My opinion this week(78):
Tacit understanding and debate
As I told earlier, I attended the Shikoku Forum and "tacit understanding",
a traditional Japanese communication, was one of topics in the Sub Committee
I attended.
Most attendants of the Sub Committee agreed with the point that one of the
reason for the chaos of the current society is the lack of communication
capability of the people. In this connection, one attendant said:" Japanese
people today seem to lose their traditional communication capacity described
as tacit understanding. " Japanese people used to have such good capacity of
communication without talking each other too much. They tacitly understand
each other without much verbal communication. Such communication style was
very common among families and even in any communities.
I argued against the assertion. I said: "That way of communication, i.e.
tacit understanding may be a part reason for the lose of communication in the
contemporary Japanese society. It is not necessary for the people to be
talkative. But primary problem of communication capability of Japanese is
the lack of expressing their intention and opinion with clear words. This
is true with not only in Japanese society where values of life of people
are becoming more various but also in any global societies.
I continued to insist that the capability to debate must be trained for
Japanese to supplement such weakness of communication capacity. The man who
mentioned the importance of tacit understanding was against my assertion
immediately. Debating is an argue that is against the spirit of WA
(harmony) which is the most important spirit of Japanese culture.
I expressed my counterargument against that statement. The purpose of
debate is not just to argue but to understand the couterargument logically
and objectively. In many debates, the men in debate are requested to
stand on the another side of debate after standing on one side. People
learn the logic and the background for the opposite views in that way.
This is the way how they improve the communication.
No further discussion was made on this topics in the Sub Committee. I
was not quite satisfied with the discussion because I felt that majority
of people in the discussion group seemed to be for the communication of
tacit understanding rather than such logical approach of communication as
debate.
1998/8/1
Tadashi HAYASE
My Opinion this week(79):
The second defeat
The Obuchi Cabinet has just been born. No other Japanese cabinets have ever
been paid so much attention from the international society on their birth.
Regardless such unpopular comment as "a cold pizza" against the Prime
Minister,we Japanese sincerely hope that the new cabinet will do their best to
overcome many difficult problems to improve the current economy.
It is in the midst of summer vacation. August 15th is the Memorial Day of
the end of World War II. Not many Japanese, especially younger generations
seem to pay little attention on this day these days. But this is a very
important day for us Japanese according to my belief.
53 years ago, Japan accepted the unconditional surrender to the Allied
Forces. Since then, Japan has become the No,2 economic power in the world
recovering from the land of ashes. But the country is now in the second stage
of defeat of the war.
While the U.S. and their economy to which Japan surpassed in many ways in
the recent years, are enjoying prosperity, Japanese economy is now in serious
conditions. Why is this? What is the reason for that? There must be various
reasons for it as a matter of fact. But one definite fact is that the
differentials of two economic powers today derives from the differentials
in the degree of networking systems of two societies.
As you may know, Clinton Administration announced the concept of "information
highway" when their Government had started. They had aggressively conducted
public investment in the area of telecommunication in order to strengthen
networking systems in their society. They encouraged to create a number of
venture businesses in telecommunication fields and helped to stimulate PC
education at schools. As a result, a number of new businesses have been born
and new employment opportunities have been created. Furthermore, productivity
at offices has been improved very much because of computer networking system.
Those are the background for good financial conditions of the U.S. business
enterprises today.
In contrast to the U.S. , Japanese public investment had concentrated
too much on the construction of roads, railways, bridges and so on. This
brought a so called "bubble economy" at the end. One typical example is that
three bridges has been constructed between Honshu and shikoku. I wonder if
they are really economically feasible. It seems that construction of thicker
information bridges will be more important in coming new networking society.
The reason why so many Japanese enterprises are now facing financial
difficulties and are obliged to make reconstructing their business process
seems to be obvious from my point of views. Their business productivity is
poor because their networking system is behind to that of the U.S. business.
To speed up every business processes is a key factor for any business today.
In this respect, constructing an effective network system is one of a major
strategy for any business to survive in sever competition in the market.
It seems that only a few top leaders of Japanese businesses recognize the
importance of this element. The importance of networking system in the society
should also be understood by politicians and Government leaders who are
challenging to improve the serious conditions of Japanese business and economy
today.
1998/8/8
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(80)：
Proposal from IMF
The International Monetary Fund on August 14th presented a package of policy
proposals to revitalize Japan's ailing economy, including a cut in the
national consumption tax and a revamp of the postal savings system.
The Finance Ministry rejected the glum assessment of the Japanese economy
presented by the International Monetary Fund, saying the government has already
taken several measures to revive the economy. More pressure to take extra
actions is expected from Washington in September, when Prime Minister Obuchi
meet U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Many of measures taken so far by the Japanese Government were the result
of pressures from outside worlds. Japan is now in the position to continue
to receive such pressure from all over the world in coming months.
