Xeno Man comments

They were the one downgrading Japan in the first place.

It is more like the greatest Japanese puppet in American history.

I have to some serious clarifications. I have been aware of what the USA is capable in the long time. I do not like it when many LDP leaders keep modeling themselves after Margeret Thratcher who destroyed the British economy for Corporate America. The legacy of Koizumi and Abe is all about creating the loopholes for foreign intrusions of malevolent intents. The Chinese managed to penetrate so deep into Japanese real estate market, thanks to Koizumi and Abe.

Warren Buffet is a shrewd investor, he knows what he is doing! I've never heard of him doing the kinds of things Xeno man is claiming. He is not a predatory investor that buys and breaks up companies, bankrupting them and then selling them off in pieces.

I don't have any bad blood with Warren Buffet but I am deeply worried on how Anglo-American style of capitalism begins to penetrate deep into Japan. Warren Buffet is a legendary investor who had fired executives that he doesn't like at a whim as well as downsizing workforce in a heartbeat.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-times-warren-buffett-has-said-youre-fired-2016-02-27

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2020/06/10/warren-buffetts-fort-worth-based-bnsf-cuts-jobs-as-railroads-feel-covid-19-pain/

https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2020/08/10/precision-castparts-cuts-10-000-jobs.html

Say goodbye to any Japanese style of social stability or lifetime employment. Cutting jobs is the standard formula for Warren Buffett. The man said it himself!

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/08/warren-buffett-jobs-us-3g-kraft-heinz-bid-unilever

If he is now involved with the five powerful remnants of Zaibatsus, then he is definitely up to something much grander than any Japanese executive can imagine.

Warren Buffet have a faith like most of us in stainless-steel Japanese economy. Unbreakable, crisis resistant.

Depend on your definition. The UK is the financial capital for illegal money laundering that barely benefits any British people. If he has "faith" in Japan, then it will be something like the UK where most profits go straight to the USA, while London acts an intermediary place for wealth transfer. People will soon treat Japan as a place to transfer their wealth between Asia and the West. However, it will not be like Singapore where the profits make the lives of Singaporeans better rather than it will be like UK where money goes straight to foreign elites.

Warren Buffett buys assets in Japan because the stocks here are dirt cheap. Those powerful trading houses control the important gateways between Japan and the world, in term of importing resources into Japan. If the man is going to completely control those firms in the distant future, he can very threaten the national security of Japan through simply not importing stuffs into Japan. OR he can raise a sky-high prices (like most American capitalists did in Latin America) that only make Japanese lives worse.

Trust into a foreign man (a legendary man), who has a history of buying/breaking firms for higher profits without a thought on the lives of workers and social goods, is very a misguided one.

I'm with him Japanese Cronyism seems teflon coated!

Be careful for what you wished for. Japanese crony capitalism is hilariously inefficient and corrupt but it is the system that assures the economic independence of Japan until Koizumi/Abe gave it away for Americans and foreign investors.

What we need is to kick out the old guards and put the new bloods with innovative ideas.

This is the beginning of the end for the Japanese bureaucratic systems among the Japan Inc. If Warren Buffet joins the game, then Paul Singer and his cohorts may finally prove successful of defeating the Japan systems.

I already saw the defeat of Japan Inc and Japanese bureaucracy when Shinzo Abe kowtowed to Trump with an agricultural deal that will fully open Japanese markets for American and foreign farmers/agricultural companies. This certainly spells death for the fragile agricultural industry of Japan. Japanese farmers can't compete against any outsider, especially with the Americans. What even worse is that American foods and agricultural produces are full of unhealthy chemicals and GMOs which forced the EU to put a barrier against the Americans. Now, I bet Japanese lifespans will decrease in the long term.

