My opinion this week(86):
Too much time to make a decision
It seems that the agreement on Financial Stabilization Bills have finally
been settled between the ruling party and the opposition parties. However,
it seems that it still takes some time before the bill become effective by
clearing up several pending issues. It was also reported that the agreement
has been reached finally between the ruling party and the opposition parties
last week. But it was disclosed that there still existed a number of
disagreement between them and they came back to discuss the issues again
during the last week.
What I would like to talk at this time is not that topic on the bills.
The bills are very important and urgent without waiting for the repeated
pressures from abroad. But in Japan it takes too long time to decide such
important matter. We understand that such important issues require a lot
of discussions and studies before a certain conclusion is introduced. But
as far as we compare those Japanese process with those of other countries,
it seems that it takes too long time for any decision making.
Democracy is defined as the process of seeking the greatest happiness
or the greatest common divisor in mathematical words among the total
number of people in a country. And it may be necessary to make a lot of
discussion to get the greatest common divisor. But taking too much time
does not necessary meet that requirement. Making a lot of discussion is not
the purpose by itself. The sooner the decision, the better. That is another
phase of the democratic process.
Today is the day of speed. A tremendous amount of information is processed
with a great speed. Finance systems require speedy process also. Some
serious situation may happen provided that such slow process is common
course of actions. Why then is decision making process so long, regardless
the repeated warning from all over the world?
According to my belief, the reason is obvious. The reason for the slow
decision is the lack of political leadership. The present Obuchi Cabinet
basically lack this political leadership without doubt. Why can't they make
a kind of decision much sooner while they absorb the most of reform points
suggested by the opposition parties?
Whatever kind of decision they may be, they can never be any perfect
one. Some kind of trial and errors would be unavoidable for any decisions.
At first, it is considered that some important points focused on the
present situation would be tested and might be corrected according to
the change of circumstances. The action to meet the difficult situation
is important rather than just keep talking the issues for long time. That
is the most important responsibility of the Government. If the Obuchi
Cabinet could not perform that function, they should retire immediately.
On the other hand, the opposition parties should let the Government
take leadership in any political scenes rather than winning agreement
on many issues with the ruling Liberal Liberal Democratic Party. If the
opposition parties concluded that the present Cabinet could not perform
that function any more, they should try to take over the power through
democratic process. Only a lot of discussion does not create any fruits.
1998/10/3
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(87):
A new Olympic Games
October 10th is a national holiday, the Health Sport Day. It was 34 years
ago, when Tokyo Olympic Games was held in Tokyo. This national holiday was
established to commemorate this big event. Tokyo Olympic was the symbol of
the prosperity of Japan after the World War II. That was the first Olympic
Games ever held in Asia. The Games was very successful and Japan got many
gold metals in the Games.
It was not only the sporting events in which Japan attained many gold
metals. Japan got many gold metals in other fields as well in those days.
In compliance with the Games, the new super express railway was constructed.
The highway was constructed in Tokyo metoropolitan area. Japan had emerged
as an export giant by exporting transistor radio and so forth to all over
the world. Japan has become No.2 economic power by attaining very rich life
and very high economic development.
Everythings have changed since then after 30 years. Japan faces today very
difficult economic conditions with vicious phenomena such as banktrupcy
of business firms, high unemployment rate, increase of high aged groups of
people and various social uneasiness. We wonder how this country can regain
such a dynamic society which are filled with a dream and aggresiveness at
the time of Olympic Games.
It is not only Japan that had changed. All other countries in the world have
changed greatly. The key words of such changes are globalization, information,
and networking. There are some common issues for a global society to tackle,
such as environtmental problems including a warm-up of the globe. Such environ-
mental problem is a key issue for Japan as well as for all countries of the
world.
G7 Finance Ministers Meeting was held last week and recovery of economy
of Japan was strongly requested by other participants. Japan was criticized
by otheres for her slow actions to vitalize economy. They said that this is
a major reason for overall stagnant conditions of world economy today. Japan
was requested to inject public funds to stabilize the financial systems of
the country and to make more aggresive public investment to stimulate
domestic consumption.
Against these request, the Finance Minister Miyazawa was defensive all
the time. He said : " Well, I understood the situation, but actions to take
are difficult. Not all political parties agreed to the actions to take at the
moment."
Yes, I agree. The action to take is not so decisive as requested at the G7
meeting. I never believe that Japanese economy will regain their powerfulness
and attain higher growth just by putting a lot of money for public investment.
My idea on how to regain economic development of Japan covers longer range.
We should try to make another big event such as Tokyo Olimpic Games which last
longer period of times. It is not only one time sporting event. The games
consist five rings of social infrastructures , that are education, sport,
welfare, environment and information.
Japan is becoming very high aged society. And Japanese society should
prepare for various problmes including welfare problems of those aged people.
The critical counter measures for that problem is to keep good and healthy
conditions of those aged people by prmoting their sporting activities.
So far I have written the importance of improvement of infrastructure
in the area of education, welfare, environment and information to vitalize
Japanese economy. I believe that the infrastructure to promote sports in
this country especially for aged people is the fifth important area to be
developed in this country. These five rings of infrastructures are now called
new olympic games to be started for long run.
No other way but promotion of this new olypic is I believe the only way to
vitalize Japanese economy in coming new era.
