And so we say farewell to yet another Minister of Agriculture. It’s often said there’s a revolving door at the Min of Ag., and it’s really been on a spin recently.

The Shinzo Abe administration saw 3 Ministers. You wouldn’t have thought there was time, but surely there was. Toshikatsu Matsuoka, who committed suicide in May of last year, was succeeded by Norihiko Akagi. He lasted all of 60 days but you’ll remember him as the chap who turned up at a press conference with an unshaven and bandaged face, looking like he’d taken the wrong route home.

Masatoshi Wakabayashi then warmed the Ministry seat for about three weeks before Takehiko Endo took over officially. Mr Endo then made Akagi look like a stayer by resigning after a mere 8 days in office. Mr Wakabayashi was called back for his second stint in a fortnight.

Seiichi Ota took over the reins at the beginning of August. And today he’s decided to take responsibility (as is the ministerly tradition) for the tainted rice scandal by buggering off and doing nothing at all to help clear up the mess. Very noble, I’m sure.

That’s 6 ministers in 16 months if you’ve lost count. At this rate, within a few years, we’ll all get a go at being the Agriculture Minister.

Blaine Harden of the Washington Post penned a thought-provoking article about modern Japanese women that touches on many topics which have been raised here on Japundit. It asks why women are postponing or even eschewing marriage and children; a trend which I, too, have seen. Off the top of my head, I can name about 10 single Japanese women friends in their mid-to-late thirties; far fewer than the number who are married.

Takako Katayama has not closed the door on marriage and children. When she meets girlfriends for dinner, they ask each other, “Where are the good guys?” But she refuses to settle for a man who works long hours, declines to share in child-rearing and sees marriage mainly as a way to acquire lifetime live-in help.

“I want a mature, equal-partner kind of marriage,” she said. “Anyway, there are complete lives without a baby.”

Therein lies a dismal prognosis for Japan and for many of the other prosperous nations of East Asia. In numbers that alarm their governments, Asian women are delaying marriage and postponing childbirth. In Japan, the percentage of women who remain single into their 30s has more than doubled since 1980.

“We need to organize our society so that women and families will be able to raise children while working,” Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said in an interview in May. “I think we still lack adequate efforts on that front.”

This year, Fukuda’s government is pushing a “work-life balance” program that addresses the country’s famously punishing work ethic. It pressures companies to shoo workers (primarily men) out of the office at night. The intent is to improve the quality of family life and, in the process, make more babies.

The stakes are high here in the world’s second-largest economy, which now has the world’s highest proportion of people over 65 and lowest proportion of children under 15. According to a recent forecast, population loss will strip Japan of 70 percent of its workforce by 2050.

Norimitsu Onishi of the New York Times is back with another interesting article, this time on foreign workers in Japan. One thing I have noticed in my time in Japan is the consternation many Japanese feel towards foreigners. My wife trains foreign workers (largely in Japanese language and culture) who are employed by Japanese companies both here and abroad and it opens a window for me into these attitudes. Soon her organization will be training a large group (50 +/-) of Indonesian nurses and the hand wringing continues…

With one of the world’s most rapidly aging populations and lowest birthrates, Japan is facing acute labor shortages not only in farming towns but also in fishing villages, factories, restaurants and nursing homes, and on construction sites. Closed to immigration, Japan has admitted foreign workers through various loopholes, including employing growing numbers of foreign students as part-timers and temporary workers, like the Chinese here, as so-called foreign trainees.

The labor shortage has grown serious enough that a group of influential politicians in the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party recently released a report calling for the admission of 10 million immigrants in the next 50 years.

The foreign work force in Japan rose to more than one million in 2006 from fewer than 700,000 in 1996. But experts say that it will have to increase by significantly more to make up for the expected decline in the Japanese population. The government projects that Japan’s population, 127 million, will fall to between 82 million and 99 million by 2055. Moreover, because the population is graying, the share that is of working age is expected to shrink even faster.

The large presence of the Chinese workers has unsettled some Japanese here even as they have become increasingly dependent on them. Some vaguely mentioned the fear of crime, though they acknowledged that crime rates had not risen. No Japanese interviewed welcomed the idea of immigrants here or elsewhere in Japan.

