I'm John Batchelor. I welcome my good colleague of many years, Lance Gatling. He's a principal

of nexus research. He's in Tokyo where he's been for many years. My eye on the understanding

of the Japanese economy, which is vital to the success of planet Earth. It is now under the

pressure of the Hormuz crisis more than any other G7 state I could easily name because

I'm told according to Reuters, 95% of Japanese energy is imported. 70% of that comes out of the

Gulf. 70%. That's oil, liquefied natural gas, and other refined products.

In addition to that, we have a dependency on fertilizer, a dependency on trade throughout the region.

And the Hormuz crisis, now in its X number a week, I can't count because it's been on

again, off again, is not allowing anybody

to have good projections. Hence, the price of a barrel of oil these last days went from 0, about

86, then to 115, then to 101. Today it touched, well, no, within these last hours it touched 126. I don't trust any of

these numbers. This is jumping around is completely unreliable. Let's put it this way. There's no

prospect of it returning to the 60s and 70s where it came from before the Iran story. So, Lance, a very good day to you. Takicayanae is new to the job,

but then again, she's an experienced member of the leadership in Japan's apparatus, and she's

not shy about taking charge of an economy that was in recovery.

And now the question mark is, what is the plan going forward, given the energy spike and

given the threat of no predictions of the future? Good day to you, Lance.

Good morning, John.

This marks about six months for Takaichi,

Prime Minister, in office.

And like you said, she's not shy about much of anything.

It's quite pleasant, refreshing to see her nonchalantly grasp various

...