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Comment by spamizbad | Hacker News Reader

I'd take what the author says with a grain of salt; he has a history of making stuff up from whole cloth.

Japan's government debt is awfully high. He hasn't made that up. The demographic situation is also real. And he has mentioned that Japan's debt is mostly domestic debt, which is one reason why Japan has not defaulted yet and why any default could be a stealthier thing than what we know from Latin America or Russia. He also said that it could go on like this for years. So I'm not sure what you find so suspicious about what he says in this article.

Can you provide some references please? I'm unfamiliar with his work.

He blows stuff out of proportion, and writes trollish articles that are popular on link hubs due to their provocativeness. I see a headline predicting doom for any non-British country and a telegraph URL and I know it's him again. His main function seems to be to reassure the Brits that it's much, much worse everywhere else.

Not to mention Yen has been the strongest currency for recent period and Japan is actually fighting deflation. If there is one currency I'd be worried about - it's GBP and less so USD. UK still has not shown any positive fundamentals out of the recession, while others have.

He published a book that claimed Clinton was the head of the Arkansas drug trade, and that the Oklahoma City Bombing was an FBI/DOJ operation.

I'd call him a nutter, but I don't think that's true. I think he's a smart fellow who recognizes that editorials that take extreme stances sell better than ones that don't... and hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

For example?

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