My opinion of this week(248):

One of a Japanese saying says : "When wind blows, coopers make money." 
It means there always exist some complicated cause and effect relationship
on what happens in this world. But I never imagine that the sales of
brand goods increased greatly in Japan since the terrorism occurred on
September 11 in New York.

I read the article in a newspaper. Since that terrorism happened on September
11th, overseas trips have decreased to a great extent not only in Japan
but also in any parts of worlds. That was expected from the beginning.
Sales of all other consumer goods including expensive brand goods also
decreased worldwide since that day. Surprisingly enough, however, sales of
brand goods have increased in Japan in reaction to decrease of overseas
tourism. 

It was realized fact that Japanese are still rich enough to buy such 
expensive brand goods.

I happened to make a call to one of my friend who is working for a medium
size securities firm. His firm is not doing well due to deflation trend 
in recent economy. He asked my comment on it. So I said that Japanese in
general are very rather poor in way of thinking and actions in their daily
life. It seems that they rather lack imagination and various ideas for 
their life styles in new days to come. I wonder if my friend understood
what I meant to say.

Although consumer have some money to spend, consumption is still quite 
stagnant at the moment in Japanese economy. The question is how they will
use them. Overseas trips were major expenditure in the past. Because 
overseas trips have been restrained since that accidents, the money spent 
for trips have been shifted to buying brand goods. That is what happened
in recent months.

I won't say buying brand goods is no good. I rather want to say that 
why they won't have many more options to spend money if they have money.

Why not? Because Japanese in general do not have enough imagination for
new lifestyle to establish in 21st century. Not much imagination and
dreams to enjoy some kind of new life style. Their life style is still
quite stereo type.

I tried to explain something like this to my friend at a securities
firm. It seems that he did not understand what I want to say at all.


2001/12/1
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(249):

Award for top ten popular words

 Jiyu Kokumin Publishing Company, a publisher of best-selling "Basics
of Contemporary Glossaries" announced awards for top ten most popular
words of this year. It is interesting to observe them every year to 
know the significance of events and accidents happened in that year.

Any details are not told here, but there were so many very interesting
new popular words in this year. That, I understand, means a big change
of the world is going on and now is the time of transition for the 
change. Another meaning is that Japanese society is becoming more
characteristic and more individual rather than uniform and stereo-
type. It is desirable and significant change by itself. 

Several words told by Junichiro Koizumi since he became the Prime Minister
have been selected as top ten. They are,  for example, "Reform without 
sanctuary","100 bale of rice", "thick bone policies", etc. Compared with
many of former Prime Ministers, he told his beliefs and policies by his
own words rather than general political words existed before. That was
splendid and should be appreciated in a way.

He went to the event hall to receive the award by himself. That's agreeable
to see. But the point is that those words are not only the fashion for
that year. They are political policies which are committed to be realized
from now on.

Take just one example. The most important one is "Reform without sanctuary"
according to my opinion. Prime Minister Koizumi started reforming Special
Public Corporations. He said there was already a big advancement on it. Is
it true? 

In addition, sanctuaries are not limited to those public corporations. There
are much bigger substances existed when it comes to government administration.
They are a number of main bodies of ministries. Ministries of Foreign 
Affairs , which is referred as "Devil Temple" by Foreign Minister Tanaka
herself, is typical example of such sanctuary to be reformed. Many other
main ministries are no exception.

Prime Minister Koizumi should never forget that those key words are not
only some kind of popular words. They are committed to be realized for
the people of Japan. 

2001/12/8
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(250):

Mind of status quo

I am now living in an small city , outskirt of Tokyo, the population
of which is about 60,000. I bought a small land here and built a house 
30 years ago. For the last ten years, I lived outside of the city for 
I worked in the firm which located in Shikoku. I came back here and 
started living here again in this April. 

The town gets much more quiet due to the fact that inhabitants get older.
In night, traffic become much less and very quiet indeed. I loved this
quietness.

There are about 500 households in the community. The community has an 
autonomous association . The organ holds a community center utilized for
various common purpose for inhabitants. The community center has a fairly 
large garden, 36 square meters Japanese style room, 18 square meters hole,
kitchen facilities and so forth. They can be utilized for hobbies circle
and various other purpose. The community is in a very well circumstance
indeed.
  
A questionnaire was sent to each inhabitants last month. The questionnaire
asked how some several ten million yen savings which the community holds
at the moment should be utilized for the welfare of the community. The 
reason for holding such big saving was that the land of sewage facilities
was sold out several years ago. Such  big saving was created just by chance
as a matter of fact. 

I hear that the result  of questionnaires are split completely into two.
The one is the opinion that the money should be spent to expanding some
of those facilities for inhabitants to enjoy hobbies and various leering.
The other is that the money should never be spent for any purpose and kept
as it is. 

