My opinion this week(228):

Victory of LDP and Koizumi Reform

 LDP and ruling parties made a land slide victory in the Upper House
election. It is said that Koizumi Reform platform has been supported by
the majority of Japanese people. Is it really true? Thanks to popularity
of Koizumi, many anti reform group of law makers who are closely tied up
with specific industries and Ministries have been elected. Another ones
elected are so call talent diet members from sport and entertainment world.
They are not professional at all as far as their political sense and 
ability are concerned. How can Koizumi attain the reform under this 
situation?
 
 Koizumu said that he could persuade those group of people in the party 
who oppose to the reform. Koizumi may think it will take time to attain 
some result. The speed is , however, the most important to attain reform.
Both this country and external countries wait for it.

Meanwhile, stock market has greatly declined recently. Many business
recorded bad financial result. Unemployment rate tends to worsen again.
A number of politicians and economists start saying necessity of taking
more aggressive monetary and financial measures to stimulate economy 
we see in the past. Koizumi himself mentioned the importance of proceeding
the reform even under minus economic development. There will be no economic
growth without the reform, he insisted.  His idea will severely oppose to
those group of people who advocate aggressive financial measures.

Personally , I rather support the idea of Koizumi and Takenaka, Minister 
of Economic Planning Agency who put priority on the reform rather than 
conventional economic policies including public works. But there are many
group of people who advocate necessity of aggressive financial measures to
get out of deflation conditions of economy. Masuzoe, who has been newly
elected as a member of LDP of the Upper House strongly stated the need 
soon after the election. Koizumi must face to those anti reform group
in the party to conduct his reform.
 
　The economic policy is not the only issue. Another example is a foreign 
policy. Koizumi is going to visit Yasukuni Shrine on August 15. Foreign
Minister Tananaka is now against it. I hope that Koizumi will not stop
the visit submitted by those pressure. 

I do not say that Koizumi is right in all respects. But I believe he 
should try to execute all what he said so far. He should not follow  to 
any of old political method by making answer with division of two opposite
opinions. He should not also prolong many issues for the future.  

I am not saying that any arbitrary and dogmatic decision is right. But 
Koizumi has got such a big support from people of Japan. He should conduct
all what he promised to the people. That is a leadership as Prime 
Minister.

According to my idea, LDP should have been defeated in this election so
that Koizumi can perform many of restructure reform. If that happened,
there will be some reorganization of political world. There will be
clear cut diversification of groups. The one is aggressive for reform and
the other is not. Then reform will be conducted faster by the reform group.
But that did not happen at this time.

The question remains whether or not Koizumi will really attack the reform
even under a great pressure from the opposition. I sincerely hope that 
he will quickly start taking all necessary actions to conduct reform
which he promised to do for people of this country.

2001/8/4　
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(230):

What's wrong with minus growth?

Economic recession has become very clear according to recent economic 
indices. Many policy makers started saying the need to put some
additional financial measures to stimulate economy. 

When Koizumi Cabinet was formulated , they  put structural reform as
top priority admitting some possibility of minus growth during the reform.
But owing to internal external pressure against the need for some 
additional budgetary measures to vitalize economy, Prime Minister 
Koizumi himself indicated recently some supplementary actions would be
taken to cope with minus growth.

Well, that is the same old story. That kind of process was one of the 
reason why such a huge financial debt has been accumulated so far in
the past year. When it comes to minus growth that we talk about, it is
quite small one say only within 1%. Why is such small number so serious? 
What's wrong with it?

Why is minus growth? Because structure of current economy is old. 
Structure of industries, structure of consumption, etc. are old-fashioned.
Then, Koizumi Cabinet insisted the need to change it admitting some pains 
involved with the reform. 

The biggest problem with minus growth is unemployment. Some safety nets 
are necessary to cope with unemployment. The big surgery, however,  must be
conducted to change a frail constitution of current economy.

This is what has been advocated by Koizumi and people of Japan have expressed
the support in the recent election of House of Councils. I understand that way. 
Why do the Government worry about such trifling minus numbers of economic 
growth at this time?

They should go ahead to perform the most important work now disregarding any
of such voice concerning minus growth.

2001/8/11
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(231):

Purification of Constitution

Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine on August 13th drew a lot of
controversies inside and outside of the country. I will not discuss which
is right or wrong any more at this time. I would like to pinpoint the issue
on the constitution at this time.

