Very Kind Of Them #58 and #59

The Economist this week examines the unnecessary pressure being put on Japan's new media to conform to Abe government-approved ways of thinking or to avoid examining the government's actions at all. A generous author includes a minor observation of mine. (Link)

Meanwhile, as a part of an ongoing series of conversations regarding the burning issues confronting Japan, Timothy Langley, Nancy Snow and I have a long conversation on rural depopulation, taking a big, necessary detour through the socio-economic roles of women.

Mr. Langley misspeaks at the outset as regards the ageing of Japanese society: only 1/4 of Japanese are above 65 years of age and 1/8 are above 75 years of age. Mr. Langley's percentages are for rural communities or for the so-called New Towns, the satellites cities built on farm and forest land in the 1960s. In the villages, with very few exceptions, and in the danchi, the giant public housing projects in the New Towns, the proportions of senior citizens is at 40% and on the way to 50%.

When At Length A Reader Writes

I would be in remiss not to post the result.

Reader Troy Yuen, via email, in response to my post Urban Harvest Tokyo of July 17:

In my neighborhood and surrounding area (Meguro--Shirokane) while there is a lack of FREE public green space, there is a lot of private greenery available. For example, 八芳園, 雅叙園, 自然教育園 (which is HUGE). But other areas seem to have minimal amounts greenery, public or private. Shibuya, Ebisu (I'm still wondering where is the "garden" in Ebisu Garden Place).

Fortunately, in the last 10 years there seems to be some attempt to increase the amount of green space in central Tokyo. Midtown built a big garden/park/pond in the back. I noticed that some of the buildings in Otemachi have built gardens on their roofs. Next to the new Otemori building there is a mini-forest including trees and a small stream.

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Flowers in Jindaiji Botanical Garden, Chofu City, Tokyo Metropolitan District on July 20, 2014. Photo courtesy: MTC.

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While sound in theory, the idea always rankled。Only one who does not live in the TMD would ever think of the micro-farms as wasted land. Without the farms, life in the great concrete metropolis would be far less livable. The central wards are woeful in the paucity of their area devoted to parks. Such public parks as exist are uninviting　due to bad design, regulations and a love of bare dirt.

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There is so little greenery in central Tokyo that some of the best hanami parties I've been to have been at cemeteries (青山墓地 and 染井墓地)!!

Not sure that the "love of bare dirt" is entirely accurate. There are many parks that have nothing but dirt and there seems to be no attempt to grow grass, but I think that a possible reason for that is the few public parks that exist are overused to the point where they've given up trying to grow grass.

There is a park in Shirokanedai with a fountain, minimal exercise equipment, no playground, just a few benches and open space. They are always trying to grow grass by making some areas of the park off limits to give the grass a chance to grow. But once the off limits area is reopened for public use it turns into dirt pretty quickly because of overuse. They've recently tried a new strategy by laying a green protective plastic net over most of the park to prevent the grass from being trampled to death while still allowing sunlight and water to pass through. It seems to work pretty well as the grass is thriving and growing through the net.

One complaint about Tokyo greenery that I do have that you didn’t mention is that there are very few public places in Tokyo where BBQs are allowed (none inside the Yamanote as far as I know). Even where they are allowed, for example Futakotamagawa, there are rules regarding noise, start/end times, etc.

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Thank you Mr. Yuen, for your readership and your missive.

Correction - Richard Katz Response To “Urban Harvest Tokyo”

In my post yesterday, I stated Richard Katz wants the micro farms inside Japanese cities abolished. I wrote off the top of my head and did not confirm with Mr. Katz his actual position.

This is his actual position, taken from an email to me:

I never said that these tiny farms should be abolished. What I said was that the property taxes on farmland, particularly urban farmland, should be the same as those on other land, and that the assessments for tax purposes should be the same. What I suspect is that many of these would no longer be commercially viable without the tax break and would go out of business. If so, the farmers should be allowed to sell their land to agribusiness or even nonfarm uses.