The breakthrough into Japanese agriculture market, thanks to Trump, is the sign for the concede of Japan towards the USA and foreigners. Many beloved Japanese brands will be foreign in the next decade, like Sony and Nintendo are already foreign. What is more terrible that there is no Japanese capable of wrestling the restless tides of foreign intrusions of malevolent intents. Chinese investors do not care about Japanese economic laws, as they already ruin the Kabukeicho and most of Tokyo districts into the hotbeds of crimes and prostitution. American investors do not give a crap about labor unions and labor laws, as the lifetime employment is now a distant memory in Japan. European investors only favor their own European people, and they do not treat the Japanese workers with respect.

Shinzo Abe resigns out of the huge messes that he carved for the rising trend of foreign capitalist, predatory intrusions. He and his cronies long sold Japan for the highest, foreign bidders. When Warren Buffet soon takes charges of the big 5 trading houses, he will not be merciful towards any Japanese worker and executive who prioritizes stability above profit. Buffet is a ruthless man, so be wary!

In regards of Abenomics, I have a few things to add.

Just as the Japanese experiment with balance sheet expansion was getting going, around the mid-90s sometime, I recall the former BoJ Chairman Yasushi Mieno musing that this was perhaps not the right policy choice. He wondered whether the best way to get money moving in the economy, in a world of 1) capital-constrained banks, 2) huge economy-wide debts, 3) vast excess capacity and 4) a rapidly aging demographic with a massive propensity to save, was actually to raise deposit rates. That way, the real incomes of consumers would be boosted with active money, rather than building up inactive money on the balance sheets of banks. It would be, in effect, a monetary donation which would in time enable a recovery in consumption, even if it held back investment.

He was, of course, correct, but such a counter-intuitive way of thinking was anathema to Neo-Keynesians and to mainstream economics. He had instinctively grasped that in the quantum weirdness of the ELB and the Liquidity Trap, policy required doing the opposite of the common orthodoxy, because he had understood the existence of the reversal rate of interest. He grasped what other Central Bankers still don't get - that QE is deflationary. 

The alternative, liquidation of the banks' bad debts, was hotly proposed by the US consensus and the big international institutions, but the resulting depression would have been too painful to invoke in a modern democracy, so the Japanese chose chronic deflation. Naturally, when the US found itself in a similar bind after 2008, the Fed chose the same orthodox but supine course of action, but had the chutzpah to describe their cowardice as 'The Courage to Act'. 

Meanwhile Mieno's insight has been forgotten and too much political and professional capital has been shed blindly following the Neo-Keynesian playbook for the policy damage now ever to be reversed. And so with every dollar of QE spewed out by Central Banks, the pull of the Black Hole gets stronger and the inevitability of Armageddon increases. Abenomics simply made things worse. You can guarantee it will continue.

There is only one rising power, aside China, is also doing medical support diplomacy across the world as well. They can be far better than Japan because their nation is a manufacturing power with a controlled Covid situation. Vietnam.

https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/vietnam-using-mask-diplomacy-fortify-foreign-relations

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vietnam-diplomacy/vietnam-challenges-chinas-monopoly-on-virus-diplomacy-idUSKCN21S0CH

https://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textile-news/vietnamese-firms-ready-to-face-2nd-covid-19-wave-269315-newsdetails.htm

I personally suspect that Japan's medical aids are likely made in either China or Vietnam. For Vietnamese leaders, it doesn't matter as long as Japan provides political and economic favors for the VN. Even if Japan uses the Vietnamese equipments and supplies to bolster their medical diplomacy, when Japan is incapable of amassing anything of such in their own borders.

Triple kneefall for Japan inc. Sharp is owned bij Taiwanese HonHai ( Foxconn), suppliers to Apple. Nice triangular deal for Apple and Foxconn that is.

With Japan Display is going to be foreign-owned, the last prestige of Japan Inc will be gone in the next few years.

KATSUMI ABIKO, 79, SHOPKEEPER

"I've been wanting him to resign for a long time."

KATSUMI ABIKO, 79, SHOPKEEPER

"Everything he did was wrong. Especially (trying to) amend the constitution. He is not protecting our constitution but wanted to change it. I can't forgive him."

These people are the true backbones of Japanese economy - SME and shop-owners. Not some Yes-salarymen and host-club actors/actresses.

Abenomics brutalized these people in a free market economy with insane tax hikes in the last 8 years.

