Gov't proposes reforms in 5 areas to achieve 'secure' society

Tuesday 16th June, 06:15 AM JST

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flyingfish at 10:04 AM JST - 16th June

pie in the sky nonsense. how is this going to be paid for?? no mention of immigration????
Simon_Foston at 10:15 AM JST - 16th June

Long on waffle, short on specifics. They should be passing legislation right now to deal with these issues instead of getting expert panels to tell them what's staring everyone else in the face. Then again, I suppose the experts on the panel were probably manga cartoonists who could present the information in a format that the PM could read and understand, i.e. with big, colourful pictures and simple hiragana.
nisegaijin at 10:16 AM JST - 16th June

Japan is one of last few countries with capitalist system where people are responsible for their own well being. looks like the government is going to destroy it here as well. How many failed states is it going to take to prove that socialism doesn't work?!
sharky1 at 10:25 AM JST - 16th June

When talk is long winded and vague, it means that the average citizen is about to get screwed by the government. Most of these guys in office have degrees that they have purchased, and are not really even qualified to be in office.
buggerlugs at 11:02 AM JST - 16th June

When the he'll are the jokenment gonna do what really needs to be done and deal with the social ills!! just look at the other headlines!! Spend more on real crime not just checking bicycles!! Losers
sicklittlemonkey at 12:12 PM JST - 16th June

@nisegaijin: Your seemingly intentional confusion of social welfare (ie a welfare state) and socialism (ie a socialist state) is quite disingenuous.

Watch "Sicko" again.

SLM
realist at 12:40 PM JST - 16th June

Aso and his LDP/Soka Gakkai cronies are totally out of touch with the real world. Taxes in Japan are sky high - and the Consumption Tax is nothing short of criminal. It should be abolished - along with Aso and Co.
30061015 at 01:19 PM JST - 16th June

five areas—employment, child rearing, education, medical care and pensions.

Why stop at 5? Why not 10, 50, or 1,000? Once upon a time Japanese people were more self sufficient. The group did just fine without parasitic govt intrusion. Yet another indication that Japan has truly lost its way.
Hopfly at 01:35 PM JST - 16th June

With people having longer life spans, there is a delicate balance between security and health care. This is a financial burden, world-wide. I know the US government has a system in place, called social security, which if it existed in the private sector, would be called a 'ponzi scheme'. So far it has been successful.
GW at 03:30 PM JST - 16th June

Aso, read this if you want more money

BAN Amakudari, jail those that are caught, BAN Dango, the cost of bid rigging is enormous & connected to Amakudari! BAN KB, damned kick backs to LDP etc, offenders go to jail BAN spending pension $$ on anything other than PENSIONS! SIMPLIFY TAX/INS Systems They are a mess.

Bottom line is the LDP in cahoots with beaurocrats waste a massive amount of our taxes, my gut says at least 30% is wasted.

And Aso the pension system is broke, you need a system where we pay ourselves for our retirement, Jpns demographics simply can not support the young pay for the old, its been broke for ages, face the facts!

This is just for starters!
jhk at 05:47 PM JST - 16th June

They should tax the top 10% of earners, and use it for the bottom 10%.

It doesn't matter if it is socialism, capitalism, or communism, the system won't work unless something is done about poverty, homelessness, unemployment, freeters, and temp workers.

What are leaders for, and where exactly are they leading us?

Are they not the ones that made the decision to fire 10% of the workforce to begin with. They make enough, and destroy enough, so get them to fix it. Noone else can afford to.
jhk at 05:50 PM JST - 16th June

And if you think that they are the only ones that can create business, try posting an add for CEO, Director, or VP, and see how many qualified applicants there would be, especially compared to 12 months ago.
herefornow at 07:03 PM JST - 16th June

Love the cheap-shot at the U.S. Unfortunately, like much of Japanese "logic" it misses the mark entirely. The fact is that the U.S. free market, which this panel seems to detest, has been the savior of Japan's export-oriented economy. Only when Japan can produce a domestic economy that is capable of generating growth for the country can they even begin to throw mud at the U.S. Until then it is simply empty rhetoric, since much of these "secure" jobs will be dependent on how well that awful U.S. ecomomy is performing.
azzassa at 11:33 AM JST - 17th June

Socialize Higher Education: Make college free. A better educatated and empowered population will benefit Japan economically over the long term. Smart well informed people will drive commerce and create opportunities for Japan to gain a competitive edge. Long term this empowers Japan and her economy.

This is important. And a premise to this is making it so students actually FAIL university if they can't meet the expectations of a proper curriculum. This means getting rid of separate entrance exam tests and have standardized national university entry system that understands that not everyone can decide what they want to be by time they are 18, let alone 15 where most student's careers are sealed depending on which senior high school they enter.
jhk at 03:54 PM JST - 17th June

However in the short term, there is a massive pipeline of students waiting to get employed somewhere, otherwise they give up and become freeters, temp workers, and maybe anime festivals. What do we do, make them go back to school again?

Education is free, you can learn at the cutting edge of almost anything by using wikipedia.

Standardized anything ensures there are more robots and salarymen are being produced. We need more Nakatas, not robots, we need wholistic solutions, not narrow isolated ones, otherwise we will forever be going in circles.

I have a proposal: "Values Drive Strategy"

If we nail down what Japan's Values are, in order of priority, then the path will become apparent.