caused by the surging costs of both domestic suppliers and imports will depreciate their income furthermore in the middle run. Moreover, investors are less likely to split their extra income gained from tax cut to invest it into their domestic capital market because the currently ongoing currency depreciation is steadily reducing the assets value in the domestic market.

In the meantime, Japanese politicians should be concentrated on tackling Stagflation at first for the time being. The interest rate rise as well as the quantitative tightening are supposed to be implemented.  In particular, the money supply to those corporations of the government peer group must be tightened because it seems to be excess and unnecessary under the current macroeconomic environment. Otherwise, the damage which Japan and its majority citizens will suffer will be even more severe soon. Their real income depreciation will keep steadily impoverishing the majority Japanese citizens.

In conclusion, the pragmatic policy implementation is the key to solve the suddenly emerging problem by referring to the past example of solving it. At the time of Stagflation in particular, the conservative measure is worth implementing even through not supporting the conservative policies in general.

Long life

 The life expectancy of human individuals in the world has significantly extended so these individuals will eventually tend to live up to 100 years old or beyond unless there is any unexpected accident threatening their life happening before then. At the same time, more individuals nowadays tend to complain about their lack of opportunities for increasing their income gain, improving their career path, and offering a reasonably satisfactory future for the next generation. Mediocrity, misery, and hopelessness are haunting their life even longer than the past. Have these individuals become happier with their longer life expectancy? Let's consider it. 

Focusing on the retiring age, many countries used to set it as 60 years old while some countries have extended it to 65 or even 70. Up to the middle of the last century, many workers died off before turning to be 70 years old, so they claimed to spare their leisure time left before their death after their retirement. By contrast, their time left left after their retirement is almost 3 decades which are way too long to spare for their joblessness. The pension scheme is no longe sustainable to prop up the budget for looking after these jobless elder individuals. The budget incapability is derived from not only the increasing elderly population but also the shrinking fertility rate of the newer generations. 

The technological development is so superb nowadays that many firms and a few fortunate elite individuals enjoy their microeconomic advantages. At the same time, the entire world economy is shifting toward the capital intensive rather than the labour intensive which implies that the labour demand i.e., employment is shrinking. Furthermore, the opportunity of improving their income and career path requires more demanding skill-sets and merit for firms to hire them with a reasonable wage. Recently, the certain degree of the equality of outcome for individuals is more essential to accomplish the equality of opportunity than it used to be.  However, the socioeconomic policies of the current world are still neither competent nor generous enough to offer such an opportunity for majority individuals. 

The fertility rate is dropping down in majority of developed countries. Even though these residents enjoy their surrounding physical resources of their national economy, the distribution of their access is restricted. The main cause is that the inequality of their disposable income and their social mobility opportunity is expanding due to the shrinking macroeconomic market multiplier. Therefore, their desperation for their future prevents them from bearing their offspring, and they struggle to escape from their own mediocrity and desperation. 

In addition to the physical life expectancy expansion, the psychological feeling of life has become longer for the majority world citizens lacking the opportunity to access the lucrative lifestyle. These individual citizens may find their life is indeed longer than the minority elites enjoying their lucrative lifestyle. They feel like spending longer time to pass when human individuals spend their time spend as boring, miserable, and/or painful than when they spend it exciting, attractive, and/or pleasantly instead. Therefore, the tittle is simply "Long life" to think of what the "long" of the "long" life implies. 

Economic policies should exist to make the majority individuals happy while ensuring that even the least fortunate members of their society enjoy the basic civil cultural standard of living. It is not a matter of different economic policy perspectives. Regardless of supporting the market economy or the collectivist economy, the objective taking the whole environments where individuals cooperate to cohabit in a civic society into consideration must exist. Otherwise, there is no raison d'etre of the study of economics. 

In addition, everyone must be proactive enough to adjust themselves to the new paradigm of this world without being restrained by the obsolete norms and values. Many individuals still believe in or are forced to adapt to these obsolete norms and values having existed in the early past of the last century. Neither company nor government will guarantee their job and income security due to the aforementioned factors. So, they must not be reactive to what their belonging institutes such as companies and government direct them. Instead, they has better continuously look for a better opportunity for a new employment, going back to schooling, or sparing some free time to re-think of their own life philosophy. 

