My opinion this week(141):

The prohibition of political contribution by business enterprises
 
  Since the start of coalition government by three parties, i.e. Liberal 
Democratic Party, Liberal Party and Koumei Party, some new movements
have happened. For an example, the coalition group is going to freeze the
payment of premium of life care insurance for six months which was originally
scheduled to start next April. Another example is to remove the article of
the New Election Law which prohibits political contribution by any business 
enterprises. There are some strong criticism about such movement from
opposition parties and mass media saying the coalition is trying to reverse
anything which had been decided before with such a strong coalition power.

　Well, that is basically true. The schedule of the life care insurance 
has already been set and all local governments and concerned central offices
are now working hard for preparing the start of the new system. They are
all puzzled about it for sure.  We understand about various problems with
this new system, though. And most criticisms say that the government should
start the system first any way and some of those problems should be corrected
step by step later on after the initiation of the system. l

  Contrary to such criticism, I would like to point out the fact that it
is very difficult and take time to correct the problem once it is established
as a law in Japan. It is true that the premium of the insurance for higher
ages group are too expensive for them to endure. The action to correct this
problem in one way or the other seems to be reasonable.

  The problem of the life care insurance is too complicated to make any more
comments. The major issue I want to talk about here is the prohibition of
political contribution by business enterprises. This was  legislated at the
diet few years ago. Liberal Democratic Party themselves agreed with the 
prohibition article in the new Election Law. But this, Liberal Democrat Party
has just started saying the removal of such article recently. Every opposition
parties are severely against it, of course. Such criticism by opposition 
parties and mass media are generally reasonable. Koumei Party, one member 
of the coalition is also against it. So we cannot guess what will happen with
this matter.  

  Regardless the outcome of that issue, I personally have some objection
against the law very from the beginning. I don't see any reason why the 
political donation  by business firms is to be prohibited. What is the 
difference of donation by individuals and business firms?  Both make 
donations to political parties expecting some good policies which fit to 
their general interest. None of those should directly connect to a certain
specific interest of any individuals and any business firms , of course. 
There were some such cases as Grumman, Rockeed, Recruit Cases in the past.
But the most important point here is that openness and transparency of the
donation are to be guaranteed in any cases.

　  In the new Election Law, public subsidies to political activities have been
decided to provide to each political parties. Communist Party refused to 
receive neither any political donation from business firms , nor these 
subsides by the Government. How can they make their political activities? 
All political parties need a lot of money to do various activities any way. 
In the case of Communist Party, they make money by publishing newspapers of
the Party and by the donation from their own party members. In the case of
Mr. Hatoyama, the President of Democratic Party, who is also against the 
contribution by business firms, makes money from his own business sources.
If that kind of logic is right, only men who can make money by themselves
will be able to make political activities. Donations by individuals are
good  in this case, but donations by individuals are still very limited in
Japan as a matter of fact. I don't think it democratic if political 
activities are only possible by the donations by individuals or by the money
created by themselves. 

  Needless to say, economic activities of business firms share very important
portion of the total economy in the scope of national income and employment.
There are some difficulties involved with the assertion by LDP  at this time.
Nevertheless, I would like to say in this way. 

 "Well, LDP should never admit the prohibition of donation by business
enterprises, when the issue arose. There is no reason why that is prohibited 
in this free economy world. I dare to support them to resume their assertion 
that any political donations by business firms are to be admitted as in the
past."

1999/11/6
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion this week(142):

Let's try to do it

  The other great business executive has died recently. Mr. Saji of Santory
Corporation is the one. His famous line of words is :"I let you try to do it."
There were so many pleasant TV commercials which were  filled with spirits of
play and humor,  and let watchers enjoy themselves very much.
　
  There are almost no business executives especially among big business who 
encourage their men to have spirits of play. Working hard and diligently
is all what their men should do while they are on duty.

　Certainly there are no time to play and to relax while people are on duty.
But the important point here is the contents of the word of sprit of play.
While people are on duty, they just try to do or to say something come up 
in mind by chance. That sort of things may become very helpful in many cases.

  As to this matter, I remember one other great business executive coming from 
Kansai area at this time. That is Mr. Koutarou Higuchi, a director of 
consultant of Asahi Beer Corporation, who has retired from the top position 
of the firm a few years ago. He was in the competitive position with Mr.Saji 、
for　they are in the same beer business. Mr.Huguchi was also a very successful 
business executive who had improved the slacking business condition of the 
company by developing such a successful product as Super Dry. His famous line
of words is :"Let's try to do it for there is no precedent for this."  We can
never succeed in anything just by doing the same thing  all time or by 
sticking to the current customs. New roads and new methods could be found 
only by challenging something new. Various new products can be developed also
through such challenging process.
 
  What Mr.Saji said is the same thing. In other words, both men say and stress
the importance of venture spirit. A new road can be developed by challenging
something new or by some new methods. 

　This does not necessarily mean that we just have to do all that something 
new. In any business, consistency is another key word for successful 
management. To keep good tradition and cultures is very important as well. 
But in order to keep them in good shape and to keep organization very active,
creativity is requested all the time.

  There are no personal contact between those two men, but it is very 
interesting to see that both two try to encourage various arts in their 
personal life. Such arts and cultures may be an origin of their thought
and philosophy when they think about what their customers really want for
their products and services.

1999/11/13
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion this week(143):

Power Point

  I bought Upgrade Version of Office2000 recently. It costs almost \40,000
for is Premium of the series. It seems that they are not so different from
Office97 in contents. They are so rich in contents that I will not be able
to utilize the whole function, while I have been using only about 30% 
functions even with Office97. 