“I feel a strange sense of oppression,” Toshimitsu Ide, 28, a lettuce farmer who had not hired any Chinese workers, said of seeing large groups of Chinese hanging around town. “They seem hard to approach.”

Perhaps because of the Japanese unease, the Chinese workers were given directives apparently aimed at curbing their movements, even before they arrived. They said they were told to go home by 8 p.m. and not to ride bicycles except for work. Some even said they had been instructed not to talk to young Japanese women.

“Though I’m in Japan,” said Toshimitsu Yui, 57, who works in construction, “I feel this is not Japan anymore.”

In any other country (that I’ve lived in, at least) it’d be akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, but this is Japan, and the Jimintou (the governing Liberal Democratic Party) are of course the party that the public won’t punish.

Today Prime Minister Fukuda is 10 months into his stewardship, with approval ratings below sea-level (of his G8 chums, only Gordon Brown is less popular, and he’s got one foot in the political grave). I doubt even he believes that a cabinet reshuffle will raise those ratings any, but that’s what we got.

There are 17 spots in the cabinet, and 4 of yesterday’s names remained by tea-time. Kyodo reported

Along with [reappointed Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka] Machimura, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe and Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Hiroya Masuda, who does not hold a Diet seat, were the only ones who remain in Fukuda’s Cabinet.

The big news was of course that Taro Aso returns to the fold as the LDP’s secretary general, the post he briefly held in the Abe administration before that came to an abrupt and unexpected close. Most sources are saying that this is seen as attempting to ‘connect with young voters’. Mr Aso reads comics, you know. Which would certainly be a factor in how I decide to vote, oh yes.

Bunmei Ibuki, former LDP secretary general, was appointed as finance minister, former Chief Cabinet Secretary Kaoru Yosano as economic and fiscal policy minister and Toshihiro Nikai, former LDP General Council chairman, as economy, trade and industry minister.

One unfortunate casualty of the day was ‘Killer’ Kunio Hatoyama, self-confessed al-Qaeda associate, seen here looking terribly dignified and taking his job seriously. After sterling work as the Justice Minister, and creating a new record of signing 13 death warrants in just 10 months in office, he’s replaced by Okiharu Yasuoka.

The Prime Minister later described the new Cabinet as ‘the Cabinet for realizing peace of mind’ (perhaps a little optimistic), going on to say “its mission is to carry out political measures” (perhaps a little obvious).

Pressed on the likelihood of an imminent election, Fukuda said ”The social and economic situations now require us to carry out politics, rather than discussing the lower house dissolution.” So that’ll be a hopeful ‘No’ then.

When asked about the much-discussed hike in consumption tax he told reporters “while fiscal rehabilitation will not be brought about without the sales tax, it is necessary to fully explain to the public how to deal with the issue.” Not consult or discuss, you’ll notice. Explain. Meanwhile, the new Justice Minister says the death penalty must be kept because the public support it. Yay for public opinion - good for back up when you need it, completely irrelevant the rest of the time.

For a full list of the new Cabinet, click here for the Kyodo rundown.

The New York Times recently reported on a new trend in Japanese tourism, both those visiting Japan and Japanese going abroad. While fewer Japanese are traveling outside the country, more foreigners are visiting; most of whom are coming from Asian countries.

Once prohibitively expensive, Japan is suddenly drawing soaring numbers of Asian tourists who splurge at the nation’s department stores, lounge in its hot spring resorts or explore remote corners, like this stretch of pristine mountains and forests on Japan’s northernmost tip.

Japan itself was once known for its free-spending tourists, who flocked to boutiques from Hong Kong to Fifth Avenue. But as Japan’s economy stalled for the last dozen or so years, rapid development in countries like China and South Korea raised living standards there.

At the same time, there has been a decline in the number of people going abroad from Japan. The number of Japanese traveling abroad has fallen 3 percent from the peak in 2000 of 17.8 million, the government-run Japan National Tourist Organization said.