In liberal-democratic countries, the majority individual citizens still have their own responsibility of electing their own governmental party allowing the elite bureaucrats ignoring these previously mentioned factors. Perhaps, they are still enlightened enough to understand their own life situation well. It is often important to be more egoistic to protect themselves to realise such factors. When a person cannot make her/himself happy, this person cannot deserve the others well.  They key is the positive energy flow of one person energising her/him to enable her/him to entertain and help the others.

The government and the corporations taking the initiative in the market economy take an advantage of it by forsaking the majority citizens. Thus, these individual citizens are ought to be angry and more selfish to insist on their needs and wants without being restraint by the altruistic norms and values. In addition, they should be egoistic also to be honest for themselves without compromising their own desires and dreams even if the others disagree or become excessively being worried about this attitude. Hence, the most ostensible, practical, and simple answer to solve this problem is to "Live your own life" regardless of its physical or psychological length of life.

Explaining how expensive electricity is in Japan: Explained with the case of paper business

Especially after having turned nuclear power plants in Japan off since the last nuclear accident in Fukushina in March 2011, electricity in Japan is considerably expensive.  Even before then, it was expensive compared to the other countries because of its relatively heavier reliance on the thermal power plant fuelled with fossil fuels imported from abroad. 

It is difficult to explicitly display how expensive it is in Japan because there are so many variables to be compared with the significance of the electric power price influencing an economy there. So, one industrial case is introduced here to explain how significant Japanese electric price is as a significant variable cost incurred upon this industry.  This is paper manufacturing introduced here as an explicit example

Pulp is the base raw material of papers manufactured by a paper machine. Paper manufacturing needs cellulose fibres obtained most notably from woods. The more expensive finer alternative material can be cotton.

There are mainly two methods of producing pulp: chemically processed one and mechanically processed one.  The chemical pulping process uses chemicals and heat to convert woods into pulp meanwhile the mechanical pulping process grinds woods by mechanically defibrating wooden fibres into pulp.

The price of chemical components tends to influence the chemical pulp price whereas the usage volume of machinery consuming the high-volume electricity affects the mechanical pulp price. Supply of the chemical materials is often volatile and requires their characteristics of quality to match a particular level for pulping.

The mechanical pulping is not so prone to the conditioning as much as the chemical counterpart. Electricity is electricity whatever and whenever it is produced. The general specification of these pulping machines is not extensively dissimilar to each other in this world. 

In terms of the ordinary world situation, the former is more expensive than the latter, so the proportion of which pulp content to use determines the quality of papers as follows:

• 上質 (directly translated as "high quality") : "Fine" paper/pulp: Chemical pulp 100%
• 中質 : Medium quality": Mix of chemical pulp and mechanical pulp.

However, this is the way around in terms of Japanese paper & pulp business. The latter can be more expensive than the former despite their naming. This is because the latter requires to consume higher-volume electricity while their pulping processes. This factor indicates how expensive electricity generated in Japan even while taking the volatile chemical supply and price into consideration.

Having observed this paper business case, Japan is indeed urged to increase a far more efficient method of generating electricity overall. This current high electric bill price suppresses both business growth and individuals' utility by squeezing their household budget as an unavoidable cost for these activities. 

Nuclear power generation should be reactivated at least to repress the currently already intolerable cost inflation.  Perhaps, the research and development (R&D) inventing a new technology allowing Japan to fundamentally overcome from the high electricity generation cost is worthwhile to implement even its feasibility is questionable for the time being. 

The imaginable example is the nuclear fusion possibly enabling to supply the electricity satisfying the total demand of the entire Japan maybe even by replacing all the other existing electric power plants. It can be rather more productive to invest into efforts and time into increasing this feasibility to accomplish building this functional nuclear fusion power plant. 

 -

I consider that the nuclear power technology should be considered as a public good so I claim for the integration to a good government management or at least the civic-cooperative management looked after by several private individuals (The Classical Economics) rather than the current administration by one single private gigantic corporation detached from the fair market competition!

Well, this nuclear management industry has such a humongous economic of scale whose competition is nearly infeasible. So, I recommend either the full integration (the cohesive monopoly under a single public body such as government) or a cooperative management (classical economics example: democratically managed by several individuals living in this community)

JPY negative interest rate i.e. the inflation tax!