As PM of the world's third largest economy for 8 years, if you can't accomplish your goals, while controlling, for the most part, both houses of the diet, YOU are the problem!

Sad part about all of it, is that you never once thought to try something different, and relied on methods that were out of date by literally decades, before you even started!

One other thing, you are lying here about one thing, about not accomplishing your goals, you made your business cronies a ton of cash, and I am sure they will give you a great send off!.

For people see me here a lot, I am frequently a fierce critic of Shinzo Abe. However, I only criticize him on his intentions rather than his abilities or personalities. Among LDP cronies, Shinzo Abe has the biggest brain above bureaucratic idiots. Taro Aso is an idiot, Shigeru Ishiba is a delusional fascist, Yoshihide Suga is a passive fool, Shinjirō Koizumi is a naive youngster, Katsunobu Kato/Toshimitsu Motegi/Tomomi Inada are non-factors with ultranationalist agenda. Only Taro Kono and Fumio Kishida have the brains on par with Shinzo Abe, except it is likely they will not get anything done soon.

The problem with Japan is the bureaucracy entrenched at every part of the country. Shinzo Abe may have consolidated most powers in the central government but he still can't persuade the regional governments and other bureaucrats on his side. Like Koizumi, Abe's structural reforms get struck down by these incompetent, conservative bureaucrats at every level. Just look at Tokyo, Abe has to freaking compromise with Koike, while Xi Jinping should have no issue of getting Shanghai in line. Japan's bureaucracy is quite twisted and inefficient! The Fukushima crisis to the recent natural disasters across Japan are the prime examples where bureaucrats do not cooperate with each other. Yakuzas response faster than the freaking government during the times of crises is the result of bureaucratic failures across Japan.

Abe or not, Japan is doomed in the long run if the bureaucratic system does not get a kick in the face.

One of his greatest failures has been the steady impoverishment of the Japanese people-it must be particularly gut-wrenching’

to see this generation poorer than the last...

This result is caused by many years of neoliberalism before and after the assets bubble collapse in 1990s. The LDP cronies want this result all along because the Reganites in the USA commanded their Japanese puppets to do so.

Apparently, the American masters have been successful at turning Japan into an another neoliberal hellscape. Today, Japan is increasingly becoming like California or Southern USA with poor families and homeless people.

And who do you think will be the next PM? One of his cronies!

Everyone here celebrating really needs a reality check.

Except there is one who may repair the damages: Taro Kono. He never joins the Nippon Kaigi or openly visits Yasukuni shrine for political reasons. His international policies focus on the formation of Asian Union and mending wounds with China/South Korea.

Last time, Shinzo Abe attempted an apology for South Koreans in 2005, and he was voted out by the ultranationalists. After that attempt, he abandoned the idea of openly softening the wounds between Japan and Asian neighbors. For this reason, I doubt Taro Kono's chance for PM will be high.

The situations are so bad that now he finally resigns. God helps whoever will become the PM! Japan's messes have become irreparable because of him and his cronies.

I have been saying the same thing in this site. Japanese leaders fear hyperinflation than deflation.

The QE of the BoJ was nothing more than an artificial deflationary tool to prevent the much worse fate of hyperinflation that will lead to stagflation.

Apparently, the article may point the possibility that Japan used all of its economic ammos in the last round of QE. If the BoJ continues the reckless path of QE, Japan may end up like the Weimar Republic.

Meanwhile, Japan's largest paint and coating corporation had officially sold itself to a Singaporean Chinese who has close ties with the CCP.

https://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/singapores-wuthelam-group-to-buy-out-nippon-paint-for-166-billion

This article reveals to us that there has been a trend of Japanese firms selling their assets to the Chinese. I was quite stunned to learn that ARM jv operation in China is now mostly owned by the Chinese military. I am aware that Japan Inc has been in heavy decline, and they desperately need cashes. If Japanese firms are willing to sell themselves to or collaborate with the CCP, I bet Trump's wrath will turn upon Japan next.

The vultures are circling...