I have as much appreciation for nature and fresh garden vegetables as the next guy, but I don’t see why the rest of taxpayers should subsidize the old farmer in your neighborhood or your food budget. If you want him to survive, pay him the price it takes to cover his costs, without getting help from other taxpayers. When I left the speech at Temple University where you heard my comments, one man came up to me and told me that, on weekends, he went out to the nearby countryside to do gardening on land owned by someone else who had become too old to use it. It was his hobby. His hobby is subsidized by other taxpayers. My dad had a vegetable garden in our backyard every year, as did many people in my small town. But none of them required the rest of the taxpayers in the town and state to subsidize his hobby.

What I also said was that, all over Japan, land use laws that make it difficult for farmers to sell their land for nonfarm purposes. They should be abolished. That way, farmers who survive only because of huge subsidies, and most of whom are part-timers anyway, could make some money by selling their land for other purposes, if they chose. As of 2010--the latest figures I have readily at hand—the ratio of abandoned farmland as of 2010 stood at 14% IN URBAN AREAS, 6% in flat farming areas, 14% in hilly farming areas, and 16% in mountainous farming areas. All of these figures are about double their levels in 1995 and will only increase as farmers age and pass away. Land that could be used for better purposes lies useless.

How does it benefit anyone to have 14% of urban farmland lying around useless, even with the tax breaks. One wonders how much would be abandoned without the tax breaks.

My apologies to Rick Katz for misrepresenting his position.

Image: Man hoeing marginal urban farmland plot. Setagaya City, Tokyo Metropolitan District on July 18. 2014.
Image courtesy: MTC

Urban Harvest Tokyo

I live in one of the 23 inner wards of the Tokyo Metropolitan District. The density of population in my area exceeds 15,000 persons per square kilometer. Nevertheless, since I live sufficient far away from the nearest railway stations there are still operating micro-farms next to my building.

At this time of year the old man who tills, sows and weeds the plots directly in front of where I live sets out the vegetables he has harvested three times a week. Most of the vegetables are purchased immediately by a crowd that gathers in front of the man's driveway in the morning. The remainder the old man leaves in a wooden shelter just off the street. Passersby pack up what they want and leave their payment in a small wooden box on shelter's left hand side.

The photo above is my morning's purchase from the old man's tiny field. Everyone says the sweet corn is divine.

Richard Katz, with whom I correspond on occasion, used to and may still have a bee in his bonnet about the farmland still dotting Japan's urban cores. For Katz, these tiny farms rob cities and the country of potential growth. Abolish them, and folks build could build big houses and apartment on the suddenly more plentiful supply of urban housing land. All Japan would benefit from the burst of consumption.

While sound in theory, the idea always rankled。Only one who does not live in the TMD would ever think of the micro-farms as wasted land. Without the farms, life in the great concrete metropolis would be far less livable. The central wards are woeful in the paucity of their area devoted to parks. Such public parks as exist are uninviting　due to bad design, regulations and a love of bare dirt.

The urban farms, by contrast, are green oases -- and not just for the humans. The plots in front of my building provide shelter and food to loyal pairs of roly-poly kijibato (Streptopilia orientalis), raucous and handsome gangs of onaga (Cyanopica cyana) and flocks of mukudori (Sturnus cineraceus). The your-can't-help-but-love-them invasive pest honsei inko (Psittacula krameri) feed on the flowering tree buds. I even saw a bull-headed shrike (mozu - Lanius bucephalus) last week. It was studying the field from a perch on an electrical wire, searching the rows for prey.

When the rains come and night falls fat hikigaeru (Bufo japonicus) claw out of their holes and march on webbed feet in search worms and mates. After the rain stops, bats swoop overhead, catching flying insects on the wing.

Where would all these fellow Earth travelers have to live, if the farms were to go?

The last operating grape arbor in the ward was torn out two years ago and replaced with homes. Only two apple orchards still operate. I look forward to visiting them in the fall. But for how many more autumns will they open their gates?

Eliminating the economic inefficiency sounds excellent. Possibly increasing the size of homes sounds great. However, the actual costs to society imposed by these little fields seem trivial as compared to the benefits being enjoyed by all.

Size Matters

Finally, an article in the vernacular press explaining, at least partially, how Japan's vehicle markets can be so resistant to imports.