JPY holders are now experiencing the negative real interest rate steadily depreciating our real income, sigh. 

Interest rate r_US > r_Jp. ∴ Money Demand: MD_US > MD_JP
Furthermore, I detest the current Japanese interest rate policy. Usually, the nominal interest rate  is supposed to rise to offset the price inflation rate (ΔP) to keep the real interest rate (r - ΔP: what actually influences the money value held by the savers and the national debt investors) zero at lowest to make it fair and functional. 

The severe problem of Japan is that the current real interest rate for JPY is "negative (-)" which substantially discourages the money demand as well as reduces the real income value (income value depreciated by the price inflation). This is called the inflation tax because the price inflation works as though it were the tax imposed by government allowing the central bank to issue the excess money supply causing the price inflation depreciating the income. Because the inflation rate equally affects all individuals holding JPY, this is indeed a regressive tax (taxing proportionally more to the poorer but less to the rich)!!!!!

The reason why JPY interest rate has neither been raised nor seemed to rise soon is that the Bank of Japan (BoJ) is neglecting the interest rate rise despite this inflation. Actually, the Japanese government reject raising the interest rate because it is more likely to trigger the potential bankruptcy caused by their national debt interest payment overwhelming their budget. ......... thus, JPY holders are now literally experiencing the negative real interest rate steadily depreciating their real income.

Some very rich famous people must have predicted this world economic situation since ages ago. He's accumulated physical gold ingots in his own safe. The current world situation is really dodgy! ... under such a chaotic world situation, I'm thinking of you, my dear friends. Praying for safety of you and your family.

 

 

 

Retrospective Astrological Analysis: French Revolution and Edo-Period were while Pluto was crossing the acendant of Aquarius

 

Let's make a prediction of the coming age of Pluto crossing the ascendant of Aquarius between 24th March, 2023 and 9th March, 2043 in terms of the retrospective perspective. At the last time Pluto was crossing the ascendant of Aquarius, the French revolution broke out in Europe while Tokugawa Dynasty secured its stability with Sakoku (the national Isolation policy) for 3 centuries in Japan. This provides some ostensible image of what the foreseen world outlook will be. 

Furthermore, in the astrological cycle before the previous one of Pluto crossing the ascendant of Aquarius, Martine Luther printed the first edition of Holy Bible in German as the first attempt of publishing it in other than Latin, which induced the Protestant reformation.  This infers that Pluto crossing the ascendant of Aquarius induces a revolution and the instability challenging the status quo, and it expects for the advantages and the disadvantages of this time period also coming soon. 

From 2023, it is obvious that the further technological advancement is anticipated. In particular, the field of data science and the artificial intelligence (AI) will be furthermore remarkable then.  This outcome will be revolutionary enough to trigger the drastic change in individuals' norms and value such as these previously provoked revolutions in the history in the world.  

On the other hand, the economic outlook will not be so positive that many individuals still feel materially desperate despite the technological development. The employment will decrease due to the rising capital intensive industrial model.  As Prof. Yuval Noah Harari , the author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, has predicted, the human individuals will be divided in the newly emerging social classes called the super class and the useless class.  Therefore, the wealth distribution is less likely to be stimulate as much as it has been. 

By referring to the previous historical events and outlooks, the age when Pluto crossing the ascendant of Pluto was the age of political and economic instability while newly innovative mindsets were developed.  Until Pluto started crossing the ascendant of Pisces, the instability had continued until the new regime overtook the position to finally stabilise the world situation.  The interesting characteristic was that Europe encountered with the French revolution while Japan cut the tie with foreign countries while Pluto crossing the ascendant of Aquarius last time.  The phenomenon expected to take place will be somehow similar, it maybe predicted as. 

Europe nowadays is still haunted with a decade long recession since the last world financial crisis from 2008.  As same as the past, various political factions are existing and antagonising the other counterparts so that the stable decision making process improving the European socio-economic situation is less likely to be implemented.  Because of the wide spread relative poverty problem due to the economic stagnation might trigger some form of revolution or at least a reformation when majority of European people become no longer able to repress their frustration. 