For many people do not realize the deeper meaning of the statement. The vultures here, aside the Japanese cronies, are the foreign investors who brought and owned the Japanese politicians. These shadowy masters are mostly American and Chinese.

Just ask the last LDP bureaucrat got arrested for accepting the Chinese bribes, or how Abe torn down the agricultural protectionism of Japan to allow the hordes of cheap, unhealthy American agricultural goods flooding Japan.

Koizumi seems the least bad option. As he hasn't had a particularly long political career, he hasn't accumulated the long list of farces the others have.

He is probably the most progressive one out of all idiots here. Unfortunately, he might be too progressive for Japanese conservatives to support.

You hit the nail on the head. And that's why I don't think either of them as a chance in hell of becoming PM

This reminds me of Shinzo Abe's 2005 PM career. He actually confessed the idea of apologizing JP's war crimes and mending ties with Asian neighbors. Shinzo Abe actually had a plan of breaking Japan out of American dominance. Too bad, the conservatives accused him of being a traitor and voted him out. Shinzo Abe reluctantly joined the Nippon Kaigi and seeked their help for his masterplan. Shinzo Abe is striked me as an opportunistic pragmatist who loves to talk nationalist craps but acts differently from his statements.

Any politician in Japan is forced to become a fascist or an ultranationalist to stay alive in politics. Absolutely, they must be pro-West and pro-American. The USA prefers Japan being this way for easier control.

With the demographic cliff and the mass increase in retirees there is no economic theory that can save Abe-san from deflation. He did his best.

He could have done massive structural reforms as Koizumi termed it. However, the regional bureaucrats destroy any effort for any real reform in Japan. The Abenomics is nothing more than a bandage policy that seeks to benefit the foreign investors and their Japanese puppets.

Similar to how Margaret Thratcher destroyed the British economy for the American capitalists.

Aristocracy is fundamentally incompatible with democracy.

This is pretty much the fault of Americans. This fault only benefits the American overlords and capitalists at the costs of Japanese people and East Asian region.

The USA keeps the old Japanese aristocracy alive as convenient puppets who can just shout loudly at Yasukuni shrine but none of them can do any crap against the Americans or Chinese. East Asia is kept at a perpetual state of ultranationalist anger among its inhabitants, so the American defense companies can sell more weapons and the Pentagon can retain a buffer zone against China/Russia. Japan is a deared unsinkable carrier of the USA in the Asian continent. The USA doesn't give a dime about democracy as long as it fits the American special interests.

Abenomics has been a mess because it's based on faulty economic theory. The negative effects are only beginning to become clearly evident. The double consumption tax increases, for example, evidence the reality vs the theory.

It is actually an astounding success for the Wall Streets and Chinese. The transfer of wealth from Japan into foreigners is assured and stimulated through Abenomics. The policy that overinflates Japanese assets and stocks to lure foreign buyers. It was half-successful because there are many foreigners now owned Japanese assets aka the Chinese, while the Western investors are suspicious of Japanese assets/stocks, so they refuse to buy any of them or even dump the existing one.

Meanwhile, there are even more than 16% of Japanese people living below poverty line and more than half of Japanese single mothers are in poverty.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/221.html

Even the rich people of Japan feel the pinch on their wealth and well-being. For example, Kei Komuro's family, the suitor for Princess Mako, is among the prestigious class of Tokyo elites with their son attended Gakushuin. This family now struggles to even pay for the American ridiculous tuitions that any elite or upper middle class people in China and Southeast Asia have no trouble to pay.

The Covid-19 Pandemic now wiped out the entire gains of Abenomics that hoped to sell Japan for the highest foreign bidders. Shinzo Abe's policies and action hurt the Japanese people of all social classes and tiers.

While its admittedly a small sample and arguably skewed, I don't think I have ever heard any Japanese person I know say they back Abe. Invariably they'll say something along the lines of, "I don't really like Abe, but I don't see any other viable options."

They do have a choice. The JCP or anyone else but the LDP.

