[PYenner]

Yes there is going to be uncertainty at a time that is not good for the markets globally.

Modern Japanese polititians face some impossible challenges.
One of them is how to go down in the history books as something other than a failure. After WW2 Japan adopted a "25 year plan" for industrialization.
It was the greatest economic success of the last century. In cars and in electronics Japan showed the rest of the world how to do it better.

It was a unique plan, a partnership between government and industry to work together with a business plan. Every other country staggered along with no plan and got what it deserved, just as Japan got what it deserved.

Japanese polititians and industry leaders stand in the shadows of visionary giants, in comparison they must see themselves as lacking.

But it could be worse, try being a polititian in Russia. Do you see something like a 25 year plan in action there, or something more like a road to nowhere?

For better or worse, Japan also showed the rest of the world how to follow its example. China and India now work towards industrialization but in bringing themselves out of the third world, they risk bringing the first world downwards for the first time in history.

This generation of Americans is the first to have a lower standard of living than their parents. Japan and the rest of the developed world face that future too.

If you go back further in history, the rise of the Greek then Roman cultures was followed by a collapse into the Dark Ages and then came the renaissance from which the modern world regrew.

Has the first world reached its peak and from here on, is there a slide until some culture comes up with an answer, a new 25 year plan?
I see no great vision on the horizon.

Where are the likes of the great American leaders now?
Why does the world face decay for lack of a vision?
Why have we had 30 years of braindead clueless polititians?
Are we about to get what we deserve, the reward for being a TV junkie couch potato, brain dead and going nowhere, a B grade movie for a future?

Or maybe I should have just said yes, the markets seem to be waiting to see which way to jump next. We live in interesting times.