1998/10/10
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(88):
The possibility of Web Forum
It is almost a year since BizTech Forum started last October following
Nikkei MIX. I don't know how many members BizTech Forum has now in one year,
but I guess that there is now about 10,000 members. When this Web Forum
started last October, members were only a few in number and the messages
written to each forums were very limitted in number. Even in the Hello!
BizTech Forum where almost all new members write some messages at the start,
there were no messages at all for a few days and we could read only a little
messages overall.
Just after a year later, there is a constant increase of membership for
the Forum and some forum salons recorded more than 1,000 messages. The messages
in the Hello! BizTech Forum exceeded 2,500. Messages in such forums as
International Salon and Business Salon which I am concerned with exceeded
1000 messages. That is fine, indeed.
You may ask why we are so anxious about number of messages written everyday.
That is, I may say, the most important factor to evaluate such forums
regardless it is PC communication networks or such Web forum like BizTech
Forum. Even though there are many members in them, if there are only few
members who write messages on the board, those forums are not so good as a
matter of fact. The name forum means it.
On the other hand, however, too many messages involve some problems, though.
Participants of forums cannot read them all, if there are too many. Ideally
speaking, some constant number of messages, say four or five, in a day may be
ideal for any participants. People can respond them by writting some comments
on those messages everyday and such interactive communication is the most
important part of such forums.
It seems that BizTech which replaced the former PC communication networks ie.
MIX is now on the right track of development. But I am not quite satisfied
with the present status yet. First of all, members who participate in the Forum
do not write so much yet. Members who write messsages are still quite limitted
in numbers. 80 or 90% of members are only so called ROM (read only members).
How to increase number of those member who participate to wrtie messages is
the one most important theme for the Forum at the moment.
Secondly, my concern on the present status of BizTech is that messages styles
are not quite well developed even compared with conventional PC communication
networks. The message style should be much more advanced in variety. They can
be accessed by people from all over the world. Actually some members access
the Forum everyday from Thailand, Mongol and so forth, as if they access the
Forum from just the next door in Japan.
What's more, in the case of Web forums, the messages can be written in HTML
as well as in plain text. That means that the message can include some
images, sounds, etc. together with plain text. One more significant advantages
is that writers can link his message with referenced information in other
home-pages in Internet. The messages to be written in Web forums are quite
various in variety. Once you realize how interesting and pleasant to creat
such messages, you cannot stop writing them.
If you have never accessed and written some messages in Web forums, I
recommend to try them one day. I believe that this is one of the best way
to utilize and to enjoy Internet. Net surffing is nothing but only one phase
of Internet applications.
1998/10/17
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion this week(89):
The theory of innovation
The unemployment rate has finally reached to 4.3% , the worst in the past
two decade. There is no increase of consumption and investment and most
commercial firms are facing to the decrease in sales and production. The
deflation gaps, the word of which we learned at the university is often used
these days to explain the current situation of economy.
I learned Economics 30 years ago at the University which I graduated from.
I had no special interest in Economics itself. Since I was rather weak on
Mathematics, I did not intend to enter into any science departments. Once you
select some school of arts and literatures, they are limited to departments
of literature, jurisprudence , economics and so forth. I selected the
Department of Economics by chance without having any special interest in it.
There were two main streams of economics in those days. The one was the school
of Modern economics and the other is the school of Marx economics. The
Economics Department which I entered into taught the Modern Economics.
Honestly speaking, I did not really realize the difference between the two
and just selected the Modern economics by chance. It was a kind of luck as a
result. This is because Marx economics itself had lost its existence as a
social science for most communist nations disappeared from this world almost
a decade ago.
Needless to say, the center of the Modern Economics is the school of Keynes.
As a young student who only had a little social experience, I did not really
understand what the theory of Keynes is. However, the theory of income and
theory of effective demand, etc. which I learned at the college became useful
later on when I was in the business world to understand the economic condition
at that time.
Japanese economy is now in very bad deflational condition. A number of
measures that the Government is taking to get out of this condition such as
increase of public investments and of consumption are based on the theory
of effective demand by J.M.Keynes. As a total, those measures and theories
are supposed to be right.
However, the issue is whether the contents of such measures which
are being taken at the moment are suitable or not. As we see the present
circumstances, there is no increase of total demand, although several
measures such as conventional public investment and some stimulative
measures to increase consumption have been taken.
Under this circumstance, I remember one other theory of economics that I
learned at the school in along with the theory of Keynes. That is the
theory of innovation which was written by Joseh Schumpeter. The literal
translation of innovation for Japanese is technical revolution. But by
the word innovation, Schumpeter meant some wider area of revolutional
actions taken by business enterprises such as development of new products
and services, development of new distribution method, development of new
production methods and so forth.
According to my belief, what is really necessary right now to attain economic
recovery in our economy is the innovation itself asserted by Schumpeter.
I felt it quite lucky to have learned Schumpeters theory at the seminar I
belonged that was not taught so much in other seminars of the Department
of Economics of the college. I have no intention of talking too much on
their theory. But I do believe that the Government officers and policy makers
today will be able to get more ideas and hints from the theory of Schumpeter
rather than the theory of Keynes.
I would take this opportunity to recommend the readers of this page to
learn some of those theories of Schumpeter's economics if they have not known
them before. I believe that there are many ideas and hints to make some
concrete policies to attain the recovery of economy at the moment.
1998/10/24
Tadashi HAYASE
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