JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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jeancolmar
Hi-Ho dear above poster. The current mess was not created by "the sentimental and discredited European Left" but by the "free market" crowd.
Talk about sentimentality. Read this guy's article. He's living in the dream world of the near past, telling us what Japan can learn from the disaster maker.
I'll tell you who are or ought to be discredited--the people responsible for this current mess. That means the followers of Milton Friedman on down.
Guess who is coming back into vogue? Keynes. At least in the UK.
As this crisis deepens, you'll find that a lot of the so-called discredited (or suppressed) Left will be seen by more and more people to have been right all along.
Posted in: Remember the bubble economy years
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jeancolmar
Good response, solarbuster. Not just neo-cons but bourgeois economists recreate capitalism in their own image; or rather in the image they have been taught in their schools of economics to believe in.
That is writer does not know Japan is written in the last line: "That is the final lesson. Japan clearly failed to create a self-sustaining growth cycle because the government, although good at promoting new entrepreneurship, never moves out of the way once the seeds of private growth have been sown." He adds, without a trace of irony: "This is where Japan still has a lot to learn from the U.S"--which at the beginning of the Bush 2 years started to ruinous wars and at the end created a world recession with the "free market" insanity that actually took off in the Reagan years.
The Japanese government always has been under the LDP the chief executive of corporate Japan. It was in a way the corporations' ultimate CEO. It is true that Japan's major function for Western capitalism was a regional anti-Communist role model to prove that Communism in places like China could not possibly work. After World War II the US made sure Japan would switch from a military to a civilian economy, while it went on to a permanent war economy. It almost failed. Until the Korean War Japan was, to use a contemporary phrase, an economic morgue. The Korean War saved Japan.
Everything that solarbuster says about Japanese protectionism is true. In was a matter of mutual consent. The Japanese were the showcase in exchange for being allowed to be exceptionalists. But there was one other thing. As a civilian economy Japan filled a void left by the US when its military-capitalist complex took over the show. It made goods that people liked. There was little in the way invention here; Japanese brilliance lay in innovation. The government was if anything more like bottle of prozac that kept the system from overdoing it--which it did anyway, hence the burst bubble.
It was during the bubble times that Japan was Number One in popular capitalist and right wing gush, which did considerable damage in the West, particularly in education.
Not only did the bubble burst but also the industrial center of capitalism shift. Modern electronics came out of Silicon Valley in California, Once a dead military-industrial hole, home grown hippies and immigrants created the personal computer revolution there. It could not have happened in Japan. I believe it could only have happened in California--but never mind why for the moment. The dot com. bubble burst around the time of 9/11.
So having created the current economic mess, what possible lessons can the neo-con infected US possibly teach Japan? I think there is only one major lesson: Don't let this happen to you.
Posted in: Remember the bubble economy years
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jeancolmar
Blast! Always the last line. Should read: If the American car manufacturers were competing against a viable public transport system things would be different.
Posted in: Angry Ford dealer in South Carolina blasts Japanese imports in ads
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jeancolmar
“*'It’s a blatant, ignorant, racist remark from somebody who should know better,' Mori said."
Well, maybe he doesn't know any better. Maybe this guy is just another ignorant redneck who has been conditioned by his smelly environment to blame his troubles on minority groups. If it isn't the Japanese it's the Blacks or the Jews or the "Lefties."
If you study anti-Asian prejudices in the US they did not begin in the 1930s through WWII. In fact in 1943 Chinese immigrants were allowed to become US citizens for the first time in lieu of the 1793 naturalization law that barred immigrant non-whites from US citizenship (amended several times to allow citizenship to ex-slaves and Native Americans). In fact anti-Asian racism goes back to the 19th century, then aimed against the Chinese. Anti-Japanese sentiment and pro-Japanese sentiment was mixed in the US prior to WWII. To intellectuals the Japanese were the "Yankees of the East" and to others they were part of the "yellow peril." It is a rather complex history and one I don't feel like presenting in detail here unless I'm paid.
But all that aside, the 1980s were an excellent of the admiration and hatred for the Japanese in the US. On one hand there was the Japan as Number One rubbish (which anyone living in Japan with half a brain laughed at) and then there was the paranoia that Japan was going to take over the US. This dumb white Southern redneck's rantings are a throwback to that era.
If the Americans were competing against a viable public transport system things would be different.
Posted in: Angry Ford dealer in South Carolina blasts Japanese imports in ads
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jeancolmar
Welcome to the 21st century. Children can use computers and text each other while a lot of older people cannot. The cell phone is the communication instrument of the century and it is best children learn to use them at an early age. Also with a cell phone you always can know where your child is. Texting during class is of course unacceptable but that is a problem like talking or horsing around. It can be controlled.
