My opinion of this week(253)

Increase speed of reforms

Prime Minister said that there is no growth without structural reforms
as far as the present Japanese economy is concerned. I think he is
quite right. I also agree with his insertion about the necessity of
preparing various safety net to guaranty employment while proceeding
reforms. It takes some time to proceed reforms. But it's to be only 
in a certain period of time, not to be so long.

I disagree with his recent saying such as "slow and steady wins the race"
when he put off some part of the reform on public corporation. Various 
reforms that he promised to do people when he became Prime Minister
should be done without any delay or putting off to the future. Many of 
those reforms  should be attained as soon as possible. But so far as we
see the outcome of reforms in the past eight months , many programs have
been postponed or some critical parts of reform programs  have been cut
due to compromise with the opposition. No time is left to cure Japan 
Disease any more. A surgical operation is necessary as fast as possible.
 
Mr. Kawarada, a member of our Mailing List insisted that there would be
no proceeding of Koizumi reforms while popular rate for him is so high.
I agree with him. It seems that Prime Minister Koizumi is content with
this high popular rate such as 80% or so. He said "popular rate may drop
to 50% or so when I proceed reforms." The high popular rate is not the
issue. The issue is how much and how fast he can really attain reforms.

According to my thought, such rate populate as 80% itself is strange
phenomenon. As a matter of fact, for every people of this country, for any
classes, reforms involves a big pain. People know that some reforms are
necessary to get out of this stagnant situation of this country. They
showed such very low rate of support for former Prime Minister Mori 
who made virtually no jobs at all. Such high support rate for Koizumi
Cabinet seemed to happen due to a strong reaction to disability of 
the former cabinet. Many people do not look at the contents of reform
so seriously according to my observation.
 
The editorial of Nikkei Newspaper of January 1 wrote and I quote:
"people of this country are now so conservative staying indoors, 
forgetting the mind of challenge for growth." The popular rate by such 
kind of people are very weak one indeed.
 
It is not necessary for Mr. Koizumi to see the face of people when he
try to perform reforms. He should not even see them. A number of reforms
should be done as he promised. While the last election of House of
Councils, he declared to perform reforms even by breaking up the Liberal
Democratic Party. People gave a big support to this word. he should 
remember this word and should proceed reforms with a full speed.  

Many of those reforms are most necessary now to revive this country.
We do wait for it . Faster the speed of reforms, higher for the evaluation
of Japanese economy will be in the market. The stock market, yen, and 
rating for national bond will go up then. All sort of operational and 
financial indices of business firms will be improved  due to the 
improvement of such fundamentals of economy. The structural forms of 
Japan Corporation will also be improved greatly as a result.

Many of very conservative group of politicians and economists insist
deflation will go on further if structural reforms are done now. That
is wrong. The most important thing to avoid and get out from deflation
is that all individual and business firms should have a strong challenging
mind for something new and creative in this situation of status quo.

2002/1/5
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(254)

Internet Election campaign become possible in 2004

By January 6, Government and ruling party will partly change the current
election law  so that election campaign by Internet become possible
which is prohibited by the current law. It took so long but finally 
materialized. That's fine. I understand the reason why it took some 
time before it is materialized. While there are  various advantages to
use internet for election campaign, there are many disadvantage as well.
Some candidate will abuse them in their campaign activities. 

But in most western countries, Internet has already been used broadly
for election campaign enjoying a lot of advantages. Although there are
some disadvantage, now is the time to admit their various advantages
effectiveness and efficiency to use them.
 
According to the proposal to be made by government policy makers, election
campaign by home page is OK. Using e-mails is not allowed basically. That
seems to be quite reasonable. It is obvious that people will be annoyed
by a huge amount of campaign mail, if mail campaign is allowed.

For candidates who carry out campaign work, various advantages of using
Internet is very obvious. They are very convenient and efficient after
all. For the central and local governments, a lot of public money can be
saved if they are  used properly. 

There are not much problems for the side using them. There are some 
problems for voters. 78% of diet members already have home page in
Internet. But question is how much percent of people is able to access
for home pages by themselves. 30 to 40%? The actual number may be much 
lower than the statistics reported.