By contrast, the number of visitors to Japan from South Korea, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong almost doubled last year from five years earlier, to 5.36 million, according to the tourist group. Those four regions alone accounted for nearly two-thirds of all foreign visitors to Japan last year, the organization said.

Many Asian tourists interviewed said they liked to shop here because Japan has the latest fashions first, and at prices way below those in many other Asian countries, where tariffs are steep. They also said they liked visiting Japan because it was close, safe and cleaner than much of the rest of Asia.

During the 1980s, Americans were the largest group of overseas visitors to Japan, but have now fallen to fourth behind South Korea, Taiwan and China. Surveys also showed Asian tourists came to Japan for different reasons than Westerners. While Americans said they came to see cultural attractions like temples, Asians cited shopping, followed by hot springs and nature. Visits to factories are also popular, he said.

One of the most baffling things to me about Japanese society is the work culture. I can’t understand how “salary men” prioritize their jobs over their families. Of course, if everyone else is doing it, no one can step out of line or risk getting fired but if the expectation of working until 8 or 9 or 10 pm everyday were the standard in France, for example, riots and strikes would have occurred ages ago.

In any case, the Washington Post ran a story about Japanese work culture last week (I’m behind), specifically about karoshi or working yourself to death.

Death from too much work is so commonplace in Japan that there is a word for it — karoshi. There is a national karoshi hotline, a karoshi self-help book and a law that funnels money to the widow and children of a salaryman (it’s almost always a man) who works himself into an early karoshi for the good of his company.

A local Japanese government agency ruled June 30 for the widow and children of a 45-year-old Toyota chief engineer who died in 2006. While organizing the worldwide manufacture of a hybrid version of the Camry sedan, the man had worked nights and weekends and often traveled abroad — putting in up to 114 hours of overtime a month — in the six months before he died in his bed of heart failure. The cause of death was too much work, according to a ruling by the Labor Bureau of Aichi prefecture, where Toyota has its headquarters.

For decades, the Japanese government has been trying, and largely failing, to set limits on work and on overtime. The problem of karoshi became prevalent enough to warrant its own word in the boom years of the late 1970s, as the number of Japanese men working more than 60 hours a week soared.

Thirty years later, overtime rules remain so nebulous and so weakly enforced that the United Nations’ International Labor Organization has described Japan as a country with no legal limits on the practice.

The consequences show up not only in claims for death and disability from overwork but in suicides attributed to “fatigue from work.” Among 2,207 work-related suicides in 2007, the most common reason (672 suicides) was overwork, according to government figures released in June.

The New York Times has an interesting article on Japanese energy technology. What always leaves me scratching my head is how this environmentally-minded country has such lousy windows and insulation which leads to more heating in the winter and air conditioning in the summer (and thus more energy consumed and greater expense). I’d also love to see an accounting for all of the energy consumed by the millions of ubiquitous vending machines!

Now, with oil prices hitting dizzying levels and the world struggling with global warming, [Japan] is hoping to use its conservation record to take a rare leadership role on a pressing global issue. It will showcase its efforts to export its conservation ethic — and its expensive power-saving technology — at next week’s meeting in Japan of the Group of 8 industrial leaders.

“Superior technology and a national spirit of avoiding waste give Japan the world’s most energy-efficient structure,” Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said. Japan “wants to contribute to the world,” he said.

Japan is by many measures the world’s most energy-frugal developed nation. After the energy crises of the 1970s, the country forced itself to conserve with government-mandated energy-efficiency targets and steep taxes on petroleum. Energy experts also credit a national consensus on the need to consume less. It is also the only industrial country that sustained government investment in energy research even when energy became cheap again.

Japan consumed half as much energy per dollar worth of economic activity as the European Union or the United States, and one-eighth as much as China and India in 2005. While the country is known for green products like hybrid cars, most of its efficiency gains have been in less eye-catching areas, for example, in manufacturing.

Corporate Japan has managed to keep its overall annual energy consumption unchanged at the equivalent of a little more than a billion barrels of oil since the early 1970s, according to Economy Ministry data. It was able to maintain that level even as the economy doubled in size during the country’s boom years of the 1970s and ’80s.