Are Japan's Minicars a Trade Barrier?
Nation's Preference for Ultrasmall Autos Poses Hurdle for Foreign Auto Makers

TOKYO—Japan's auto market, once a global trend setter, has become one of the most disconnected from markets elsewhere, putting it at risk of becoming irrelevant, say executives here.

More than 90% of cars sold in Japan are Japanese brands. A third of them—ultralight minicars—are sold nowhere else. Originally developed to fill Japan's need for cheap cars after World War II, they are too small or too expensive for other markets.

The country's singularly strong appetite for fuel-efficient cars means car makers have developed a series of advanced technologies, such as hybrid cars, that don't necessary translate easily elsewhere.

Japan has no tariffs on auto imports. Japanese auto executives say the country's unique tastes are a big reason for global auto makers' failure to thrive in the world's third largest auto-buying country, after China and the U.S. Foreign auto executives say the country's preferential tax treatment for minicars and its unique safety and environmental regulations are nontariff barriers that protect the country from foreign competition...

(Link)

Had the author added brand loyalty based on regional and keiretsu ties to his reasons why Japanese consumers and business customers buy what they buy, he would have covered all the bases.

The ruling coalition is set to try leveling the playing field in terms of the tax advantages of minicars. The Liberal Democratic Party's tax committee has recommended lowering the acquisition tax for full-size vehicles and raising the annual taxes minicar owners pay by 50%. (Link). Minicar manufacturers and their suppliers screamed in protest when the proposals came before the committee.

Minicar makers, particularly minicar-motorcycle manufacturers like Suzuki and Yamaha, seem to have little traction or connection with Abe Shinzo and his allies, however. Daihatsu in theory might have been able to bend the ear of the LDP tax committee, corporate parent Toyota Motors being seen as a vital member of Team Abe thanks to President Toyoda Akio's obsequious praise of Abenomics.

Daihatsu, is, however, the outcast problem child of the Toyota family. Toyota Motors would really want to have Daihatsu customers buying the group's more profitable full-sized cars. That Daihatsu did not take a lead in fighting the tax changes, leveraging the Abe-Toyoda relationship into influence upon the committee's deliberations, is not surprising.

Raising the taxes on minicars goes partway into answering the charges of U.S. automakers that regulations plays a role in closing Japan's auto markets to foreign manufacturers. The tax changes can therefore be seen as one facet of the political show Japan has to put on in order to consolidate its position inside Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations on vehicle tariffs -- where the white whale of Japanese trade policy, the U.S. 25% tariff on light trucks (a.k.a., minivans), lurks.

The still far off tax rise (the tax changes would only affect vehicles purchased after March 2015) on minicars does carry a political price. Minicars are seen as "people's cars" (Ja, ist Japonishes Volkswagen!) and everyday life vehicles (seikatsu no ashi - literally, "livelihood legs"). They are particularly important for rural households, which generally have lower than national average incomes yet which need a vehicle for each adult family member for both personal transportation and ferrying goods. Raising the costs of owning a minicar, or two or three or four as is often the case, is a rude slap in the face to rural voters. Coupled with the recently announced plan to phase out the gentan rice subsidy program over the next five years (Link), it looks as though the LDP is double-crossing the rural voters who remained loyal to the LDP even during the party's years of decline and banishment to the political wilderness.

Thinking that the demographic trends in agriculture and the rural areas make the minicar tax rise a safe bet for the LDP -- a "So long and thanks for the votes, you losers" -- ignores the reality that younger consumers are also big fans of minicars. Ticking off youth, folks who will voting for a long time to come, seems dumb, strategically. The young, however, are s numerically small proportion of the current electorate who do themselves no favors by furthermore not showing up at the polls on election day. (Link - J)

So minicars go to it, despite their extreme popularity.

Very Kind Of Them #15

The East Asia Forum has published my essay examining the fallout from the high court decisions on the unconstitutionality of the December 2012 election. (Link)

Yesterday, the secretaries-general of the parties gathered in the Diet to discuss the ruling coalition's new district map and electoral reform plan, both of which flesh out the ingenious and craven +0/-5 solution. The ruling coalition plans to submit a reform bill for a Cabinet Decision on April 12. After that, the bill will be submitted to the Diet. Given the supermajority the ruling coalition holds in the House of Representatives, the bill will pass into law even if the House of Councillors rejects it.

