I had thought that Japan's Internet mogul Takafumi Horie, arrested Jan. 23 by public prosecutors for allegedly violating the securities and exchange law, was likely to be the last person to "pay the price" for the excesses associated with the nation's bubble economy from 1987 to 1990.
In my March 6 article, "A 'livable' society has rules," I wrote that I did feel a measure of sympathy for Livedoor Co.'s former president, who alone seemed to have been forced to take the blame for problems created by many potential wrongdoers.
Horie was not the last person to pay the price after all. In June, public prosecutors arrested Yoshiaki Murakami, the founder of a high-flying investment fund who had been considered a different breed of investor from Horie due to his elite background, including a stint as a career bureaucrat.