Some items of interest:
- According to the Nikkei Shimbun, BOJ expansion of its balance sheet have made the market for national debt so barren the Ministry of Finance has offered its first short-term debt with a negative interest rate (Link - J). The appropriate comment at this point is, "Yikes!"
- Tobias Harris does a turn on television offering a sober view of the current turmoil in the Diet(Link - J). His view that Abe Shinzo faces a very different political environment in 2014 than he did in 2007. Abe is the quite happy accidental beneficiary of the collapse of a 30-year national program to oust the Liberal Democratic Party. Tossing the LDP bums out, and installing a Democratic Party of Japan-led government in 2009 did not deliver the paradise of responsive and responsible government the Japanese public had hoped for, however. Now the LDP is rivaled in public opinion polls only by the "I don't support anybody/I don't care/I don't like making decisions so please leave me alone" party -- meaning that even if the Second Abe Cabinet enters the traditional death slide of a year of steadily declining cabinet support ratings to 20%, followed by Abe's announcement of his resignation, the only person who can replace Abe will be a member of the LDP (the current likeliest candidates being Ishiba Shigeru, Ishiba Shigeru and possibly Ishiba Shigeru).
- Dr. Adam Posen delivers a very upbeat assessment of Abenomics starting at the 39:50 mark of this PIIE video of its Global Economic Prospects session of 2 October 2014 (Link - video)For the record, 710,000 more women were in the labor force as of August 2014 (the most recent month for which the government has data) than were in the labor force in January 2013, Abe's first full month in office. During that span 230,300 men also entered the labor force -- though that number only returns the number of men in the labor force to the point where it was in February 2013.
- Professor Eugene Gholz, whom I met in Tokyo earlier this year, has produced an easy-to-read paper for the Council on Foreign Relations explaining why Japanese policy makers should continue to remain alert to but should stop making paranoid noises about global rare earth/rare metals supplies. (Link)
- Kasai Yoshiyuki, a Shisaku favorite and the purported maestro of the Second Coming of Abe Shinzo last week saw his grand boondoggle receive the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (Link). Yesterday, he made his pitch to extend his levitating empire overseas (Link) -- not surprising since the CEO of JR Central has admitted that the Tokyo-Nagoya maglev line will never turn a profit. (Link
Later - Jonathan Soble, formerly the Tokyo bureau chief of the Financial Times, starts out with a bang in his new posting as business reporter for The New York Times with the long list of former American politicians Mr. Kasai has acquired for the new North American Wing of his collection. An absolutely precious photo accompanies the story. (Link)
Hope all you shareholders of JR Central are happy with the way the chairman emeritus Kasai is spending your money.
Showing posts with label Kasai Yoshiyuki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kasai Yoshiyuki. Show all posts
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
That Real Wages Falling Means Abenomics Is Failing Thing
Two days ago the Financial Times published an exegesis upon the most recent Nihon Keizai Shimbun's public opinion poll -- the one that everyone is talking about (Link). Entitled "Shinzo Abe faces rising disenchantment in Japan" the Jonathan Soble article features the following graph:
Source: Financial Times
Now if I were an Abe government flack, rather than trying to ignore this graph or, when confronted with it, try to explain the fall in real wages away ("There will of course be a period of adjustment...but after a while we will see real wages rise again...") I would put the graph on the first page of every presentation on the future course of Japan's economic reforms. "Look," I would tell everyone, "the currency devaluation of Abenomics and consumption tax increase of Nodanomics, implemented in April --- see where the real wage curve suddenly falls like a stone off a cliff? --are doing exactly what they were expected to do. This is not a picture of Abenomics failing; this is picture of Abenomics and Nodanomics WORKING!"
"Now the executives of Japan's multinationals can bank their currency devaluation boosted profits, leading to consumption to fall off a cliff too -- or they can buckle down and start raising national incomes by either paying more to existing workers, hiring more workers, engage in some capital expenditure or distribute the profits among shareholders. So I say to you top executives of Japan's largest companines, I know that a lot of you top executives are timid, self-pitying and avaricious tyrants -- not all of you, mind you, but a lot of you -- who will do what is right for the company books but is wrong for the nation and its people. Hear me, your country needs you NOW!"
