Turning Japanese

GISM was a Japanese mid-paced hardcore punk band (with heavy metal influence) formed in Tokyo, Japan in 1980. Even though the guitar style resembled heavy metal style riffs and solos, GISM were one of the first Japanese hardcore bands, while at the same time drawing influence from the early industrial/avant-garde music scene; something extremely uncommon in punk bands at that time.

The acronym GISM had many different variations; they include: God In the Schizoid Mind, Guerrilla Incendiary Sabotage Mutineer, General Imperialism Social Murder, Genocide Infanticide Suicide Menticide* & Gnostic Idiosyncrasy Sonic Militant.

GISM has attained a cult status in the international punk scene, duly for their unique blend of heavy metal and hardcore punk. Several Japanese punk bands have emulated the low-pitched vocal style of Sakevi Yokoyama.

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In Lady Gaga's video for the song "Telephone," released in March of 2010, the performer wears a spiked leather jacket featuring a GISM back patch. Whether Lady Gaga is actually a fan of the band is unclear. However, the director of the music video, Jonas Akerlund, is former member of the Swedish metal band Bathory and could very well be the reason for the jacket's appearance in the video. The jacket also features patches for the UK crust bands Icons of Filth and Doom.

Krugman blogging about stagflation versus hyperinflation and the 1970s:

The kind of inflation we had in the 1970s, the famous era of stagflation -- high inflation combined with high unemployment -- was quite different. Deficits weren’t the issue -- actually, US deficits were much smaller in the inflationary 70s than in the disinflationary 80s. Instead, what you had was a combination of excessively expansionary monetary policies, based on an unrealistic view of how low the unemployment rate could be pushed without causing accelerating inflation (the NAIRU), plus oil shocks that pushed up inflation across the board thanks to widespread cost-of-living clauses in contracts. There was never any risk of hyperinflation; the only question was whether and when we’d be willing to pay the price in high unemployment of bringing inflation back down.

Kinsley seems to be confusing the logic of the natural rate argument, which says that expected inflation gets built into price-setting, so you need an accelerating inflation rate to keep unemployment below the NAIRU, with the very different logic of hyperinflation, which is about people fleeing money.

Meanwhile, for those predicting hyperinflation, my question would be: what is it about the United States now that looks different to you from Japan in say, 2000? Big budget deficits and high debt? Check. Huge expansion in the monetary base? Check. And yet Japan’s GDP deflator has fallen 9 percent since 2000.

 (Lady Gaga: "Prepare to be assimilated.  We will add your 
biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.  You 
will adapt to service us.  Resistance is futile.")

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* "the systematic effort to undermine and destroy a person's values and beliefs, as by the use of prolonged interrogation, drugs, torture, etc., and to induce radically different ideas."