My opinion this week(53):
Matunaga who?
Finance Minister Mitsuzuka resigned from his position due to several
bribery cases happened in the Ministry. There was a great concern
about who would be appointed to the new Minister not only in this
country but also in the world.
And Mr.Matunaga who is a diet member and formerly a public prosecutor
was finally appointed to the new Minister. Prime Minister Hashimoto
may have thought that Mr.Matunaga's appointment was necessary because
new appoint Minister should pay much more attention on the official
discipline inside of the Ministry.
In Business Salon of BizTech Forum, I commented that this kind of
thought on the appointment is too shortsighted. As a matter of fact,
there were several criticism among mass-media after the appointment
actually happened last week.
When I was watching Report 2001, Fuji TV's news show in Sunday morning
of February 2, there were some disputes on this appointment among
people who attended in the program. Mr.Kato, Secretary General of Liberal
Democratic Party, Mr.Kamei, the former Minister of Construction and
Mr. Takemura, a commentator of Fuji TV station were attending the show.
Mr.Kamei seemed not to be satisfied with this appointment indicating
that why not a bigger shot other than Mr. Matunage who is not known among
financial world had been appointed from the Party. There were a lot of
candidates as such. On the other hand, Mr. Kato, as the Secretary General
of the Liberal Democratic Party was naturally very affirmative on this
appointment saying that Mr.Matunaga who has such career background would
be able to control bureaucrats in the Ministry.
Mr.Takemura's opinion on this was quite agreeable to my basic idea.
He said that the most important thing at the moment is to appoint
such a professional man in monetary and financial fields regardless
from where he comes from. The appointment of Finance Minister is being
paid a great attention not only in Japan but also in the rest of world.
In contrast to the case in Japan, Mr. Takemura mentioned the case what
would happen in the United States concerning Government officials. In
the United States, the chairman of Federal Bank and the Secretary of
Finance of Clinton Administration are very professionals both coming
from private industries. I quite agree with Mr. Takemura. I mentioned
the same opinion in the BizTech Forum mentioned above.
I think that Mr. Kato , Mr, Kamei and Mr. Hashimoto are all too old
fashioned in their thinking and wrong in any way as far as their way
of thinking is concerned. I believe that it is basically wrong in the
way they think as how to guide and to control bureaucrats and how to
follow the their rule when the new officers do their jobs in the
Government offices.
The primary concern at this moment is neither to clean up the bribery
cases nor to take some actions not to repeat the bribery cases. What is
the most important duty for the new Minister is to establish the most
reliable monetary and financial system which is supported by the people
not only in Japan but also in the world. The key concern is to appoint a
real professional in the field of finance to Minister of Finance
regardless where he comes from.
"Amakudari" (literal translation: Descent from heaven) has been criticized
very much in these days. But what is wrong about it ,if some excellent
professionals from public sectors go to work for private sectors based
on free open market principles, that should be accepted. One way trade
such as "Amakudari" should be blamed, of course. There should be the flow
of another way. Some more professional people should be appointed to such
important position in the Government from private industries. The same
thing can be said as to academic people.
The basic problem is the fact that there is no such free exchange of
people between each worlds. Because of the lack of such free flow and
the exchange of people, there rise various problems such as bribery
cases in the Government sectors. We should learn a lot from the the cases
in the United States in this respect.
1998/2/7
Tadashi Hayase
My opinion this week(54)
Discipline of patience
There were two serious juvenile criminal cases happened last week.
The one was the case that a junior high school boy killed his home-room
woman teacher at school with a knife. Another junior high school boy
Attacked a policeman in a town with knife to steal a pistol from him
and this policeman was seriously wounded.
Once such accidents happen, school and police authorities start to
take some measures in haste . The police authorities requested hardware
shops in all over the country not to sell such knives and other dangerous
hardware to minors. That's fine. Such knife which is 10cm long will
become very dangerous weapons at any rate. Why are police stations not
making more constant and strict check on them?
At school, principals were requested to start inspecting what students
bring to school in their school bags. This is also a kind of natural
course of action at any rate. However, it is strange to hear the fact
that one of the principals of a junior high school in Tokyo commented
and I quote : " Some difficulties are involved with such inspection
and we have to be very careful in doing such inspection." I just wonder
what kinds of difficulties are involved with them. The principal might
have wished to say that such inspection will infringe the basic rights
of children.
The principal whose woman teacher was stabbed seemed to be very
dispassionate commenting that there was no communication problems between
the teacher and the student as far as observation was concerned. I really
don't understand such kind of comment and attitude. What did he really
want to say? Could we explain the background of such cruel criminal case
if there were any communication problems?
The chairman of the Central Education Advisory Committee commented about
this accident. " What I want to say may be too natural. But a basic point
to avoid the reoccurrence of such accident is that we should recognize
the importance of teaching basic manners and ethics including discipline of
of patience to children at home. Children should be taught to be patient
for various hardships in their life at home. I quite agree with this
opinion. Asahi Newspaper criticized the opinion and said that that kind of
idea is not any immediate remedy for such criminals. What in the world are
there any instant remedy for this kind of criminals?
All reactions and response of police and school authorities are all too
shortsighted and just short range therapy. Yes, it is no good for minors
to be able to get such knives so easily. It is also no good to permit
minors to bring such dangerous material into schools. It is right to stop
them. And whenever such criminal cases happen , people start to argue that
what is the basic discontent of minors to start such criminals. They may
have a lot of discontent by themselves. But why then? Regardless any
discontents they may have, they should never be allowed to conduct such
criminals for any reasons.