The reason why LDP cronies keep winning every election because the Pentagon and CIA casually interfere with Japanese politics. The American overlords have the ability of manipulating politics and votes at a whim, as they did in Latin America and South Vietnam. The Japan Communist Party and Japan Socialist Party used to have the power dwarfing the LDP cronies until the CIA sabotaged both parties out of existence.

Shinzo Abe and LDP cronies keep winning because American masters want so.

This is one of the biggest myths/conspiracy theories out there.

Actually, it depends. China is more humongous in term of economy to power than Japan. If Trump didn't come to power quickly in 2016, China would have be able to accomplish the final phase of its plan aka Made In China 2025. If China accomplished this plan, it will hold all core technologies and sciences without the need of intellectual theft and industrial espionage anymore. China would become as powerful as the Soviet Union.

China would engineer the new currency world order to replace the USD. This is the real straw behind the "conspiracy" of dumping the US bonds and debts. If China is ever going to do it, then it must have the necessary components to establish the new global currency against the USD and the FED.

Fortunately, China hawks in Washington DC put a halt to the Chinese dream of global domination.

Most kimono today come from China, where they are mass-produced, and the traditional shops are suffering badly. But there's nothing like a Japanese-made kimono.

Soon, they will be made in Vietnam.

https://www.dhakatribune.com/business/economy/2020/08/14/vietnam-surpasses-bangladesh-in-textile-clothing-export

There are many Japanese businesses looking for a way to settle over there.

Won't work. The USD increasingly becomes more powerful than ever during the pandemic. Most Japanese investors now sunk their entire wealth into the USD, as almost of them are prepared to flee Japan in droves. That's just one example.

At the same time, the USA can recall the CCP China to pay back the Qing China debts in term of more than 1 trillion USDs. The USA will pressure Taiwan to declare independent, and the CCP China will solely remain as the only China to inherit the debts.

Biden or Trump, American interests are above all. The USA will be willingly betraying any partner and client state to get what it really desired.

The USA has no ally.

Assets in Japan are overinflated. Rich people don't want deflation to keep their position and prevent the sharing of those assets.

It is true but not in the favorable way. Japanese assets are expensive in the Yen terms but depreciating in the USD term. The rich people in Japan may be rich with the amount of Yens that they own but they aren't comparable to the outside Asian peers who flash USD in their super cars. The strong Yen makes the ability of accumulating USD, in the way of not creating hyperinflation, much weaker in every year. Japan's exports are expensive and get less USD per selling each year, while China and Vietnam are eating Japanese lunch in exports.

Another issue here is that high value assets in Japan are difficult to liquidate. Most foreign investors do not have any interest in buying Japanese stocks or companies in recent years. The lack of structural reforms and economic liberties is the main reason. The bureaucratic nature of Japan INC hammers the profit margin and dividends severely.

https://www.ft.com/content/ddec7ddf-0fd0-4f03-a692-933e5da3bb61

This is just textbook theory nonsense suits in MoF and BoJ love to keep repeating. Japan has been in a deflation for how many decades since the bubble burst? Consumers don't stop buying houses,cars, appliances, holidays, food etc..businesses don't stop purchasing equipment, materials, supplies, labor etc ... just because they might have an 'expectation' prices will "fall further if they wait". The reality on the ground is different from the sky high bubble most " economic experts" are living in.

Deflation is the Japanese government's desperate solution for the much worse fate: Hyperinflation. Japanese Keynesian neoconservatives chose social stability above any reform for economic growth in the long term. Most Japanese elites and rich people either fled Japan to Singapore/Western world or are planning to flee.

Believe me, Japan definitely does not want any hyperinflation. It was almost on one in 1973-74, the brink of Japanese assets bubble collapse.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w15726#:~:text=Japan%20suffered%20a%20very%20high,the%201973%2D74%20high%20inflation.

Time to give Kuroda another raise! Every time he fails (which is every time) they reward him with contract renewals, call him a genius, etc.

