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April 30, 2024
 

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JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES

BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 29, 2011
Global fiscal reactor meltdown contains a warning for Japan
Public finances are melting down in Europe, in America and of course Japan. The situation is going nuclear, left, right and center. It's not so much China Syndrome as it is Global Syndrome.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 8, 2011
Unbeautiful yen's rise will help the economy more than hurt it
The yen continues to appreciate as Japan struggles to get a handle on recovering from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the unresolved crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and the inability of the administration of Prime Minister Naoto Kan to implement policy actions to deal with the catastrophe.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 1, 2011
Debt surrealists defy reality: What looks like default not default
Images of "The Treachery of Images," the painting by the Belgian artist Rene Magritte, who wrote "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe") under his his impeccable portrait of a smoking pipe, keeps flashing off and on in my mind as I look at what is going on in the increasingly surreal world of global public finance.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 27, 2011
Futility and resignation make for poor drama in Japanese politics
"Sheer futility," Quoheleth says. "Sheer futility: Everything is futile!"
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 20, 2011
Disaster shines light on wisdom of renting in a debt-laden world
The destruction wrought by the Great East Japan Earthquake has started to appear in statistics in its full force.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 16, 2011
Old proverbs should be minded even in tough economic times
Recent news of the restaurant chain Yakiniku-zakaya Ebisu serving contaminated raw beef to its customers makes me think of an old Japanese proverb. It tells us that "poverty breeds stupidity." All old proverbs are invariably wise. They also tend to be true most of the time.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Apr 18, 2011
In a globalized world, beware the lonely going to war with the only
Only one or lonely one. This may be the question that nations start asking themselves in the aftermath of Japan's threefold disaster.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Apr 4, 2011
Effects of the Tohoku disaster and options for Japan's response
More than three weeks after Tohoku and the eastern parts of the Kanto region were hit by a massive earthquake that triggered a tsunami and a nuclear power plant crisis — there are few indications of when Japan might get the situation under control.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 21, 2011
Old-style survival skills put local shop owners in disaster limelight
A week after the earthquake and we are still living with the aftershocks, and in more ways than one. While the earth still shakes under us now and again, shakes of a different kind also keep coming: nuclear power plant failures, radioactive contamination fears, rolling power cuts, panic buying and sudden departures from Tokyo and the rest of country.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 21, 2011
JGBs, credit and 'that kind of thing': Kan's known unknowns
T he credit rating company Standard & Poor's downgraded Japanese sovereign debt late last month. With an AA- rating, we are now a notch below Spain, whose possibly looming debt crisis has been unnerving EU financial authorities for some time.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 7, 2011
End of 'dam theory' means Japan badly needs paradigm shift
This year's annual "shunto" labor-management wage talks appear to be proceeding on a subdued note. There can be three major reasons why.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 23, 2010
'Bottle Imp' poses warning for currency and bond markets
Watching the dollar's recent plight in the foreign-exchange markets, I am reminded of a fascinating story I came across some years ago in an anthology of supernatural tales called "The Bottle Imp." It has its origins in German folklore and goes something like this:
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 16, 2010
Asian community needs self-sufficiency to become a reality
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum's high-level meeting on growth strategy in Beppu, Oita Prefecture, wrapped up with a chairman's statement on actions to be taken by 2015. That strategy is to be formally adopted at the APEC summit in November, with revisions due by the end of the year.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 19, 2010
DPJ, finances victims of own conspiracy, cock-up, complacency?
Conspiracy or cock-up? That is the question that invariably comes to mind when something goes very badly wrong in business or politics. As it has done in both of these two worlds in Japan lately.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 12, 2010
Where will limits of G20 policy leave debt-strewn Japan?
The G8 and G20 meetings in Toronto, closely watched last month as Europe struggled to halt the chain reaction of doubt set in motion by the Greek debt crisis, exposed their inability to coordinate on quelling financial uncertainty.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 14, 2010
Can 'Citizen Kan' take Japan's voters to the promised land?
The Bible tells us that "those who sow in tears sing as they reap" (Psalm 126).
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 31, 2010
Greece's implications for Japan: the need to clarify the public debt
The storm that is the Greek debt problem continues to rage through the global markets. In an emergency meeting May 2, the finance ministers of the European Union agreed to work with the International Monetary Fund to provide 110 billion euro in loans to Greece over three years. The first batch was provided just a day before a heap of Greek bonds reached maturity on May 19.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 3, 2010
Accusations about Japan's youths lacking 'animal spirits' off mark
The old are invariably critical of the young. Japan is no exception. The older generation finds much to bemoan in the attitudes and behaviors of their successors.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Apr 26, 2010
Japanese opt to shun risk as fiscal dangers, global turmoil rise
Share prices are picking up worldwide amid a growing sense that the global economy has finally hit bottom. However, we see no big change in the conservative ways Japanese households are managing their assets, which are mainly savings accounts.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 29, 2010
Global crisis, Act IV: Currency turmoil starts to wreak havoc
I don't like to say I told you so, but I told you so. Back in July last year, I wrote in this column that the post-Lehman shock world was participating in a drama in five acts, in which the fourth was likely to be where currency turmoil hits the stage.
When will Japan intervene to support the yen?
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki has reiterated the government's readiness to take an appropriate action as the yen continues to slide against the U.S. dollar.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Raising kids in Japan as a single parent? It takes a village.
Making things work as a foreign, single mother in Japan isn't easy, but these tips and tricks can help you through the hardest parts.
Yen rebounds strongly after first slide past ¥160 since 1990
The yen dropped to ¥160.245 per dollar on Monday before heading into the other direction to ¥155.01 amid speculation of an intervention by Japanese currency authorities.
Man, 28, arrested in Okinawa over burned bodies found in Tochigi
Hikaru Sasaki enters the Metropolitan Police Department's Osaki police station in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward on Monday after being arrested on suspicion of disposing of two bodies found in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, earlier this month.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.

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