Different from criticism from overseas, the criticism on the visit to 
Yasukuni by Prime Minister centered on the point that the visit is the 
violation of the principle of the separation of religion and politics
which is stipulated in the constitution of Japan. In the past, all 
Prime Ministers who visited the shrine had not followed any traditional
Shinto manners paying homage at the shrine. They just vowed once in front
of the shrine so that they could avoid the visit had nothing to do with
any religious conduct.

Koizumi did the same when he visited the shrine at this time. But he 
received so called purification process by a Shinto priest while he 
stood in front of the shrine. Many opposition parties criticized that
the conduct itself is against the principle of constitution mentioned 
above.

That is a stupid argument , I think. Japanese society and politics
have been closely related with the existence of Imperial families. 
Involvement of Shinto ceremony in various phase is tradition and history
by itself. They have nothing to with the article of freedom of religion
stipulated in the constitution. 

All problems derive from here. Too many issues are now being debated 
in the way whether or not they are against the constitution. The existence
of Self Defense Force is another example. There are still a lot of 
argument that SDF is against the constitution which prohibit to start
any military actions except pure defensive warfare.

What is necessary to purify at this time in this country is the constitution
itself. The constitution is now a kind of very absolute value in every
sense. Many ordinary social and political actions are limited under 
the name of constitution. That is no good.
 
I don't mean to deny the importance of the constitution. I want to say
now is the time to purify it. We people of Japan should reconsider
what is the real meaning of various principles of constitution at 
this time.

2001/8/18
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion this week(232):

Counter measures for deflation

 "The lesson that any monetary policies should be quick and bold has been
learned from the experience in the past. World economy is now in recession
and all central banks are requested to have a good sense of inflation 
fighter. The monetary policy announced this morning by FRB of USA drew
a big attention from money market of the world.

 Meanwhile, how will Bank of Japan answer to the criticism from the world
that their monetary policies are always too late, too little? "
---Shinjyu Nikkei Newspaper 8/22---

 The above is the comment concerning inflation and deflation of economy
in Shinjyu of Nikkei Newspaper yesterday. The column cited both inflation
and deflation are sources of troubles if they go too extreme. And they
summed up the column by this last section of the column. 

 Economy is slowing down in US, Europe and Japan and deflation is 
very evident especially in Japan. A strong countermeasure for deflation
is now to be taken by BOJ. That's what the column tried to say, as I
understood. Many Government officials and ruling parties law makers 
think that a countermeasure for deflation is now necessary and had put
a strong pressure against BOJ to take a  monetary policy to ease money 
market. BOJ announced such measure last week bowing to the pressure
from those group of people. Stock prices went up a little bit owing
to the measure but dropped again since then. The message of this 
Shinjyu's column followed after what happned last week.

 The column wanted to say that a kind of bigger money easing action  is 
necessary to stimulate economy. But is it really true? Many other 
economic critics insist that there are enough money already in the market.
Such conventional monetary policy is not quite effective at all any more.   

The issue is deflation. Those Government and ruling parties law makers try 
to guide economy to inflation in one way or the other. Under the current
situation when the chance of any increase in volume is limited, increase
of price of is only way to attain economic growth in the term of GDP. 
Takenaka, Minister of Economic Planning Agency said Government should set
a inflation target to get out of this deflational condition.  

 As one of a consumer and a man living in this society, I have a basic 
doubt about that kind of inflectional measures. Why is such up and down of
GDP so much a big concern ? Deflation, down of prices of any commodities 
and services are good thing for consumers. This is especially true when
there is little chance for income to increase for the time being. What
those policy makers put in mind are banks , for example, rather than
general public. They try to help banks that hold a huge bad debt 
including value degraded stocks real estate and so forth due to deflation. 

 Provided that such inflectional measures were necessary, the next 
question is that are those monetary policies really effective to guide
economy to inflation? The monetary policy is not the only way, isn't it?

 Where are a number of economic restructuring plan they are talking about?
How do they relate to this economic measures they are talking about now?
It seems that they are just taking a kind of short sighted measures
disregarding a long term restructuring of economy of this country. The
integrated meausure are now necessary to boost economy.

2001/8/25
Tadashi HAYASE