The same Washington Post reporter who gave us Jero earlier in the week (Blaine Harden) is reporting on the Japanese labor shortage due to the greying of Japan and a hesitancy to increase immigration to deal with the problem.

Now Japan faces a fundamental threat to its future — demographic decline that experts say will delete 70 percent of its workforce by 2050.  Inside the government, there is growing agreement that Japan can head off disastrous population decline by significantly increasing immigration. Japan has the world’s highest proportion of people older than 65 and the world’s smallest proportion of children younger than 15. Without immigration in substantial numbers, it will soon run perilously low on people of working age.

Yet among highly developed countries, Japan has always ranked near the bottom in the percentage of foreign-born residents. In the United States, about 12 percent are foreign-born; in Japan, just 1.6 percent. Most immigrants here are from Asia or South America. The largest number come from Korea (about 600,000 people), followed by China and Brazil. The Brazilians are mostly of mixed Japanese descent.

Yet there is little or no political will here to persuade or prepare the public to accept a sizable influx of foreigners. “There are people who say that if we accept more immigrants, crime will increase,” Fukuda said. “Any sudden increase in immigrants causing social chaos [and] social unrest is a result that we must avoid by all means.”

There is another way for Japan to slow population decline and maintain its workforce: persuade more Japanese women to marry, have children and remain on the job. The percentage of women who choose to stay single has doubled in the past two decades. When they do marry and have children, they drop out of the workforce at far higher rates than in other wealthy countries. To that end, the government is working on a bill to require companies to offer shorter hours to parents with young children and to stop requiring them to work overtime.

Toyota recently became the world’s leading car maker and the Associated Press is reporting that last month it surpassed 1,000,000 gas-electric hybrid Prius sold (I looked it up, Toyota says the plural of Prius is Prius).

• The Prius first went on sale in 1997.
• It’s sold in 40 countries and regions.
• 592,000 were sold in North America and 315,000 in Japan.
• The latest model gets 48 miles per gallon (20 km per liter) in city driving and 45 miles per gallon (19 km per liter) in highway driving.

Before I started riding the trains here, I drove a Honda Insight in the U.S. and loved it. Unfortunately, it was discontinued because the 2-seater was too small to be practical for most people. Nevertheless, I’m glad that Japanese automakers are taking the lead on greener cars since the U.S. surely isn’t.

There was an interesting article by Leo Lewis in this weekend’s Times in which Lewis outlines how he reckons that a very simple agreement between the USA and Japan could be a massive step towards world food price stabilisation.

Lewis says that current World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules “[oblige] Tokyo to buy rice it does not need and that eventually rots in storage. The WTO rule, its many critics say, effectively turns millions of tonnes of high-grade American produce into feed for Japanese hogs and chickens.”

If Japan doesn’t want or need the US rice, you may ask, why then doesn’t it simply sell it to some of its neighbours?

Standing in the way of that, however, has been a rule that prevents Japan from re-exporting its reserves of US rice without permission from Washington, which has not been forthcoming until now because of the fear of domestic political repercussions from the US rice industry.

Washington’s Centre for Global Development (CGD) said an agreement “would prick the speculative bubble and the hoarding mentality that has sent rice prices into the stratosphere. [...] A sudden surge of unexpected supplies [would] reassure anxious countries and poor people around the world that there is indeed enough rice for everybody.”

The amount of rice being spoken of is said to be in the region of 1.5 million tonnes, the release of which, according to the CGD, could mean that “rice prices could halve by the end of the month.”

The New York Times has an interesting article about the shortage of engineers in Japan. It’s really an astounding fact given how Japan is such a leader in science and technology. A big theme of the article is the Japanese attitude towards foreigners since allowing engineers to immigrate - as U.S. high-tech companies do to a large extent - would help ameliorate the shortage. 

By one ministry of internal affairs estimate, the digital technology industry here is already short almost half a million engineers. Some companies are moving research jobs to India and Vietnam because they say it is easier than bringing non-Japanese employees here.  