Don't worry. He already has his bonuses, salary compensation and other perks from his American masters in the Wall Streets. Kuroda and LDP cronies have been creating fragile, legal loopholes in the neoliberal fashion to allow American corporate imperialism creeping in. Japan has been ripe for the foreign invasion in the last decades since PM Koizumi aka The Koizumi Revolution that severely weakened Japanese sovereignty.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2007/07/08/books/book-reviews/japan-just-a-puppet-of-america

Aside Americans, European and Chinese entities also plunder the Japanese economy as we speak. Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors are on verge of Renault's takeover, and most local Japanese tourist companies plus real estate assets are Chinese-owned mysteriously.

Shinzo Abe, Haruhiko Kuroda, Taro Aso and other LDP cronies will flee Japan after their messes have become too great that no Japanese leader can fix.

"triads a powerhouse in the dark world", also deep in malaysia, thailand and singapore; providing asian politicians with ample protected private rooms i.e chinese cat, and meth, etc ....

ref: the star news, asia one,

Chinese triads/organized crimes are not just a powerhouse. They are the global superpower of crimes who was directly responsible to the opioid crisis in the USA. The crisis that costs the USA at least more than 2 trillion USD.

The criminal superpowers are nations of crimes that receive sponsorship from their governments. Not just some Latin American cartels who come and go. I am talking about the supranational criminal syndicates who act as the conglomerates of crimes with legal backing from the states. China, Russia, Vietnam, India, Turkey and possibly the USA are considered as criminal superpowers but they rarely make headlines due to their secrecy and governmental protection.

Japan used to possess the Yakuza as a criminal superpower during the 20th century. However, the open nature of Yakuza attracts the American tycoons to pressure Obama sanctioning against Yakuzas. American investors do not want Yakuzas interfering with their investments in Japan. With the combination of three global economic crises (including Covid-19), the Yakuzas are on the verge of extinction. Economic Yakuzas may survive through black companies but they resemble more of Japanese mafia than actual Yakuzas.

I wonder how the investors of these "integrated resorts" are doing these days.

Ever since Sheldon pulled his bid out of Japan, Chinese triads are very happy to monopolize casinos in Japan. There is barely any native player who can compete against the Chinese. Those investors that you referred to are probably Chinese organized crimes and corrupt Chinese businesspeople.

They are doing both not fine (due to trade wars) and fine (no one competes against them in Japan).

Yakuza has been dying in the last decades, and now Chinese triads pretty much run the whole show.

Japanese politicians nowadays receive bribes from the Chinese mostly, rather than any Yakuza organization. (500.com) gambling corporation is quite a powerhouse in the dark world of illegal gambling in China. They are directly funded and protected by the CCP. Their base of operation is either in Cambodia or Phillipines along with other Chinese gambling companies.

As we speak, Chinese triads already dominate the Japanese underworld.

It's not NISSAN anymore. They need to dissolve the business or be bought out by Tesla.

Tesla doesn't even want any Japanese piece of crap. They even refuse to do business with Panasonic in the long term right after they figured out how to create and design their batteries.

Most foreign investors lost faith in Japanese stocks long ago.

https://www.ft.com/content/ddec7ddf-0fd0-4f03-a692-933e5da3bb61

Japan is still a nation where government workers are paid less than private sector and below the equivalent salaries of other developed nations. I'm not surprised to read this.

A popular career path now is to work for the government, then use the contacts later when in the private sector. Not unreasonable.

Their wages are less but their position of power and special "perks" (corruption) are far exceeding those of private workers.

There are only two types of wealthy people in Japan: Yakuza and bureaucrats. Except Yakuzas have been on verge of extinction, while bureaucrats are prospering.

Singapore is going to win this. Japan and South Korea won't stand a chance!

Japan already suffered a huge blow due to the tax hike. The COVID-19 is hardly the true cause of Japanese economic pain. Every year, Japan seems to never escape the downward spiral. There hasn’t been any structural change since the bubble economy collapse.

GBR48 from Japan Times basically answered my whole point for a long time.

Let's have a listen!

None of these concepts can survive within political systems. And governments do not reform themselves. They consider themselves to be perfect, particularly if they have just won an election, sanctifying their perfect nature.