It is true that Japan has become now the No.2 economic power in the world
and their economy is providing a big influence to the economy of the world.
In this sense, it is unavoidable that Japan will receive a number such
requests from many parts of the world concerning their economic policies
and operation.
However, as far as we observe the process and contents of proposal from
IMF, we Japanese should say that IMF intervene in the domestic affairs of
Japan. One of the common point on the proposal or suggestions made by the
outside organizations and countries is that they request first hand measures
which create some concrete and immediate result. It seems that they present
such proposal without considering the real background and problems of Japanese
economy today.
Take a bad loan problem, for example. That is clear issue for anybody. But
when it comes to the issue on how to increase domestic consumption, most
proposal from outside worlds concentrates almost on income tax reduction or
cut of consumption tax rate. The government authorities did not agree with
that direction at the beginning, but they finally followed that course of
action bowing to the outside pressure. I don't agree with that process by
myself.
According to my belief, the present stagnant condition of economy is not
due to weak consumption and/or lack of public investment. The weakness is
more basic structural problems of our economy. No quick and first hand remedy
is possible in the short run. Consumption will not improve so much just by
tax reduction. The Government authorities take that position at first but
they changed their mind owing to a number of pressure from outside. That is
wrong, after all.
If the recovery of Japanese economy is so vital for the world , international
communities should leave all policy matters to Japanese Government. At the
same time, Japanese Government should take a stronger and firmer attitude to
decide the policies by their own judgment rather than obeying the pressure
from outside worlds.
1998/8/22
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(81):
Increase investment and sales in housing industry
65 yen hamburger sales campaign made by Japan Mackdnald Corporation is
a popular topic these days. Needless to say, they increased their sales
greatly with this low pricing. Price destruction was used to be one of a big
topics in business few years ago. It is not so any more under this economic
depression.
However, it is obvious that one of the reason for depressed consumption
today is due to high price of goods and services in the market. I am not
talking about the price of general consumer goods and some durable consumer
goods such as home electric appliances. Their prices are reasonable indeed.
But the price of more basic durable goods such as house is very high compared
with those in other industrialized nations.
As reported recently by newspapers, about 2,000 mansions for sales presented
by Japan Public Housing Corporation are left unsold for long period of times.
The reason is obvious. The price is too high. Those high prices were set in
the bubble days. The corporation tried to sell them with lower price by
reducing the prices to some great extent but they immediately faced a strong
opposition on the lower price from the customer who bought mansions with
higher price earlier. It is quite natural for those customers to get angry
knowing the fact that the corporation is now trying to sell mansions with
price like \40,000,000 while those customers bought them by \50,000.000.
Some private firms may make such price reduction with their own management
risks. That's fine. But public corporation like Japan Public Housing
Corporationthi can never do it as a matter of fact.
Generally speaking, market prices of most real estates such as lands and
houses are going down since the end of bubble. However, prices of housing
remain quite high in Japan. It is in this area where the price destruction
should happen.
The reason why the price destruction has not happened in housing industries
so far are as follows.
The first reason derives from the characteristics of housing business itself.
Those housing firms have just used to sell their goods and services with high
prices in sellers market. They have believed that their prices are reasonable
in any respects. The second reason derives from the various rules and
regulations inherent to this industry. You will know how many papers and
documents must be prepared and be presented to public offices concerned
when you build your own house. How troublesome and expensive those procedures
are! Under so many regulations and laws which exist today, cost of materials
and services are kept high without any free competitive situation today.
As often told, our houses in Japan are kind of poor. Regardless rather high
national income level, housing conditions have often been referred to as " a
rabbit house " by other industrialized nations. In order to increase
consumption, improvement of demand for housing seem to be very necessary. The
housing demand will increase greatly if the prices of houses become 30 to 40%
lower.
In addition to the reduction of prices, housing loan systems should be
improved. Several tax incentive plans should be considered. They are , for
examples, exemption of consumer taxes on the purchase of houses. and some
special tax reductions measures for the purchase.
Housing industries are very synthetic and all round in nature. You can
easily imagine that how many number of materials, components and men's works
are necessary to build a house. We can guess how wide and big their influence
to create demand on economy in terms of consumption and investment.
Government still sticks to those conventional public investments to increase
total demand. Even though, they are classified into the same construction
fields, private house construction should now be given top priority afterall.
All regulations which still exist today should also been eliminated as much as
possible to stimulate free competition and to make price destruction happen in
this market.
1998/8/30
Tadashi HAYASE
English Home Page
Japanese Home Page