There is no doubt for polices to supervise any such dangerous hardware
not to be bought by minors and for schools to inspect students not to
keep any such dangerous materials in their school bags. But the most
important point for now is to come back to the importance of teaching
disciplines at home all over the country. No other short-range action will
basically solve such serious problem.
1998/2/14
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(55):
Metals for a great process
Nagano Olympic is about to end after leaving a number of exiting
scenes to the people of the world. Most of Japanese are frankly
very happy to see so many athletes got gold metals in this Olympic
such as Mr. Shimizu of speed skating, Miss. Satoya of Moguls, Mr.Funaki
of ski jumping and so forth. I did not get tired of watching the scene
of TV over and and over again in which they won metals. The victory of
Miss. Satoya was especially very impressive for she had never been
expected to win a gold metal before the game. She will be the most
valuable player of 1998 through all sports events. All of those news
Relieved all of us Japanese while we have observed so many depressing
News these days.
To win a gold metal is very worthwhile, of course. But we should
also appreciate some of those athletes who made better records and
won higher prizes in this Olympic than in their past games although those
prizes are neither gold nor silver and bronze metals. It is good to see such
articles in the newspaper that appreciated such cases of performance other
than metal wining. However, I am not happy to see the most of the reports were
still centered too much on metal winners.
Whether those athletes can win in the Olympic Games or not is just
A kind of luck . Although they have been a champion all the times just prior
to the Games, they may or may not be able to win metals. They loose the
Games due to a very small mistake after all. Many games are also very
much affected by weather conditions. Some are very lucky and some are
not in this respect. Many athletes who are supposed to win metal must
also fight with pressure from mass media. Miss. Satoya could have won
the gold metal for she had not much pressure as such. Of course, to
overcome such pressure is another conditions to be the winners, though.
What I want to say is that only metal winners should not be applauded
and evaluated. There should be some more points to be evaluated in
along with the result i.e. winning or loosing. Wider range of viewpoints
and longer time range should be considered for the evaluation.
After Mr. Simizu of speed skating got two metals i.e. gold and bronze,
he commented on his performance as follows in the press interviews. " You
reporters seem to pay a great interest only in the result. But whether we
won metals or not is just a result of our long time efforts which had been
accumulated to this day. All athletes including myself not only from Japan,
but also from the world may think the same way. The process to get here
should be appreciated much more than just the result."
I think that those words by Mr. Shimizu are very true. This is true not
only with performance in Olympic Games but also with performance in all phase
of our life such as at schools and in business.
When we evaluate performance in those phases, we tend to see just the
result without appreciating the process how they get to that result regardless
they have been successful or not.
Winning metals in the Olympic is great, of course. But there are a number
of people who deserve gold metals for their efforts and consistency in their
works. Those works will make a big fruit after some years.
In summary, we should have such viewpoints when we evaluate people and
performance of those people in each fields. Having such ability to make a
proper evaluation in various phases of our life is the basis to keep this
world developing and improving in the year to come.
1998/2/21
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(56):
Forcing unreasonable payment
Despite staunch opposition from some party members, the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party finally cleared a controversial draft bill
to dispose of 27.8 trillion yen in debt left by the former Japanese
National Railways. The draft includes a plan to force seven JR groups
firms to bear 360 billion yen of the debt. The money would partially
cover pension costs for former JNR employees. The JR group firms ,
however, are firmly opposed to such additional financial burden
designated in the bill.
They jointly expressed their oppositions to the bill on several
newspapers saying that each JR group firms are now entirely privatized
firms by themselves so that there is no room and reason for them to
accept such additional burden of debt. Some JR firms also expressed
their negative opinions in their home pages of Internet. I think it
natural for them to refuse such bill to be presented by the Liberal
Democratic Party.
Those Party leaders and lawmakers might have thought that it was
the Government that reorganized Japan National Railway which were
in such serious financial difficulty into JR group firms at present.
The improvement of financial positions of each JR firms since then is
also due to the help and the guidance by the Government so far. Then,
those JR firms are requested to listen to what the Government planed
to do at the moment. But such logic itself seems to be very strange
and not reasonable.
Each JR firms are now quite independent and private organization by
themselves. It is quite an anachronistic way of thinking that the
Government tries to force private firms to accept some debt for such
reason. Such way of thinking itself is supposed to be against the
principle of a modern state as JR Higashi Nihon asserted in their home-
page.
We guess that the bill itself will face a lot of opposition from
opposition parties in the diet. So I wonder if the bill will pass the
diet without any amendment. Provided that the bill passed the diet, all
JR firms should appeal the case to the court for its legitimacy. Once
the case is brought to the court, I guess that the court decision is
rather clear concerning the legitimacy of such bill.
I guess that there is no room for the Government to force private
firms to share some kind of debt by making laws or by some other
laws under the present constitution. The conclusion on this issue seems
to be rather obvious as far as my observation is concerned.
Of course, we understand that some actions are necessary to solve
the issue of this financial need. Somebody must pay for them . However,
the question that who should pay for them is entirely different story.
What I want to say here is that the Liberal Democratic Party's idea is
too easy to accept.
We are obliged to admit that such debt is the burden for all all
people of the country at any rate. The Party and the Government is
responsible for explaining the situation to the people and ask them to
share some extra burden in one way or the others. This will be another
very controversial issue in the long run.
We will pay our utmost attention on how they discuss the issue in
the diet starting now. We should also be very anxious to see what kind
of counter measures will be presented by several opposition parties in
the diet.
1998/2/28
Tadashi HAYASE
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