The response of opposition attendees at yesterday's meeting to the ruling coalition's presentation: "Go jump in a lake." (Link - J)

This morning on the TBS morning show Asa Zuba! Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru was in full damage control/take no prisoners mode.

Ishiba's intransigent defense of the +0/-5 plan and the Council on House of Representative Electoral Districts map in the face of persistent questioning came not only from his position as the day-to-day leader of LDP, though. He also has a personal stake in the passage of minimalist reforms.

Ishiba represents Tottori District #1. Tottori Prefecture is one of the five prefectures losing a seat under the +0/-5 solution. However, due to the prefecture's minuscule population, even the cutting back of one seat leaves Tottori voters overly represented in the Diet (under current law, all prefectures send at least two members to the House of Representatives). Tiny Tottori, under a more equitable system, would only have one.

Ishiba would probably be the top vote winner in his prefecture whether there were two races or only one. However, politics in prefectures with few inward migrants and small populations is very much person-to-person -- and the LDP Way is all about making voters feel special and in control.

Ishiba already has a reputation for being too free in displaying of disdain for needs of his nominal equals. He does not need to add to it.

Toward Hinohara

On Saturday the editors of The Japan Times -- a peculiar fraternity on the best of days -- published what can only be considered a transcendental editorial on rural depopulation.

Transcendental, that is, in terms of its stupidity, none of the facts revealed being particularly surprising and none of the remedies suggested being reasonable.

Nevertheless, the editorial (Link) is instructive in its replication of the fanciful domestic discussion on rural depopulation. Rather than accept the emptying of the countryside as a natural process, the editors find all kinds of external or structural weaknesses, including government action/inaction, to blame. Some of the cause-and-effect relations found are truly peculiar (The 2008 Lehman Shock closed factories in rural Japan?).

The unspoken faith (The Great Lie told? - Ed.) is that if residents of rural areas face their problems squarely, solutions can be found to rural decline.

Poppycock. What needs to be face squarely is that almost nothing can be done to reverse the emptying out of the countryside.

For not even the Tokyo Metropolitan District can get rural life right.

It is generally known that the gateway and window into Japan, the Tokyo Metropolitan District, is the great outlier among Japanese prefectures. All but a handful are depopulating due to increased morbidity and emigration. Tokyo, however, just keeps on growing. After dipping below 11.59 million persons in 1996, Tokyo has found a way to accommodate 1.64 million new residents, its population, according to Tokyo Metropolitan Government statistics, standing at 13,228,912 on December 1. (Link)

Whereas the population of the TMD is getting older, like everywhere else in Japan, the population of children is at least stable. The number of children in 0~14 years-of-age cohort did collapse from 2,155,242 in 1985 to only 1,427,229 in 2001. Ever since, however, the number of children has been growing, if only slightly, keeping the schools open and day care center builders employed.

Despite the big rise in the population and stability in the numbers of children, the TMD is undergoing rural depopulation. The 1.6 million new TMD residents have not been absorbed primarily by the suburbs. Instead, population growth has occurred in the TMD's core. In 1996, the population of the inner 23 wards was 7,846,487. In December 2012 it was 9,007,407. In raw numbers, 75% of the growth in the TMD population has been accommodated in the already most densely populated third of the District (the purple area in this map). More people live in the 23 wards than at time in Edo/Tokyo's crowded history.

Despite the significant population increase of the TMD as a whole, a well-funded and responsive local government and highly developed public transportation, highway and high-speed telecommunications networks that would ostensibly would allow anyone access to all the amenities of contemporary life, the population of the TMD's exurbs is shrinking. The extreme western, mountainous county (郡) part of the TMD has seen its population fall from 61,297 in 1996 to 58,232 at the end of last year -- a small decrease, to be sure, but still counter to the general population trend.

Moreover, the least populated areas of the least populated region are losing population the fastest.