The government should make many more effort to improve the capability
of people to use Internet together with such argument about election
campaign by Internet. That will provide a lot of secondary advantages
for people and total economy as well. 

Internet infrastructure is to be built first before discussing many 
of their application for social activities in the new digital society
which now turns to reality. 

2002/1/12
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(255):

Do you still continue to bomb?

Osama Bin Laden is still missing somewhere. US is still  bombing to
mountain area of Afghanistan after they have overwhelmed Tailbone in
the country. Based on the international consensus to eliminate terrorism
US tried to catch the criminal of terrorism happened in New York last
September. 

But there are now many voices inside and outside of Afghanistan that US
should now stop bombing. It's now time for them to stop the war itself
while continuing search for the criminal. It seems that President Bush
sticks to the internal voice that the then Administration of US should
not stop the Gulf War until they defeated President Fusein completely.
A lot of troubles have been left due to the fact that Fusein had survived
after the Gulf War. 

But the war at this time is entirely different from the Gulf War. The
war this time was started to catch Osama Bin Laden and to destroy
Tailbone Administration that protected Osama Bin Ladin for many years.
The latter purpose has now been fulfilled. The new administration has
already been born in Afghanistan. US should stop bombing to this country
while continuing the search for the criminal.

Mihashi-san, a member of our Mailing List, presented one piece of
illustration of President Bush together with comment expressing
his concern about power politics by US these days. I answered back
with this presenting my thinking and illustration which is presented
in my home page of this week. Marshall Bush carries a powerful machine
gun rather than pistol in his chest. 

I used to love to see Western films. Bad guys are always fairly eliminated.
Justice is fulfilled. But are all what US is doing right now justice? 
Their ideas about new missile defense system, refusal of ratification of
Kyoto POP3 Pacts, etc. are sort of egoism in many respects. They were
rather isolated from international society. The situation has been 
changed since the happening of terrorism in New York last September.
They got the full support from international society about their strong
action about terrorism. That's fine. 

But is it allowed to continue to bomb Afghanistan so heavily even after
collapse of Tailbone Administration? 

We predict that such predominant enforcement of power may come back to 
them in one way or the other in the future to themselves. US should know
this and we expect they will now become more deliberate on their power
game.  

2002/1/19
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(256):

Afghan Reconstruction Conference

The international community pledged more than $4.5 billion in aid to 
Afghanistan on ministerial conference in Tokyo. The Chairman Ogata
summarized the conference saying it was a big success. Many participant
countries announced the amount of donation to Afghan. Japan will contribute
250 million dollars in the first year and total 500 million dollars in two
and half year. It is a big amount for Japan that are in a serious financial
difficulty. But it is very important international project today to which
Japan must contribute as a community member. 

The question is rather low amount of contribution by such major countries
as US, EU and Russia. I don't mention any details about the amount 
donated by those countries, but my first impression is that they should
contribute much more. 

Even Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and India expressed to contribute
large amount of money. But US will contribute only 290 million dollars .
EU will contribute 500 million dollars. Both just announced the amount
for the first year. They do not make any commitment in the following years.
The representative of EU said EU was the biggest contributor at the end of
conference. But the amount seems to be fairly small judging from the size
of their economy. 

I don't understand why there is no name of Russia in the conference.
It was Russia which had started destroying Afghanistan. Did they not 
even participate in the conference ? Why ?

The issue is not amount of money to be donated, of course. There are
many ways of supporting reconstruction of this countries other than 
just providing money. It is also very important to see and check the
process how those money are utilized  fairly and effectively. It seems
quite reasonable in that sense that EU and US just commit the donation
just for the first year at this time. 

Nevertheless, it is obvious that both EU and US are trying to see 
how they can establish hegemony after this Tokyo Conference withholding
the amount of donation in the second year and after. My frank opinion
is that they should commit with higher amount of money as far as 
their size of economy and the big commitment they involved with
the Afghan war.

Japan seems to be outside of such hidden motives to establish hegemony
after Afghan War. This will be a good opportunity for Japan to
gain a good reputation as a real contributor for world peace and
welfare in many fields other than financial help.

2002/2/26
Tadashi HAYASE