Since 1999, the number of undergraduates majoring in sciences and engineering has fallen 10 percent to 503,026, according to the education ministry. (Just 1.1 percent of those students were foreign students.) The number of students majoring in creative arts and health-related fields rose during that time, the ministry said.

Mr. Hikita and other engineering students say their dwindling numbers offer one benefit: they are a hot commodity among corporate recruiters. A labor ministry survey last year showed there were 4.5 job openings for every graduate specializing in fields like electronic machinery.

The NY Times ran a Reuters article on Japan’s wealthiest people.  Topping the list Hiroshi Yamauchi of Nintendo who is worth $7.8 billion.  The source material for the article is actually Forbes magazine which has a much more in depth piece.

Property developer, Akira Mori fell from 1st to 2nd place at $7.7 billion and pachinko machine maker Kunio Busujima is 3rd at $5.4 billion.

Tidbits from the Forbes article:

• The rising yen (against the dollar) helped everyone on the list appear wealthier.
• The youngest member of Japan’s wealthiest 40 is 32-year-old Kenji Sahara who founded Mixi (which my fiancee is addicted to).
• Some people from last year’s list fell off the list, most due to the falling value of the Nikkei index.
• Among the 40 wealthiest, just 3 are women: Hiroko Takei, Chizuko Matsui, and Keiko Erikawa.  Only Erikawa participated in the creation of the wealth; the other two inherited it.

One thing that Japanese politicians are always hoping to avoid, but are always causing, is ‘confusion’. And with Golden Week and the end of April approaching, Japanese motorists are getting reading for some ‘major confusion’.

Except of course, there is no confusion in the literal sense. It’s an absolute certainty that petrol prices are going to go up. And by more than a little.

The government are working to reinstate the so-called temporary petrol tax that ‘ran out’ at the end of March, leading to a drop in pump prices of ¥20-25. If they succeed, it’s likely to be slapped back on at the beginning of May. The beginning of May also coincides with Golden Week, when Japan goes on holiday en masse, and traditionally gets shafted by a pre-Golden Week price hike at petrol stations anyway.

When the ¥25 tax was removed at the beginning of April, prices round here fell, at the very most, by ¥20, and consumers waited for 3-5 days to see the benefit, as retailers waited to ‘finish stocks of petrol bought at the higher, taxed price’. Even so, there were grumbles from petrol retailers about projected losses.

With the start of Golden Week, the Japanese consumer can expect to get a three-way shafting - the now traditional ¥4-5 Golden Week hike, the continuing rise of global crude prices, and the reinstatement of the tax. And when the tax comes back, will it be (as cynics like me suspect) at a full ¥25 even at stations that only reduced prices by ¥20 or less? There’s potential for the added confusion of when retailers choose to readjust the tax/price - selling petrol that they bought at the lower price, will they maintain the lower price while they still have stock (just as they maintained the higher prices until they’d sold all their higher priced stock a month ago), or will that tax go back on the second it can?

Assorted media are mentioning prices of ¥160 or higher. For comparison, my nearest petrol station is currently selling at ¥122, so we’re talking about a rise of over 30%.

Will all this be enough to enrage the traditionally docile Japanese consumer? The pre-Golden Week price hike is the most interesting part of the equation. Just as everyone prepares get in their cars and go off on holiday, the petrol prices are raised. Every year, like clockwork, the captive audience gets shafted. And does little more than quietly grumble, and acquiesce and pay up. After all, what’s the alternative - vote for change, or something equally mad?

according to articles found on both bloomberg and the guardian, the expanding waistlines of japan’s denizens is causing the ministry of health and welfare concern. so great is there apprehension, in fact, that they along with local and municipal governments, have hatched a comprehensive series of plans to reduce the girth of the nation. as its stated goal, the government hopes to reduce unhealthy weight and obesity in the workforce and their dependents by 25% in seven years time.

being the lazy ineffective bureaucrats they are, the ministry has a plan to hoist all responsibility for achieving these goals on the shoulders of the companies who employ overweight workers and their out of shape dependents. the firms that fail to meet the goal of having 25% of their workforce (and the work force’s dependents) shape up risk paying increased taxes to help assist with the overburdened public health system.