The loneliest place in Tokyo is Hinohara Village (檜原村) -- the orange area in the below map:

Hinohara covers 5% of the TMD's total land area. It is, however, home to only 2,526 persons (1,262 men; 1,264 women) -- 0.02% of the TMD's total. While the average density in the TMD is 6,044 persons per square kilometer (Toshima Ward tops the list of municipalities at 22,161 persons per square kilometer) the number of Hinohara residents per square kilometer is fewer than 25.

In 1985, Hinohara's population stood at 3,914:

681 children (0~14 years of age)
2471 working age adults (15~64 years of age)
762 seniors (65 years and older)

In early 2012, Hinohara had 2,597 residents:

172 children (less than 7% of the total)
1,313 working age adults
1,1112 seniors (43% of the total)

Yes, you read the above correctly: the population pyramid in the TMD's not unpretty (the touted Sengen Trail is a disappointment but the hike up Makiyoseyama is one of the Kanto's best day trips) hinterland is more skewed toward the gray than those of Japan's famously dying rural prefectures. And yes, the town lost 71 residents last year -- a 2.7% drop. Since 1985, the town's population has shrunk by more than a third.

It is not as if Hinohara Village were the end of the world. By local bus and trains, Hinohara's town hall is little more than an hour and half out of Shinjuku. By private car the trip might take about the same amount of time.

Yet despite being not just connected to the metropole but in the metropole, Hinohara, the community, is evaporating. Without immigration, its population will halve over the next 20 years.

Stabilize the population of Akita? Stabilize Saga? Stabilize Hokkaido?

Tell me how to stabilize Hinohara Village first.

The Hossawa waterfall, frozen
Hinohara Village, Tokyo Metropolitan District
January 20, 2013
Image credit: MTC

Notes On Population, Women And Work

The New York Times has just published an essay blissful in its lack of context or statistical rigor (Link). It seems rural Japan is getting depopulated, young persons are leaving for the cities and the median age is getting perilously high.

As is the case in North Dakota. As it is in rural just about everywhere in the industrialized world. And not a few countries of the not-so-industrial world too.

As for the childcare availability problem mentioned which is somehow depressing fertility, the government has been making headway on this problem every year, cutting down the number of children on waiting lists for public day care centers despite massive year-on-year increases in demand (Link). The government's buildout is indeed hammering private daycare providers. In the TMD, the move by private railways, with their huge landholdings, into the daycare business likely to drive the last of the small independent providers out of business.

The interplay in between attitudes and reality regarding women, childbearing and work is complicated, and growing more so, rather than less. The Cabinet Office's roughly triennial "Survey on Social Participation of Men and Women" (Danjo kyodo sanka shakai in kan suru yoron chosa) released today finds a major reversal in the long-term trend as regards the statement, "The husband should be out working; the wife should taking care of the home." From 1992, the year of the first of these surveys, to 2009, the percentage of respondents agreeing with that statement declined with every survey. However, in the 2012 survey, the percentage of respondent agreeing with the statement jumped -- up to a level not seen in 15 years (Link - J).

The shocker is the shift in the attitudes of the 20-29 age cohort since the 2009 survey. Whereas the youngest cohort was the age cohort the least likely to agree with the statement in 2009 (37.3% as compared to all ages figure of 41.7%) in 2012 it comes in second only to the cohorts over 60 years of age (50.0% as compared to the all ages figure of 51.6%). In both cases, the 50-59 age cohort has been the least likely to agree the statement (Link -J)

Amaterasu bless you, you children of the 1960s.

The denial of economic reality by the youngest age cohort is repeated in the responses to the statement "It is all right for women to continue working even if they have children." In between 2009 and 2012, the percentage of respondents in the 20-29 age cohorts agreeing with the statement fell from 46.4% to 39.1%, even as the figures for all cohorts moved in the opposite direction (45.9% in 2009 and 47.5% in 2012).

Looks like the echo boomers are a little bit spoiled. Suffice it to say that it is harder to wake up if you keep your eyes closed.

