May 26, 2012

Survival of the fittest

Bic Camera Inc., the nation’s No. 5 retailer of home electronics, plans to create the second biggest electronics retail chain after Yamada Denki Co. by acquiring Kojima Co., the seventh largest player in the industry. Bic Camera will acquire a more than 50 percent ...

May 23, 2012

Mr. Okada's questionable efforts

A discussion group to push for administrative reform was set up under Deputy Prime Minister Katsuya Okada, whose jurisdiction includes administrative reform along with policies to cope with the nation’s low birthrate, promotion of equal social participation by men and women and creation of ...

May 17, 2012

Argentina's old-school economics

Resource nationalism was supposed to be a throwback, a discredited school of economics that failed the governments that embraced it. Apparently, Argentine President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner never got the memo. Instead, she decided in mid-April to seize a majority stake in one of ...

Apr 14, 2012

Postal privatization with service

The Lower House on Thursday passed a bill to revise the privatization scheme of the Japan Post group. The bill was jointly submitted to the Diet on April 3 by the Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito. It represents a ...

Apr 3, 2012

Reorganizing Japan's exchanges

The Noda Cabinet in early March submitted to the Diet a bill to help establish a unified exchange that will integrate stock, commodity and other exchanges. But even if the Diet passes the bill to revise the financial instruments exchanges law, the envisaged system ...

Mar 28, 2012

The inexorable march of creative destruction

by George Will

In retreat, Sears set to unload stores — The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 24 Retreat need not mean surrender. Still … In 1886, a shipment of $25 watches from a Chicago jeweler was rejected by the addressee in Redwood Falls, Minnesota. The jeweler offered ...

Mar 1, 2012

Anatomy of a coverup

The special investigative squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office is investigating the alleged coverup of massive investment losses by Olympus Corp. following the arrests in mid-February of three of its former executives and four former securities firms employees. It is hoped that ...