My opinion of this week(424):

Europe and Asia

The ratification of constitution of EU has been denied both by people of
France and Netherlands. That gave a serious  blow to leaders of EU. The
integration process of EU has been conducted step by step by those top
leaders of Union by getting support from people of union member countries
in each stage of development. They suffered a serious setbacks at the last
stage of integration of Europe.

The main reason for the rejection for ratification for integrated constitution
in France and Netherlands is that their economy will be suffered  the hollowing
of regional industries due to cost competition in the region. The top 
leaders of two countries including other Union countries might have wished
to blame people for such shortsighted views but they could never say that.
The only way to step forward to total unification is to regain  the 
affirmative vote for ratification by another opportunities.

That was early 1990, when EEC and EFTA, two predecessors of EU were founded.
I was a college student of economics at that time but did not know much about
them. It is not necessary to talk here  any details how EU has developed 
since then.  

As a people live in a Asian country, such integration process of regional
economy and politics is something envious from various point of views.
The reality of Asia where we live at the moment is far from such integration
process. So I never nod in a wise for what happened in France and Netherlands
at this time. No other people should as far as this matter is concerned.

I believe such integration process in Europe is a very necessary step to 
establish world peace in each regions.

What is the reality in Asia compared with Europe? The relationship between
Japan, China and Korea, for example, is far from any possibility of 
integration. They are still talking about history of 60 years ago rather 
than talking about history from now on. Regardless their very close economic
relation, their political and cultural relations are so bad. That's no good
at all for any countries such as Japan, China and Korea. 

Such integration process will proceed at any regions of the world from now
on regardless people like it or not. I believe it is a necessary step to
establish world peace at any rate. 

EU is a model case as such and must continue to be so in the year to come.

2005/6/4
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(425)：

Individual skill or team power

I was watching the soccer game played between Japan and North Korea at
Bangkok Soccer Stadium on Wednesday. Japan won the game and became 
the first team that will participate in the  World Cup  in Germany
in 2006. I really don't see soccer game so often and knew first time the 
name of Atushi Yanagisawa and Masashi Oguro who got two winning goal in 
that game.

I was very pleased to see the victory of Japanese team, of course and hope
they will attain a good a good result in the world game in next year.
 
I was very much interested in the news report of Asahi newspaper next 
morning. The article wrote that the victory was due to the fact that
Japan coach Zico put a lot more importance on individual skill rather than
team power to win the game. Japan's coach Troussier in 2002 world cup took
a different approach from Zico. Troussierism placed more importance on
team power rather than individual skill to win a game. 

Japanese team was in a difficult position to get the ticket to the world
cup after they suffered the loss against Iran. There were a lot of rumor
that Zico would be replaced for his malperformance. But now the situation
have been changed because of his victory against North Korea. Might is 
right.

No goals had been got in the first half. Two victory goals in the second
half was gained by two skillful plays by Yanagisawa and Oguro. Vigorous
mood came back to the team by those two players who were not in the first
half.

There are a lot of argument about this issue in soccer game and any other
team sport games. Which is more important, team power or individual skill
to win a game? 

There is no definite answer to that as a matter of fact. The least-
contested answer is this. A good team work will be build by skills of 
individuals. And skill of individuals will be useful only when they are
supported by team power. Combination of those two elements  is very 
necessary to win a victory at any rate.

From my personal view , however, I daresay that more importance is now
placed on individual skill rather than team power when it comes to
any Japanese team sports and any other team works in any Japanese
organizations.

2005/6/11
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(426):

Community Association 

Since this April, I have acted the president of the community association
where I live now. I was apppointed to the position together with other
members of committee members at the general meeting of the comunity 
association held on April 4 this year. Since then, my life has changed
drastically. I began to have a lot of works since then.

I have a full schedules everydays including weekend. Some committee members
are still active in business. So they cannot attend any meetings to be held
in weekdays. So monthly general meetings are usually held on Saturday or
Sunday. There is no problem as to such  general meeting because it is held
just once a month. But there are many more sub committee meetings on 
Saturday or Sunday recently on  Suumer Festival preparation committees
which comes soon at the end of July.