Abe Shinzo has indeed been engaging in this kind of "moral suasion" as the IMF put it in April (Link). He just needs to do it more, twisting the arms of his best corporate buddies until they scream out serious, inflation-indexed or more raises in wages. Would it not be impressive if, let us say, Akimoto Yasushi, one of Abe's closest advisors on "Cool Japan" promotion strategy (Link) were to announce a 3.6% raise in the wages of every member of the AKB48 empire? Because, let us face it, the Akimoto stable's corporate image is in need of a buffing right about now (Link). Or how about a similar increase in the wages of JR Central employees before Abe Best Friend Forever Kasai Yoshiyuki wipes out every bit of corporate wealth those employees have created in a farcical, sure-to-have-to-be-bailed-out bid to build an electricity-snarfling hyperspeed subway (86% below ground) from Tokyo to Nagoya? (Link)
Oh, yes. Prime Minister Abe could also push up the real wages curve by using his big ruling party majorities in both Houses of the Diet to pass legislation further increasing the wages paid to bureaucrats and other government employees, reversing decades of wage and benefit cuts. Poaching a few corporate hotshots and putting them to work on the nation's problems would further foster the impression that in this blessed land there is a competition for talent, one for which Japan corporate heads will have to start loosening the purse strings or face being blindsided by defection.
Source: Financial Times
Now if I were an Abe government flack, rather than trying to ignore this graph or, when confronted with it, try to explain the fall in real wages away ("There will of course be a period of adjustment...but after a while we will see real wages rise again...") I would put the graph on the first page of every presentation on the future course of Japan's economic reforms. "Look," I would tell everyone, "the currency devaluation of Abenomics and consumption tax increase of Nodanomics, implemented in April --- see where the real wage curve suddenly falls like a stone off a cliff? --are doing exactly what they were expected to do. This is not a picture of Abenomics failing; this is picture of Abenomics and Nodanomics WORKING!"
"Now the executives of Japan's multinationals can bank their currency devaluation boosted profits, leading to consumption to fall off a cliff too -- or they can buckle down and start raising national incomes by either paying more to existing workers, hiring more workers, engage in some capital expenditure or distribute the profits among shareholders. So I say to you top executives of Japan's largest companines, I know that a lot of you top executives are timid, self-pitying and avaricious tyrants -- not all of you, mind you, but a lot of you -- who will do what is right for the company books but is wrong for the nation and its people. Hear me, your country needs you NOW!"
Abe Shinzo has indeed been engaging in this kind of "moral suasion" as the IMF put it in April (Link). He just needs to do it more, twisting the arms of his best corporate buddies until they scream out serious, inflation-indexed or more raises in wages. Would it not be impressive if, let us say, Akimoto Yasushi, one of Abe's closest advisors on "Cool Japan" promotion strategy (Link) were to announce a 3.6% raise in the wages of every member of the AKB48 empire? Because, let us face it, the Akimoto stable's corporate image is in need of a buffing right about now (Link). Or how about a similar increase in the wages of JR Central employees before Abe Best Friend Forever Kasai Yoshiyuki wipes out every bit of corporate wealth those employees have created in a farcical, sure-to-have-to-be-bailed-out bid to build an electricity-snarfling hyperspeed subway (86% below ground) from Tokyo to Nagoya? (Link)
Oh, yes. Prime Minister Abe could also push up the real wages curve by using his big ruling party majorities in both Houses of the Diet to pass legislation further increasing the wages paid to bureaucrats and other government employees, reversing decades of wage and benefit cuts. Poaching a few corporate hotshots and putting them to work on the nation's problems would further foster the impression that in this blessed land there is a competition for talent, one for which Japan corporate heads will have to start loosening the purse strings or face being blindsided by defection.
Friday, October 25, 2013
About That Crazy Linear Motor Car Fare Number
You may recall last month the splashy public announcement from the Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central, a.k.a. JR Tokai) on the start of construction of a maglev hyperexpress rail line running through central Japan between Tokyo and Nagoya, to be completed in 2027.
The superlatives were daunting:
- a top running speed of over 500 kilometers per hour,
- a start-to-terminus run time of 40 minutes
- a construction cost of 5.5 trillion yen borne solely by JR Central (9 trillion with a proposed extension to Osaka, scheduled for 2045)
- four passes above 500 meters including summit under the Japan Alps of 1200 meters (for a Tokyo comparative, that is a climb to the top of Sky Tree followed by a climb up Takao-san)
- 86% of the trip through tunnels (meaning a ride similar to one on the full length of Tokyo's Marunouchi subway line, which is 90% underground)
- power consumption 3 times higher per passenger than the fastest Shinkansen (not a reassuring number in the post-Fukushima Daichi electrical power provision environment)
Then came the kicker: how much a ticket on the wonder train would cost.