  Then, you may ask why I waste money by paying so much money. Well, I don't
mind to answer that I want to fulfill my vanity to show off. I was satisfied
with the fact that the most recent PC application software is installed in
My PC. That's all. I used to buy a number of English books and put them on
book shelves and I did not read them almost at all. But I satisfied with it.
It is the same sort of psychology.

   But I surely tried some of those software, of course. I tried Power Point
first of all rather than the word processor and the spread sheet. The
Office2000 Version of Power Point is not so different from that of Office97
Version. There are, however, a few revision and improvement in them. One of
such revision is that the conversion to Web page from the original slide
is to be done very efficiently and effectively. Some of those good looking
slide will become good Web page immediately by conversion process. The same
kind of slide show by Power Point is also possible at Web site. 

  Because of this improvement, I will try to use Power Point much more often
than before. Whenever I write some messages at each Salon of BizTech Forum, 
I often put some slides, prepared by Power Point. How do they differ from 
the ordinal style written in test sentences? 

  There are several advantages as far as such slide presentation is concerned.
The most important point is that presentation should be itemized by selecting
only critical points. When it comes ordinal sentences, they tend to get lengthy
and redundant in explanation.

 The second advantage is that many facts and ideas will easily be arranged
in order if they are made in slide and accumulated even randomly. They are
to be merged and sort in order of a certain theme and constitute the 
framework for any papers or thesis to make. If some of those part are in 
Ordinal sentences, frame working and arrangement are not so easy. If 
explanationparts  for each slide are already prepared in detail, the situation
is better. 

 The system is so suitable to summarize each key themes of the paper by 
writing one theme into one slide. I used to learn Prof. Umezao's method of
creating intelligent thoughts and ideas. Among various methods, he suggested
to utilize medium size cards in which researchers write up any facts and 
ideas in accordance with a principle of one card for one theme. Utilizing 
such cards is a good idea but it is actually very time consuming and 
troublesome process. In the case of Power Point, all basic advantage of card
system is incorporated into the basic system.    

  The third and not the last advantage is very clear. The presentation itself
is very easy and effective for is originally presentation soft itself. 
Furthermore, the presentation can be made at Web site very effectively by a 
new method. 

　I don't intend to advocate only about Power Point. Free Lance of Lotus
is exactly the same. They are both categorized as presentation software,
but I believe that they can also be utilized to create new ideas and 
intelligent products in order to make paper or thesis of any kinds in business
and academic works. 

1999/11/20
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion this week(144):

Why  is it illegal?

　The first trial for three former top executives of Long Term Credit
Bank (LTCB) has just begun. Three former executives were accused for
continuing high dividend and making window dressing financial reports
regardless such high financial debt amounting 300 billion yen at that
time. Those acts are accused to be against for the commercial code and
for the Securities and Exchange Law.  

　Those three defendants were used to be the President and the Vice
President of the bank and were versed in the financial condition of
the bank at that time. They might have known that they  were making 
some sort of false reports to the shareholders. After the first 
prosecution statement made by the prosecutors, the defendant pleaded
not guilty  "It is true that LTCB  submitted the financial report and
paid dividends to shareholders as mentioned by the prosecutors, " Onogi
of the former President said. "But I did not believe it constituted a
crime at the time." 

  Well, many more facts and details will be clarified at the court after
this, but the critical point here is that the defendants insisted that
they did not have any sense of guilty  at all for what they had done. 
The fact is almost clear that they continued such high dividends regardless
such high debt and presented window-dressing financial report hiding big
bad debt. If it is really their belief that that kind of deeds do not
constitute any crimes, it is quite amazing indeed. 

  Anyone who learned some basic articles of Commercial Code and/or the
Securities Exchange Law,  will be able to judge that such sort of actions
are against to those laws. How can those top executives excuse themselves
that they did not even know such basic articles of laws?

　We often have this sort of experience. Suppose you are running at 100 
kilometer  on the highway where the limited speed is 80 kilometers are
stopped  by a high-way patrol.  What do you say to the policeman? Is that
OK to say this way :" Well, please forgive me , for I didn't know the 
speed limit is 80 kilometer. " In this context, the speed that the bank 
was running might have exceeded over 150 kilometer.

  There is another background for the reason why those defendants are
rather aggressive enough in insisting innocence of their deed. They believe
that the same sort of deed are more or less true with other major banks
in Japan. They may even wish to say that such actions are even taken 
under the implicit guidance from the Ministry of Finance. Well, we also
often to see such scene when a man is caught up by a highway patrol for
the illegal speed. The man may say this way:" Why do you catch me only 
while there are many others who are running at the same speed?"

　The defendant would never say that that is unreasonable or unfair. But
it seems that the basic mind of those defendants are like that.

  There are such an easy recognition against laws among leaders and
executives of banks and securities firms which have raised so many scandals
in these days. That is not limited to business organizations. The case 
happened in the Kanagawa Prefecture Police Authority has the same root. 
They think that to protect their community and members including themselves
is more important than to protect laws and rules. This is a sort of unique
group consciousness in Japan.

  There may be many other cases as such, while such cases as LTCB and
Kanagawa Police cases are only tips of the iceberg. But are they just unlucky
that they are arrested for this?  That way of thinking is a problem.

　Needless to say, it is right and normal to have the recognition that laws
and rules should be obeyed and followed without fail, taking warning from 
those kind of examples.

1999//11/27
Tadashi HAYASE