 By contrast, Japan is the country where people hardly take an initiative to challenge the status-quo.  Nowadays, owing to the mislead Japanese governmental policies, Japan is still difficult to overcome from the economic recession and the ever growing social problems for the multiple decades.  As this perpetuation does not seem to be ended, the economic and political status of Japan will be furthermore depreciated.  Then, many skilled foreigners, having come to Japan for their economic reasons, will start leaving Japan from then on.  In addition, Japan will lose the initiative in their world trade deals so that the export-import volume will decrease. Therefore, even though it is not the government's policy, Japan will be in the situation resemblance to the Sakoku policy during Edo-period.  

Another interesting prediction in terms of the spiritual world theories, Gaia-theory/hypothesis infers that Japan will be the next world model after the end of the Anglo-Saxon's regime as the world model.  At the same time, the next world model lead by Japan will be the Yin 陰 as contrary to the Yang 陽 of the last Anglo-Saxon counterpart.   This implies that the world of the materialist prosperity will be replaced by the world of the spiritualism.  

Summing up these points, it can be predicted that the mind of people in the world will start shifting from their material interests to their spiritual and mental interests in their life while they are losing their material prosperity.  The reason why Japan will reign as the world model then will not be because of its material power.  Instead, Japan will be the country experiencing the fastest pace of losing their material prosperity.  In terms of what Gaia theory explains, Japanese people will also be the fastest ones realising their initiative of placing a higher priority on non-material beings than the others while experiencing the harsh material hardship.  

This is pretty much the foreseen situation resemblance to Edo-period where people and their nation Japan developed their unique interesting culture while suffering from the various hardships such as the oppressive feudalism, several famines and natural disasters, and no freedom of travelling to and trading with foreign countries.  The isolation and the material deprivation of Japan are quite reasonably predictable as seen in the current outlooks.  

All in all, the coming two decades will be the age of revolution and socio-economic and political instability.  Moreover, the contrast of the civilisation shift between Europe and Japan will be remarkable and the history may repeat.

 

守れ、日本国憲法！国民の文化的生活水準の確保(憲法第二十五条)と平和憲法(憲法第九条)のためなら天皇制廃止を妥協してでも護憲派を貫きましょう！

国民の文化的生活水準の確保(憲法第二十五条)と平和憲法(憲法第九条)のためなら天皇制廃止を妥協してでも護憲派を貫きましょう！ 日本国の再軍備を何としてでも阻止するためにも日本国ができるだけ戦禍から遠ざかることを切に願わんばかりです。国民の文化的生活水準の確保(憲法第二十五条)と憲法第九条を守るためなら天皇制廃止を妥協せざるをえなくても平和憲法の護憲派の立場を貫きたい所存でございます。

おそらく確実に世界中での貧富の差は拡大し、そこで世界中の裕福層は自分達の利権保護のために進化し続けるテクノロジーを駆使していくでしょう。その中でその他大勢を支配していくためには、各国に人種や国籍を問わず彼等の傀儡を何人か置いておいてシステムを運営しながら間接的に大衆個人等から収奪していくシステムが既に確立しているからです。

もう一度言います、文化的生活水準の確保(憲法第二十五条)と平和憲法(憲法第九条)のためなら天皇制廃止を妥協してでも護憲派を貫きましょう！

実は改憲の動きが強まっているのも小生が今年、日本を出る予定です。数年前に帰国せざるを得ない理由がございました。しかし諸々の事象があり現在ではもうこの国に未練が無くなりました。親族との縁を切る覚悟でこの際日本国から足を洗う決意ができました。まだ彼の地での生活基盤は確立しておりませんが、餓死や事故死も覚悟してでも外国へ渡る決心がつきました。それでも腐っても我が母国、少しでもこれ以上状況が悪化しないことを切に願います。その一つとして現存のリベラルな憲法は最後の砦です。憲法を甘くみている人々が大きいですが、意見主張する際の原則として存在するため羅針盤としても大切な存在意義があります。そこだけでも日本国の存続意義のためにも切望し続けております。

 

