When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took office in April 2001, he told the public that pain was a necessary evil in the process of rehabilitating the corporate sector and achieving financial stability.
But the figures tell a different story.
Nearly 2 trillion yen was plowed into Resona Holdings Inc., a banking group reporting a capital shortfall of just over 60 billion yen; 10 trillion yen has been put at the disposal of the Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan, a public entity tasked with bailing out distressed firms; and a government-affiliated bank extended 10 billion yen in credit to Daiei Inc., a struggling retailer ignominiously labeled a "zombie" firm.