Needless to say, my own opinion was the former. I wrote the comment and
quote. "There are hundred ways to utilize such money very effectively. 
Just for one example. Some IT facilities including PCs and Internet connecting
tools are to be placed at the community center so that some beginners can
utilize them for leering and their personal use. There are a lot more 
ideas to be discussed for welfare and enjoyment of inhabitants."

I am surprised to hear that a majority of people say the money should be
hold as it is without using it for any purpose. I am very disappointed
when I hear it. Why is this?

Frankly speaking, such mind exactly explain why Japanese economy is very
stagnant at the moment. People hold 1400 trillion yen savings. And main
holders are aged people rather than young people. The aged people do not
spend those money.

Why ? Their personal motives are quite understandable. All aged people 
have some great anxiety for the future. They are preparing for what may 
happen in the future concerning medical care and pension system and
so forth in this country. But why do our inhabitants here expand such 
worry to public money as such?

The money is not be spent for just consumption or any other temporal
purpose . They are to be utilized for common leering and enjoyment of
hobbies and/or welfares for long range purpose. This will become one good
model case to activate aged society from now on. Why are those inhabitant
so negative to start something new ? 

This is not only the issue of this community but also the issue of all
our country in total.

2001/12/15
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(251): 
 
Reform of public corporation postponed 
 
 The biggest issue of Koizumi reform, reform of eight government-backed 
financial institutions has been postponed as a result of the meeting 
of Prime Minister and LDP party leaders on Monday December 17th. 
 
Many newspapers reported that that is a chicken-out of Koizumi reform.  
Including the reform of several public road corporations, the first target 
that Prime Minister Koizumi advocated has disappeared . He originally  
insisted that all those public corporations should be abolished or be  
privatized in a certain period of time. 
 
"That was a good decision," Koizumi said in the press interview.  
"(LDP members) were chorusing opposition to any review (on the financial 
institutions), but we agreed to do it. We are steadily moving on the path  
of reform."  What a fool saying it is!  
 
That is a big setback from his original promise to the people of Japan.  
The one biggest reform that he promised to do has gone away. Will people  
of this country still continue to give such a high supporting rate even  
with this setback? 
 
As to LDP, it is natural that they basically disagree with the reform 
of public corporations. That is one of the core of their politics. Koizumi 
said he would do it even with any of strong opposition from the party.  
But he finally followed the intention of the party. That is expected from 
the beginning in a way for he is the President of LDP and must follow the  
majority vote of the party. 
 
During the last election of House of Councils, he mentioned that he would 
perform the reform even by breaking up LDP itself. Mr. Ozawa, President 
of Liberal Party predicted that Koizumi could never attain any of his 
reform so far as he stayed within LDP. The prediction came true. 
 
How Japanese people will react to this big breach of promise? It seems that 
there will be no much change. Then, the reform of Japanese society has just 
been postponed again. I am deeply disappointed. 
 
2001/12/22 
Tadashi HAYASE 
 

My opinion of this week(252):

Unidentified ship

The accident of an unidentified ship happened at Japan Sea on Christmas
eve. According to news reports, a lot of e-mails were sent to the home 
page of Sea Guard Agency and 90% of them supported the action taken
by the Agency. That's fine. There were almost no criticism against 
the action although people of this country are rather weak as far as
conciousness of national security is concerned. 

Contrary to the past, there even exists some voice concerning the slow 
reaction of Self Defense Force expressing concern for their deliberate 
actions. It is natural that the Self Defense Force are expected to take some
more positive actions against such cases which may happen in the future.

Following to the accident of two years ago, this is a second case of 
unidentified ship. The expression of "unidentified" is very proper. It is clear
that which country the ship belongs to. What is unidentified and unclear
 is the motive and the objective of such activity. The reason why they 
exploded by themselves after gun fight was also quite unclear and
unidentified.  

It may be a kind of offence or harassment toward this country. But
we can never guess what is an advantage of doing such harassment
at this time. Any other international communities will never support
against this kind of act.

The Red Cross Society of the country announced recently to stop 
investigating missing Japanese in their country. Japanese Police
exposed an injustice case of North Korean Bank and continued the
investigation in the past few weeks. We cannot guess  how those
two relates to their action  at this time. But this is not an unidentified
act but rather a clear evil act indeed. This is a kind of action of gangster. 

The motive was probably to let Japanese have some worry and anxiety and
see their reaction. But provided that the motive was it, the result was
quite contrary to what they expected. The accident have given a lot 
of opportunity to let the Government and people remind the importance
of national securities and preparation for any of such critical accidents
which may happen again in the future.

2001/12/29
Tadashi HAYASE