According to the plan announced on September 18, the projected cost of a one-way fare from Tokyo to Nagoya on the linear hyperexpress would be 11,480 yen, only 700 yen (7%) more than the cost for the same one-way trip on the fastest Nozomi Shinkansen train.
The response to this final claim was...astonishment. (Link - J)
Looking at the fare, the number of passengers in each train and the number of departures per hour, the Mainichi Shimbun foresaw the obvious danger -- that the project is designed to fail in its finances, the company's managers being confident they can extort a bailout from the government. (Link)
Yesterday, in a press conference revealing more details regarding what will be in essence the world's most ridiculously speedy subway, JR Central president Yamada Yoshiomi explained the reason JR Central has projected a maglev ride fare with an unbelievably low markup of only 7% over the cost of a Shinkansen trip taking twice as long. You would think Yamada would have provided some kind of breakdown of the pricing, showing how JR Central pays off the cost of the investment and the costs of operating the line while charging so little over the currently available high speed train trip.
Uh, well...he seemingly did not.
The reason the newspapers are reporting Yamada gave for the incredibly small additional cost for a maglev ticket?
You read that right: if Yamada is to be believed, the parameters for the price of a ticket are set by not by the engineers and accountants, but by JR Central's marketing department -- what the marketers feel customers might think the improvement in service is worth.
One could laugh, except for anyone following the moves of JR Central's chairman Kasai Yoshiyuki, including his role as the bundler for Abe Shinzo's return to power (Link and Link), his hiring of former high-ranking U.S. officials as his salemen (Link) as a part of general dabbling in foreign policy agenda setting (Link) and his reported attempts to press national broadcaster NHK into adopting a more pro-nuclear editorial line (Link) would think twice about laughing anything involving JR Central plans.
There is one determined hombre behind the company advertising that nutty price.
The superlatives were daunting:
- a top running speed of over 500 kilometers per hour,
- a start-to-terminus run time of 40 minutes
- a construction cost of 5.5 trillion yen borne solely by JR Central (9 trillion with a proposed extension to Osaka, scheduled for 2045)
- four passes above 500 meters including summit under the Japan Alps of 1200 meters (for a Tokyo comparative, that is a climb to the top of Sky Tree followed by a climb up Takao-san)
- 86% of the trip through tunnels (meaning a ride similar to one on the full length of Tokyo's Marunouchi subway line, which is 90% underground)
- power consumption 3 times higher per passenger than the fastest Shinkansen (not a reassuring number in the post-Fukushima Daichi electrical power provision environment)
Then came the kicker: how much a ticket on the wonder train would cost.
According to the plan announced on September 18, the projected cost of a one-way fare from Tokyo to Nagoya on the linear hyperexpress would be 11,480 yen, only 700 yen (7%) more than the cost for the same one-way trip on the fastest Nozomi Shinkansen train.
The response to this final claim was...astonishment. (Link - J)
Looking at the fare, the number of passengers in each train and the number of departures per hour, the Mainichi Shimbun foresaw the obvious danger -- that the project is designed to fail in its finances, the company's managers being confident they can extort a bailout from the government. (Link)
Yesterday, in a press conference revealing more details regarding what will be in essence the world's most ridiculously speedy subway, JR Central president Yamada Yoshiomi explained the reason JR Central has projected a maglev ride fare with an unbelievably low markup of only 7% over the cost of a Shinkansen trip taking twice as long. You would think Yamada would have provided some kind of breakdown of the pricing, showing how JR Central pays off the cost of the investment and the costs of operating the line while charging so little over the currently available high speed train trip.
Uh, well...he seemingly did not.
The reason the newspapers are reporting Yamada gave for the incredibly small additional cost for a maglev ticket?
"We can only receive about that much more [over the Shinkansen ticket price] from the customers."Clunk. No wait, double-clunk.
(Link - J)
You read that right: if Yamada is to be believed, the parameters for the price of a ticket are set by not by the engineers and accountants, but by JR Central's marketing department -- what the marketers feel customers might think the improvement in service is worth.
One could laugh, except for anyone following the moves of JR Central's chairman Kasai Yoshiyuki, including his role as the bundler for Abe Shinzo's return to power (Link and Link), his hiring of former high-ranking U.S. officials as his salemen (Link) as a part of general dabbling in foreign policy agenda setting (Link) and his reported attempts to press national broadcaster NHK into adopting a more pro-nuclear editorial line (Link) would think twice about laughing anything involving JR Central plans.
There is one determined hombre behind the company advertising that nutty price.
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