isn’t it enough that your manager harasses you about meeting quotas, productivity, and deadlines? now you have to report to them about your exercise and diet plans, too? lame. not to mention the increased taxes on the entire company. now you not only have to report to your supervisor about your waistline; but anyone who isn’t in shape is probably going to be the victim of hazing from their fellow employees who don’t want to hear about why their paychecks are being cut when the worker doesn’t manage to drop those last 5 pounds.

even more insidious are the possible implications for proprietors and small llc (or japanese equivalent) companies. while the articles are relatively sparse on the details of how this plan would affect small companies (or whether they are excluded) if the same laws did apply this could be a great hidden way to raise taxes on certain individuals who already have enough to wade through.

and would somebody please think of the women and the children here. aren’t the relationships between spouses and their offspring strained enough without having to watch each other’s weight. hey, at least it provides a plausible excuse for telling your wife she’s fat. “honey i’m just trying to help you with your job.”

i know. i know, i’m probably being a tad over-reactive (probably?) and might be engaging in my fair share of hyperbole, but this does seem like an underhanded and indirect way of trying to reign in the present value of future healthcare.

well at least there is a light side to this whole matter. in a bid to encourage japanese citizens to lose weight some municipalities have take it on themselves to create inspirational models of behavior for all the lardasses out there. case in point: the mitsuke mighty morphing metabo rangers.

do you think they morph into something less lame?

Today is the start of a new fiscal year in Japan and a host of new changes are set to kick in. . . some good for consumers and others not so good.

Gasoline
Gasoline prices will drop by about 25 yen per liter.

Clinical treatment fees
Costs for emergency, after-hours clinical treatment will go up.

Dependent elderly health insurance
Anybody 75 and older who is a dependant of their offspring will have to start paying health insurance from October.

Metabolic syndrome health checks
Medical clinics will begin offering regular check-ups and health advice related to metabolic syndrome for people 40 to 74.

National Pension bite
Will rise 310 yen per month to 14,410 yen for everyone.

Pension rights of divorced spouses
Spouses automatically entitled to half of pension payments for the term of their marriage.

Car liability insurance
Will rise for all vehicles by an average 22.2 percent.

New recycling laws
More separation categories for PET bottles.

Rewards for oldters who give up their driver’s licences
Oldsters who surrender licences will be entitled to discounts and higher savings rates.

Recording of interrogations
Suspect questioning to be recorded in audio and video.

Recognition of A-Bomb victims
Relaxation of rules will exapand the roles of recognized victims.

Part-time workers
No more wage discrimination against part-timers who perform duties of full-timers.

With a looming global financial crisis it’s a very hands-on time for governors of national banks the world over. But in Japan, the top job is vacant while the government and opposition use the appointment as a political football.

That’s the view expressed in a Mainichi editorial published yesterday under the no-nonsense headline “Leaving top BOJ post empty is a crime“.

“To avoid a crisis in the financial system,” the editorial notes, “central banks in major countries are working and communicating closely together to deal with the situation.” Meanwhile in Japan, in its splendid isolation, there’s nobody at the helm.

The appointment of governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) requires approval from both houses of the Diet, but while the ruling coalition controls the lower house, control of the upper house is in the hands of the opposition.

If you ask the governing jimintou (LDP), they’ll tell you that the opposition led by the minshutou (DPJ) are simply vetoing any suggestion they make in order to obstruct the business of government. If you ask the opposition, they’ll tell you that the government are attempting to crowbar cronies into the governor’s office, thereby compromising the independence of the BOJ.

U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer said this week

These are pretty turbulent times in the financial markets, and it is important for Japan to have a steady voice people can rely on. It is important for the world economic community to know whose hand is on the tiller at the Japanese central bank.”

Which is a fairly diplomatic way of saying “Stop pissing about”.

The government had first nominated Toshiro Muto, on the not unreasonable-sounding grounds of having been BOJ Deputy Governor. The opposition complained that as Muto had been a Ministry of Finance bureaucrat for 30 years, he “would not be as independent as a central bank chief should be”.

