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© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017.Japan's cash-rich companies ready to spend more on M&A, not wages: poll
By Tetsushi Kajimoto TOKYO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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MarkX
What a bunch of greedy bastards! Where do they think their wealth comes from? The hard work of their employees! But heaven forbid they reward them and raise their wages. A friend just returned from Australia and was commenting on how expensive things were, but then quickly added that the salaries were much higher which offset the high prices. If Japan does the same, then they will finally see their dream of inflation!
Bintaro
It's not enough to ask nicely. Companies will not do anything unless it becomes law.
Then the only way is to force them.
But the government does care about that, so it won't happen.
lostrune2
Same thing happened with the US
"USA's cash-rich companies ready to spend more on M&A, not wages"
That's why trickle-down economics don't work
since1981
Doesn't this contradict an earlier article "Japanese households' financial assets rising: survey"
JeffLee
The labor unions need to take their gloves off and make some ultimatums, like shutting down the transport system, refusing to collect garbage and shutting off the heating and plumbing in factories and office buildings.
The government should start scaling back its subsidies and procurement contracts until the corporations agree to share the benefits wrought by the "accomodative policies" of Abenomics.
fxgai
In what other countries in the world are companies surveyed to ask whether they will spend their shareholders profits on raising wages?
Wages are an input cost that is paid in order to produce goods and services and hopefully leave profits. The purpose is to make profits for shareholders. The purpose of producing profit for shareholders is not so that the profit earned for shareholders can then be taken away in order to pay higher input costs.
Shareholders are taking a risk owning businesses. Sharedholders may lose their money, or lots of it (Kobe Steel? Toshiba? Tepco?). Although they run the risk of losing their money, there is this concept in Japan that should they get lucky and receive a profit, they should then give some more of it up to pay higher input costs.
Any business operator that aims to increase the input costs of the business has no business running one.
Wages in normal economies are set by what the market demands. Pay sufficient wages, or lose staff to the competitors.
The cart is put before the horse in Japan.
It's the labour market that is supposed to do that. If it's not working out as hoped it implies your labour market is broken (and needs fixing). Stop trying to take shortcuts all the time.
Wise. If you can't shrink your workforce easily as is the case in Japan, you need reserves as a buffer for during the lean times.
That is, they don't like "Kurodanomics", they don't want a "2nd arrow", but do want that elusive "3rd arrow", which should include labour market reforms.
Exactly. But these are only difficult issues to the extent that the politicians are gutless. The survey results show that (most) everyone knows that reforms are required, and it won't be a cakewalk. But people will respect politicians that have the guts to do what is the right thing for the long term prospects of the country. The leader that stands up and does this will go down in history as Japanese leader of the century.
Agreed, although Abe is too gutless to do either.