The idea that cell phones take away people's humanity is rubbish. Japanese schools do that. The exam-oriented rote memorization system makes children isolated, selfish and guarded at an early age.
Posted in: Do children need to have cell phones with them at school?
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jeancolmar
Tis the season to shove the logo (Jesus) down people throats and bash the Jews if they complain about public space being for Christian adverts. It is also the season to complain about "PC,' : being fair to non-Christians who almost never get equal time.
I'm thinking primarily of the US which transformed Christmas into a hard sell theological and commercial holiday. In Japan Christmas is wonderfully secular. Couples have Christmas dinner and then have a whoopie-doo in a posh hotel.
I this very un-PC, but most Christmas songs are dismal. Not the music but the words. They are just about the logo and nothing else. Pagan seasonal songs are about good fellowship and enjoying life.
I have no objections about a Christmas tree being called a Christmas Tree. I don't mind being wished Merry Christmas. I do mind having Christianity forced on me at every turn. (I did spend a fair amount of time in the US.) This is why I like Christmas in Japan. There is just enough to feel festive but not so much as to feel assaulted.
Noel in France is nice in that way too. Though France is predominantly Catholic, there is very little Jesus selling on the streets or in the media.
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jeancolmar
I think that a Big 3 brought back from the dead will eliminate jobs and export jobs to third world countries and try to strangle the UAW. One thing the US needs in more union power. That'll mean unionizing the Japanese, Korean, French and German companies should they take after the Big 3's demise.
Posted in: Bush says automakers may not survive
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jeancolmar
The US is the biggest welfare state for the rich. The Big 3 will get their fat welfare checks, but will this safe these three absolutely rotten companies or just prolong the death rattles?
Posted in: Avoiding blame in the auto industry crisis
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jeancolmar
The bank bailout saved the luxurious lifestyles of the banks' CEOs. Meanwhile the banks are cutting jobs. The people who made the mess are sitting pretty.
Posted in: Avoiding blame in the auto industry crisis
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jeancolmar
Trying to save the "Big 3" is like pouring money over a corpse to bring it back to life. The US auto companies should have seen the hand writing on the wall decades ago. But they and their stupid and overpaid CEOs kept churning out the same old junk to what they believed was a captive market. It is time to cut the life supports and let the Big 3 die. Good riddance.
Posted in: Avoiding blame in the auto industry crisis
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jeancolmar
It should be called the Middle Class Royalists' Alliance Against Democracy. I quote from the above article: "It [the People's Alliance] wants the country to abandon the system of one-person, one-vote, and instead have a mixed system in which most representatives are chosen by profession and social group." In short, disenfranchise the poor upcountry farmer; give the banker, the lawyer and the bordello owner even more political power. This so-called alliance for democracy just overthrew a democratically elected government. Insiders tell me that it was done with the blessing of the king. If you were stuck at the airport in Bangkok, amidst the heat and mosquitos, you should be delighted to know that the people who made your life miserable are a bunch of well-healed fascists who have succeeded making Thailand a more repressive place.
And those of you think that what has happened in Thailand is of no concern to you, consider: It can happen here.
Posted in: Thai crisis defused but dangers ahead, say analysts
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jeancolmar
Here is the most important sentence in the above article: "apan has apologized for the military’s involvement in crimes against the women, but denies responsibility for running a system of military brothels before its surrender to Allied forces in 1945." This would be like Germany apologizing for the Holocaust but saying the Nazi government had nothing to do with it. Or, more to a sore point closer to home, imagine if Kim Jong Il apologized for the abduction of Japanese citizens but said the North Korean government was not responsible?
I'm glad the Foreign Affairs Committee socked it to Japan on this and other issues. Human rights, justice, and historical truth are everyone's business.
Posted in: Japan should acknowledge sex slaves' pain: British MPs
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jeancolmar
No way. Let these dinosaurs die out. The American car companies all but killed off the US public transport system so that Americans had to be dependent on cars, then proceeded to sell them gas guzzling junk. When Americans started buying European cars their overpaid CEOs did not getting it. When the Japanese made a splash in the US they still didn't get it.
They still didn't get it when their CEO bums flew to Washington in their company jet to beg for taxpayer's money to bail those deadbeat companies out.
You can be sure that that bailout money won't go to the workers but into the pocket of the CEO bums whose collective stupidity and laziness drove those companies into the ground.
Americans ought to cheer if the so-called big three go. Then they can have viable public transport like the rest of the world.
Or maybe the big three should be nationalized. That's an idea.
Posted in: What's your view on whether or not the U.S. government should bail out the Big 3 automakers?
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jeancolmar
Speaking about "spend, spend, " please remember that Clinton balanced the US budget. It was Bush who spent, spent, spent the US into a deficit with his useless and immoral wars and phony "war on terror" which included the gulag in Cuba, torture, "rendition" and spying on millions of innocent Americans. And there was "no child left behind" that worsened the US's already dreadful school system.