During weekend, there are so many meetings and gatherings on weekdays as
far as my jobs are concerned. They are, for examples, meetings or 
gatherings on crime-prevention, disaster-prevention, school education, 
welfare, sport and recreation,funeral and so forth. In addition, I began
to offer some help on PC classes both at an elementary school and a middle
highschool nearby our community. You can never be absent from them when 
it comes to school curriculum.

So I cannot go out for a trip or anyother outgoing  recently. I expected
this to some extent but that is further beyond my first expectation. 

So many reports and requests for delivery to residents are received from
miniciapal office everydays. They are mostly addressed to the president
of the commnity association. They are to be handled by myself in every 
cases. It seems that some are not quite important from my personal point
of view. But you have to do it any way regardless your personal thought.

I am  not complaining about it.  What I do understand now is why people
try not to become committee members of community association every year
when the time comes. The position of the president is especially the one
to be  passed intentionally. 

The issue is how you tackle with so many works. As a matter of fact, most
of them are handled rather easily if you just follow automatically to the
past procedures. You really don't need to attend all meetings. No problems
really occure even if you do not go to the meeting.

But I cannot do so. I tend to check the contents of the meetings and
gatherings and attend most of them at any rate. I tend to make several
questions and proposal in such meetings which creat another new and
additional works to do. That is not what to do. All you have to do is
just follow to what they have been done in the past. 

While I feel  some disappointment about what is going on, I began to
have some great interest on many concrete cases of issues on criminal-
prevention, disaster prevention, school education, welfare and so 
forth in Japanese society. 

I reconfirmed the some fact about Japanese society as follows:

・It is still quite closed and not opened.
・It is  so stereotype and not multiple at all in nature.
・People in charge prefer to bid collusion rather than competition.
・Formalism is a main rule disregarding what deemed material.

I can present many of such concrete cases and issues but I will not do
so at this time. This is because that may create some problem on what
I am doing now and give some harassment to people whom I now working with.

All I have to do now is to make the best effort I can do for the community.
I wish I could contribute some way to improve what is going on in our
community under the present circumstances. I would come back to some of 
those basic issues in some day in the future.

2005/6/18
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(427):

A large-boned policy

I began to get angry while reading two top articles of Asahi Newspaper on
June 22nd. The  right hand side headline wrote about the report presented
by the Government Tax Research  Council. They proposed to cut some of 
those tax deduction measures for salaried employees. The fixed-rate tax
cut conducted so far will be stopped in next year although the schedule
to start other tax increase measure is not specified. This will become a
big blow for the life of all salaried employees once initiated.

On the left hand side of the top page, there was another the report 
presented by the Government Finance and Economic Council. The report names
it a large-boned policy to realize a small government. Needless to say, 
two of those reports are closely related  each other. 

Based on the coming aging society with fewer children, to improve the
present serious financial debt situation of the country is the top priority.
While the government must increase annual revenues by tax increase, they
must cut annual spending as well by realizing a small government with
smaller number of civil service workers. 

Smaller government or administrative reform have been advocated for
many years but no concrete contents and time schedule to realize it 
have ever been presented even by this council at this time. What is a 
large-bone policy which they are talking about? When do they initiate it?

There were many shareholders meeting of private firms held in June.
Two third of those private firms reported the increase of sales and/or 
profit in the meeting. They attained such result by making some 
fundamental efforts including the cut of total labor cost by restructuring
measures. 

My question is that what are those government sectors including central
and local administrative offices doing to cut administrative cost and how.
Are they doing the same kind of efforts to cut labor cost that is done at
private firms?  I don't think so. 

It is obvious that those public service officers are paid much higher for
their much lower level of works compared with private firm employees.
All sort of such evidences and cases have been reported in various 
occasions so far. 

I began to have a lot interfaces with a municipal office since this April
as I wrote in my opinion of last week. I began to know more concretely what
and how they are doing their jobs. It seems that there are so many works 
that are not quite necessary for citizens from my point of views. They are
not doing them quite efficiently as they are done at public sectors. I just
wonder how can we improve this situation. 

The voting card to select members of Tokyo Metropolitan Congress arrived
yesterday. Due to  a scandal of the Governor Ishihara, the interest of
people for this election seems to be very low as in the other recent elections. 
I really don't know, how I can select an appropriate candidate to make our 
communality life better. 

It seems that this country is totally  facing a serious a political deadlock.
I don't know the way how can we get out this deadlock at the moment.

2005/6/25
Tadashi HAYES