そして女系天皇の支持もよろしく！小生は現在の日本国憲法の維持および女系天皇の容認を認める条件で支持します。

小生は現在の日本国憲法の維持および女系天皇の容認を認める条件で支持します。今まで徹底的に天皇制廃止を望んでいた小生ですが、日本に帰国してから◎ゆちゃんとひ★☆ちゃんと出会ってから彼女みたいなめんこいおなごなら象徴として崇拝するのも悪くないと感じました。そして最初はAKB48とその信者をバカにしていたことがございましたが、地方勤続時代にフォーチュンクッキーというお店がございましてそこの嬢等と戯れているうちにアイドル萌悪くないんじゃないの、AKB48総選挙万歳！っと思うようになりあのアイドルっ子たちが天皇になるんだったら天皇制を支持しても良いかなとも思い始めてきました。それこそ古来日本の神道のあるべき姿に帰化すると思いまして、柳田国男先生のアナーキスト民俗学との整合性も取れてvery good だと思います！

Strange Daily JPY Negative Correlation with TOPIX

It is said that Japanese Yen (JPY) moves awkwardly in the market because JPY tends to be appreciated while Japanese economy indicates the sign of downturn at least in the short run. This trend is often perpetuated even in the middle run. This surprises majority investors observing JPY trends.

In the long run, this awkward trend of JPY is usually corrected to follow the major indices of Japanese economy, such as major Japanese corporate stocks, with their positive correlation as same as the other major currencies of OECD countries such as US dollar (USD). Nevertheless, the market almost always demonstrates the notable negative correlation between JPY and a major Japanese stock index such as Tokyo Stock Price Index (TOPIX) while the observers and the participants monitoring it.

Majority of these individuals monitor JPY with the USD, the most traded pair of JPY, so USD/JPY (USD value based on JPY) is frequently used for the main reference to scale the change in JPY value. The following regression analysis based on the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) for the time series analysis assesses this phenomenon by regressing the log difference of daily USD/JPY on the log difference of daily TOPIX in the time series.

*** Please note that the positve correlation of USD/JPY means the negative correlation of JPY/USD, and vice versa ! ***

 

The sign is positive , and its t-value is 13.3 which is way higher than the Dickey-Fuller critical value t = 2.89.

Then, in order to determine whether this time series correlation is valid or just a coincidence with no statistical validity, the residuals (the error terms) of the aforementioned OLS are tested by the autocorrelation analysis as follows. The first difference of the residuals are regressed on the lagged residuals. The test is to detect whether or the error term is corrected itsself, so the eroor correction model is recognised.

The sign is negative, and its t-value is -26.43 so the absolute value is way higher than the Dickey-Fuller critical value 2.89, and then the error correlation model holds.

The equation of this estimates of the autocorrelation is expanded as follows.

Then it can be expressed as shown in the graph below:

This pattern of JPY mechanism is caused by the obsolete transaction system of the entire banking and monetary function. The obsoleteness is characterised by both the inefficient physical mechanical equipment of the currency transaction of money and assets among banks and investors and the rigid traditional bureaucracy of government, central bank, and private banks in Japan.

Whenever, the market participants switch their holding assets with the others, the system requires them to convert their assets to the national currency JPY before purchasing the alternative asset. Furthermore, due to the slow transaction in this inefficiency, there is a significant lag of exchanging different assets. Therefore, it consequently induces them to hold JPY cash in their transaction process.

In addition, majority Japanese citizens have a strong faith in holding cash and the middle to high income Japanese citizens have a remarkably high propensity of saving (This is why the majority share of the government bonds is owned by these middle to high income earners. They have a strong tendency to hold cash all the more when the value of stock, bonds, and other equities started being depreciated. This accelerates the appreciation of JPY during the downturn on the top of the obsolete system inefficiency.

By contrast, during the upward market, the short run JPY depreciation may seem to be depreciated when TOPIX rises. Instead of TOPIX affecting JPY, this case scenario is that the depreciation of JPY causes to stimulate TOPIX because of the two reasons. Japanese economy is a heavily export driving economy so JPY depreciation increases the export demand and the revenue of the exporters trading by means of foreign currencies. Another reason is simply because of the transactional motive of the traders attempting to mitigate the fincial loss of their revenue from the depreciated JPY by replacing JPY with the other foreign currencies or any available, safe, and stable assets.