Tellingly though, the Mainichi continued,

They are also angry that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has rammed through other bills, which require approval only from the more powerful lower house.

So basically after not being able to oppose anything for a while, the opposition were using this opportunity to make a big show of baring teeth by sticking a spanner in a big one.

Then Koji Tanami (another former Ministry of Finance bureaucrat) was proposed. And rejected.

Senior Democratic legislator Naoto Kan said his party also wanted to avoid a vacancy at the central bank’s helm, but Tanami’s career was so similar to Muto’s, it wouldn’t have made sense to block one and not the other. “People would think that’s too illogical.”

So if you’re going to appear obstructive, at least be consistent.

The previous BOJ chief, Toshihiko Fukui, finished his term as governor on Wednesday. In the meantime Masaaki Shirakawa, who has already been approved as one of two deputy governors, is serving as acting BOJ governor as the political impasse continues.

One possible solution to the problem outlined by the Mainichi is that “the government could revise the Bank of Japan law to require only lower house approval for the personnel decision, allowing Fukuda to force through his initial choice, Muto. But the opposition is unlikely to welcome such a move. ” Unlikely indeed.

Peter wrote earlier today how Japan is a very cash-based society. Underlining that point, a story has been reported which is not unusual in itself except in its sheer magnitude.

Hearing that someone in Japan has a fortune in cash stashed somewhere about their house is relatively common. There are various reasons for this, one of which is the poor return on savings with banks with interest rates close to zero.

But two sisters from Osaka were hiding their wealth from the taxman, it’s reported. They are suspected of “hiding about 5.93 billion yen inherited from their father, who founded a group of eight firms including real estate leasing and loan companies.”

That comes out to about US$57,000,000. In cash. In their house.

After investigators found “more than 5 billion yen in cash [which] was found in cardboard boxes in a garage”, one of the sisters fessed up, the other said she had “forgotten about [the] cash kept in her home.”

They are charged with “evading about 2.86 billion yen [US$28 million] in inheritance tax, the highest figure for a case involving inheritance tax evasion recorded in Japan”.

planning a trip with the kids? looking for something a little bit more original than disney? or maybe you want the kids to experience something educational while they’re having fun. well if your visiting japan, korea, china, or vietnam; you might consider the following amusement parks.

probably NSFW

according to an article released in february 21st by the economist, the magazine revisted an issue they first discussed in print a decade ago, namely “ japan’s amazing ability to disappoint.”

while the steady economic growth of the past few years has been an encouraging sign, there are major structural problems in the economy which threaten to relegate the japanese market to a decadent future where it would no longer be a “top-tier” economy, according to the economy minister, Hiroko Ota.

with direct foreign investment making up only 3% of their gross domestic product, the japanese seem to be the most foreign capital adverse of all industrialized nations. this component of the economy, roughly defined, covers the creation of firms from investors that reside in another country who control the operation of the said firm. why is japan so lacking in this category? as with all news stories (it seems these days) the answers are seemingly obvious and lacking in concrete details…

The private-sector members with business and academic backgrounds cited hindrances to FDI such as relatively high corporate tax burdens, language barriers, regulatory red tape, uncertain rules on foreign investment and the lack of infrastructure catering to foreign residents’ needs.

The proposed solution? A combination of measures to lower the stress of buying businesses in japan by foreign firms that includes a streamlining of ministerial oversight and the encouragement of women, retired, and young children to enter the workforce to provide a ready source of labor in a very competitive job market.

while these measures are all well and good a few questions arise. first of all will japanese companies adapt to a higher amount of foreign investment and court foreign share holders, or will they continue to resist working with foreign firms? secondly, if global corporations are looking for talent and coming up short in japan, wouldn’t throwing them the leftovers of the japanese labor market do little to solve the problem? it just seems to me that they should either leave it up to the companies to offer an incentive for japanese employees or at least make an effort to find the general fields that companies are looking for and encourage education in those fields?

feel free to discuss if you’d like

hat tip to breitbart