The reforms that the article speaks of were expected to come with Abenomics, but after gathering the booty into their coffers, Japan Inc. didn't like the idea of reform and politely declined. And very little of the 'trickle down effect', dribbled down to the ordinary people.

It is unfair to blame the stats on the sales tax rise. Hyped by the media, world+dog went out and bought everything they were going to buy for the next six months before the rise, and then didn't need to buy anything bar essentials after it. Hence, sales were cannibalised from the post-rise period creating a bump, with a trough after it. This heavily magnifies the difference in figures.

There were other options to a rise in sales tax (although it is far too low for a first world economy, and far lower than most others). But no government is going to stop sluicing cash from public funds into private pockets, directly or indirectly. All governments have done this, but the 'one party state' stability of the Japanese government, post-war, has made them experts at it. That is why the Japanese state has a huge credit card debt, and why Japan Inc. has sacks of cash. If you are staring at a big hole in the ground and a big pile of soil, it isn't difficult to work out what happened.

Abe's big idea was for the BoJ to paper over the cracks in the economy, which it has done. He also fabricated a fiscal demon - deflation - to go with the political one - Kim Jong-un.

Deflation is only a bad thing if you are lazy and want to get rich sitting on your rear by your swimming pool. It doesn't affect the ability of a well-run company to turn an honest profit, and is nothing more than an indicator. One of the things it indicated was that Japan Inc. needed reform, but Japan Inc. has only reformed twice since the start of the Edo period (in 1852 and 1945). Both came courtesy of the US government. It didn't enjoy either and it doesn't want to do it again.

To compete, the obvious requirements are to loosen up the labour market from the current, frigid model, flip to promotion according to ability (not age), embrace new concepts via start-ups and the disruptive/sharing economy, and pay fewer staff more.

But none of these are seen as 'problems' by those in charge, who can rely on 57 varieties of Communist-level state support when the balance sheet goes red. Even if they no longer turn a profit, there will always be a bail-out to be had. With so little risk, why rock the boat by adopting nasty foreign behaviour?

The rise in nationalism, putting globalisation to the sword, and the consequent collapse in global growth, intensified by Covid-19, will see Japan Inc.'s declining position relative to the RotW PLC actually improve, as the state moves to prevent damage in the way it always has. Unreformed, Japan Inc. cannot compete on global terms, but it also cannot decline quite as dramatically as the rest of the world will.

I suspect this will be an opportunity for Japan Inc. to retrench and to celebrate its inflexibility as a benefit rather than a curse.

Post-Abe, the LDP is unlikely to swing further towards economic (or any other) reform. It is more likely to take the opportunity to quietly drop Abe's less popular policies - pro-tourism, pro-China, pro-global and pro-reform. Don't expect a Japanese Trump, but do expect a reversion to an earlier model. Something a bit more Showa era. Everyone loves a bit of retro. Young and female Japanese might not enjoy it quite so much, but in a nationalist world, you either do what you are told and fit in, or suffer the consequences.

Magic Monetary Theory may be invoked, or the public debt figure can simply be allowed to rise, to fund this. [Foreign] criticism of this can simply be ignored, as the Japanese financial position is mystically 'different' and foreign economists just don't understand.

The sales tax might even be reduced to reboot the economy when the virus passes. Under Abe, Japan dipped its toe in the globalised water, more than ever before. Too much risk. Too much loss of control. Too much consequential damage. Too many tourists. The desire to return to a simpler, 'more Japanese' way will score more votes.

Is this good for Japan? Not financially, but figures can be massaged or ignored. Not in the long term, but politics is all about the short term. Japanese culture will not evolve, as all healthy cultures do, but traditional societies operate under different rules, and can freeze their cultures in a past age, regardless of the damage it does (particularly to women).

Ideally, Japan and its financial power would have become an important link in a global push to mediate against climate change. Whilst the response to the virus is actually doing that by accident, much of it will not stick when the virus passes. The new world order, based on nationalism, will have no 'global' anything, so there will be no 'global psuh' for Japan to be part. As climate change hammers the country, it will just be more of the disasters that Japan has become used to.