Really don't know at this point what Obama will do besides inspire people. His domestic agenda mentioned here does not sound bad, though it is vague. Getting out Iraq sounds good. Staying in the Afghanistan is a big mistake.
The best thing so far about Obama is that he is not Bush or McCain or a Republican. Those of us who belong to the Rest of World and are affected by US policies are breathing a collective sigh of relief.
I truly think that the best way Obama can modernize the America is by bringing its public transportation up to date with the rest of the industrial world. The only way to modernize American schools would be to have them financed by something other than property taxes.
And, yes, its time to fix America's bridges. What happened in Minnesota may well repeat itself. Fix the bridges by all means.
Wind power is a great American resource and should be utilized.
Universal health care is of utmost importance, even if it does not create jobs.
From what I've seen of Obama I believe that he will be a middle of the road Democrat, probably popular enough to be reelected, but not a great changer. But you never know. Circumstances change leaders. FDR was at best only a moderately liberal Democrat when he took office; the Depression changed him. One way or another the current recession (or depression) will make Obama whatever he will be once he takes office.
Meanwhile, good riddance to Bush and his dog too.
Posted in: Obama outlines plans to create 2.5 million jobs
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jeancolmar
Nice article except the last stupid dig at "socialism", whatever the author means by the term. Hi-ho everyone, capitalism is the system in Japan and its under that system that this mess is happening. That system includes the Japanese government.
The author writes: "Since 1982, the government has been maintaining that Japan has too many doctors, and has restricted the output of them by making the exams unreasonably difficult." Now why do you think the government did something as stupid as that? I'll bet the farm that the medical industry is behind that so that there is less competition for patients and the doctors in private practice don't have to engage in price wars.
We've yet to see real socialism anywhere in the world, but we've had the next best thing, and that's the democracies where there has been a distinct socialist influence. Canada has an excellent socialized medical system (primarily thanks to the socialist influence from Saskatchewan). Then there is Scandinavia and France. Great places to get sick in.
The stuff about lousy pay and long hours at public hospitals is interesting but in fact not really relevant to the problem being addressed. Don't forget that private hospitals have been turning emergency patients away. In the latest case in Tokyo it was a public hospital that finally took the pregnant woman in.
Likewise, the information about the lack of doctors in rural areas while important is not relevant to why in Tokyo someone should be refused emergency care.
The author is trying to build a case for the further privatization of medicine in Japan. Should that happen you will see the same ills here as you see in the US, the only major industrialized country without universal health care.
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jeancolmar
The question is ill-put, as has been pointed out. Pot's resin is as bad or worse than nicotine for the lungs. But this said, inhaling smoke continuously from any source is bad for you. Women in poor countries who tend wood-burning stoves suffer high rates of lung cancer. If you inhale enough incense you are in danger of getting lung cancer.
Does smoking a lot of pot impede brain functions? No doubt.
This said, pot is a considerably less dangerous substance than alcohol. Just compare a pot head to an alcoholic. It terms of physical danger, it is on the same level as tobacco.
There is no hard evidence that smoking pot inexorably leads to the abuse of hard drugs.
I see no reason why pot should not be decriminalized. In that way it can be regulated. This means seeing how it has been chemically treated for one thing. For another, it would put the criminals growing and selling the stuff out of business. It was also make the growers pay taxes.
Let there be no illusion that pot is big business. I am not referring to the oddballs growing it on their balconies. In northern California, for instance, whole sections of back country are war zones where the criminal gangs grow acres of the stuff and police their domains like armies.
There are apparently medical uses for pot and these ought to be allowed no matter what else is forbidden.
Posted in: Is smoking pot harmless?
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jeancolmar
Okay, a "goodwill gesture", small as it is, should be praised, though lightly and in passing. It must not be forgotten that this token is being given in the midst of an humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Israel knows what it is doing an knows that even though it has banned journalists from the Gaza Strip the world knows the horror it is creating.
Posted in: Israel to free 250 Palestinian inmates as goodwill gesture
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jeancolmar
Israel is no doubt committing crimes against humanity and does not want the world to see it.
Posted in: Israel blocks foreign media from Gaza
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jeancolmar
Funny this ought come from a Republican. It was Bush who cheerfully shredded the Constitution during the last 8 years and who put American on the course of detention without trial and torture through rendition. Then there were the two wars that would have made Hitler proud to call Bush a brother.
This was okay with repugs like Broun.
Saying the Obama is going to be another Woodrow Wilson or whoever at this point is nonsense. The man has not taken office yet.
Posted in: U.S. congressman warns of Obama dictatorship
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jeancolmar
If Obama can institute universal health care in the U.S. he will have accomplished a miracle. Not even the New Deal could do that.
Posted in: Real change in America represents immense task