Japan's richest man calls goverment policy 'superficial'

Yanai said. “I hope to maintain 5 to 6% growth. In whatever economic climate, a company must grow. That’s what managing is about.”

I like his thinking! May I vote him as the next Prime Minister of Japan. I think he could do a better job than all the previous PMs....:)

Japan's richest man's view matches with mine, a poorest foreigner, what a coincidence !

Wow, no wonder he is so rich -- he actually gets it. Japan must have another strategy other than to simply pave more roads, and wait until the U.S. and China pull out of the recession. Domestic consumption must be raised.

yanai has no good ideas as to how to improve the japanese economy. moreover he has no interest in improving the japanese economy. he earns locally and spends globally. his benz and fleet of audis were made in germany. all his frank mueller watches were made in switzerland. his hypocrisy shames only himself. prattle on old man, prattle on.

1wrld1ppl

what are you on about, Yanai ragged on about jpns EXPORT econonmy NOT about IMPORTS, do you know the difference? His businesses in Jpn are based primarily on DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION, maybe you can open up a dictionary & it will become clearer for you.

onewrldoneppl:

Gotta disagree with you on this. While Yanai might personnally buy some foreign brand-name goods, it's difficult to argue with what he's done for the Japanese economy. Fast Retailing and Uniqlo drive an entire ecosystem of advertising, distribution, production and retail operations in Japan. And, while they manufacture wherever it makes the most sense, they also work with Japanese textile companies, and their collaboration with Toray for the development of the HeatTech line of clothing is a prime example. Also, as Japanese companies, Uniqlo and Fast Retailing pay salaries, taxes and employee benefits for more than 8,000 employees while simultaneously providing quality, low-cost clothing for Japanese consumers.

If Yanai wants to buy a few foreign cars, on which he also pays Japanese taxes, I'd say he can do so without upsetting the balance too much.

Japan is superficial. Look what happened when the car tax was eliminated. People drove everywhere. It was cheap, fun and the price of things fell due to the cost of transportation. So what does Japan do, re-legislate the tax and actually increase it. Nice thinking. The only people the government cares about are the wealthiest 10%. The rest of you are up a creek without a paddle.

"called for tax cuts"

Nah... they're talking about RAISING the consumption tax.

Yanai's suggested solution (reduction of the consumption tax) assumes that consumers would use the savings to spend more. However, in the absence of some sort of supporting data, it makes no sense to assume that reducing the consumption tax would eliminate or even significantly reduce people's worry about the future. Thus, there is no basis for assuming that consumers would spend the additional 5% on more purchases rather than adding it to their savings as a hedge against economic problems in the future.

So the guy whose company depends on domestic consumption asks the government to spur domestic consumption. What a surprise...

the cut in VAT in the UK did nothing for their economy. Agree that your average citizen is (as usual) going to suffer - whatever the crack leaders in Tokyo decide (or spend month and months not deciding) to do.