What a country needs, what a country wants, and what a country gets are three entirely different things.

That is not what I saw. Of the two dozen law school students in that neighborhood, all of whom graduated and eventually passed the bar exam, only one ended up practicing law and only because his father owned a law firm. The rest ended up doing something else outside of the legal profession after all the agony and cost of law school. A former city manager where I live had a JD and never used it. He ended up using his BS in civil engineering and MBA. The JD got him nowhere but in debt.

As I have said, legal professions are quagmired with debts. The real issue here is college debt which becomes agony for most people in your case. Those in medical fields also experience a world of pain when thinking about the debt as well.

Success and a high income are anything but assured. At one point in my life I lived on a cul-de-sac with ten homes right next to a prominent law school. Eight of the ten houses had law students living in them, three or four to a house. Probably 24 law students in all. Our house was all military and the last house was "the busybody", older lady pedaling used mattresses from her garage and sticking her nose into everything. One house had two law students and the Brewmaster for Mission Brewing. Very handy neighbor to have for our block parties ! So of those 24 law students only one ever managed to get a job as an attorney, and that was because his old man was a prominent LA attorney. He went to work in his law firm. The rest ended up with insurance or finance companies doing things that did not involve legal matters. The law profession in the US at least is highly competitive and a lot of attorneys work alone with no staff or perhaps one person in the office doing their own research and correspondence. Their clients are people who don't have a bunch of money, people getting evicted, family law, defending criminal cases, etc. I know a few such lawyers and they are not living large. They bust their butts with big caseloads, driving hundreds of miles to court houses all over the region and seeing clients late into the night after a day in court in another part of the county or maybe another county. The big law firms, or the legal departments of big corporations expect you to work 12-14 hours a day six days a week. I had an old childhood friend walk away from a job like that. Never home to see his kids, said enough was enough.

This is very exact. In the USA, those in medical industry, legal industry, and executive level finances are assured to be successful in life. Except those fields are highly competitive, and college debt-ridden. More than 90% of people got a job in those fields have college debts. There are heavy trade offs in the USA.

In the case of Komeiro, I am not sure if he has any college debt in the USA but I can see his family struggles to pay for his tuitions. It simply reminds me of how ridiculous the price tags for US and UK college education. Also, how far that Japan has fallen where even the rich people here struggled to stay prominent on the global stages.

@xeno man, correct me if I'm wrong but didn't his father and grandfather commit suicide

I am not sure but both of those facts should not inhibit his family's wealth. He could have a trust fund or something but we see no such thing.

What i am quite surprised not that Komuro's family can afford the expensive education in the US, rather than there is a dispute between his mother and father about the finances. Before the bubble collapse, many Japanese middle class family can afford the expensive education in the USA and UK. After the collapse, the rate of Japanese students in the USA and UK dropped so dramatically from the number two to out of top 10.

I personally do not buy many Japanophile arguments of Japanese jobs demanding students not learning English nor better job opportunities in Japan than in the West. With lawyer registration in the USA, this guy can make 10 times higher than what he can in Japan along with a lot of prestige. I can imagine that it is likely he and Mako will settle to live in the USA after he got the lawyer status in the States.

Aside just commoners, it appears that Japanese upper middle class and elite class are also experiencing a wealth decline where their pockets may actually run into troubles.

The LDP is in power because the US enforces Japanese political system at their favors.

Last time, the CIA sabotaged the DPJ's efforts of governance when the Americans found out that they were too close to China. During the 1970s, the Soviet Union offered Japan the two smaller islands of Shikotan and the Habomai Islands in exchange for Japan renouncing all claims to the two bigger islands of Iturup and Kunashir, but Japan refused the offer after pressure from the US. There is no hope for Japan if their political system always bows down to the USA.

Now, Abe and LDP cronies finally consolidated Japan into an one-party state like China, Vietnam and Singapore. The USA likes that because there is no political opposition in Japan that will break the bond between the USA and Japan aka an empire to a client state.