A New Union Of Forces Of The Left

The slapdash creation yesterday of the Japan Party of the Future (Nippon Mirai no To) in part answers the heretofore burning question, "Where is the umbrella party of the left, the correlate of the Liberal Democratic Party as the umbrella party of the center-right, now that the ruling Democratic Party of Japan has effectively expelled all of its anti-consumption tax, anti-nuclear power and anti-Trans Pacific Partnership members?" (Link)

Funny how political realignment, which was assumed was going to result in urban, free-market, multilateralist, liberals facing off against rural, crony-capitalist, bilateral relations and traditional social policy conservatives has become a four-way fight between parties and close allies with market socialism, social conservatism, activist foreign policy, regressive social policy, patriotism, fiscal rectitude, loose monetary policy, subsidies and education reform all in a jumble.

Considering how many parties have formed and disappeared over the last two weeks, it is not out of place to wonder whether the voters will be given enough time to discern what the various electoral alliances stand for.

The whole mad process of creating viable electoral groupings should end on December 4, when the final party lists are announced. Politicians have become so addicted to rebranding, however, that they may still be redefining themselves during their last speeches in the final hours of December 15.

Where The Boys Are

Today the competition begins between final eight (besuto eito) teams remaining from the 32 teams invited to the spring high school single-elimination baseball tournament.

The Besuto Eito are

Kanto Dai'ichi (Tokyo Metropolitan District)
Yokohama (Kanagawa Prefecture)
Osaka Toin (Osaka Prefecture)
Aikodai Meiden (Aichi Prefecture)
Urawa Gakuen (Saitama Prefecture)
Naruto (Tokushima Prefecture)
Kendai Takasaki (Gunma Prefecture)
Kosei Gakuin (Aomori Prefecture)

Population ranking of the 8 prefectures represented among the 47 prefectures

Tokyo Metropolitan District (#1)
Kanagawa Prefecture (#2)
Osaka Prefecture (#3)
Aichi Prefecture (#4)
Saitama Prefecture (#5)
Tokushima Prefecture (#18)
Gunma Prefecture (#19)
Aomori Prefecture (#31)

Yes, I know a number of the surviving schools are magnet schools recruiting from all over the country. However, so are a number of the schools in the least populous prefectures.

The general gist remains: the rich get richer and the poor go home.


Later - Gunma Prefecture had an advantage in that it had two teams entered in the tournament. Then again, so did Hokkaido (#8) and Nara (#29). Both the entrants from those two prefectures were eliminated.

Fewer Than Two

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Don't give up
Until you drink from the silver cup
And ride that highway in the sky

This is for all the single people
Thinking that life has left them dry
Don't give up
Until you drink from the silver cup
You never know until you try

- America, "Lonely People" (1974)*

If you are in the Tokyo Metropolitan district, and you are alone, you are not alone. Indeed, you are in the whopping majority.

The TMD released the results of its survey of households yesterday. As of January 1 of this year, Tokyo had 12,686,067 residents living in 6,368,485 households, an average of 1.99 residents per household. Considering the number of families with children in the TMD, the balancing number of persons registered as living alone is simply immense -- over 60% of all households registered.

The Mainichi Shimbun provides a nice graph of the crash in the number of persons per registered household since 1957, the first year the survey was conducted.

TMD Governor Ishihara Shintaro, ever the one to come up with the conservate morality play view of a situation, remarked, "I am shocked. It a matter of grave concern. It's truly unhealthy. I feel as though the family unit has fallen to pieces."

If so, then our dear governor (How is it possible that he has won election four times?) should be worried about our neighbors to the north, with all their cows, corn and sunflowers, for the next in line is Hokkaido, with 2.06 residents per household. (J)

The TMD being the great vampire squid of Japan's prefectures, it still managed to eke out a 0.31% increase in its population, the 16th straight year of population growth, despite its shrinking household size (J). It also has remained relatively youthful, with persons in their 30s being the largest age cohort and the percentage of those over 65 years of age still a low (for Japan) 21% of the population. (J)

So all the ongoing creative destruction, with old neighborhoods and commercial properties being demolished and being replaced by high-rise and low-rise condominium and rental units is not necessarily cheap financing leading developers to run amok.

* Yes, I know that the song is an appeal to rebith through faith in Jesus Christ. However, it was either this or "Eleanor Rigby."

Photo credit: MTC

Damned Damn Dams Damn Damn Japan

Let me see if I get this straight. After restoring, under the sponsorship of the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), funding for the completion of the egregious Yamba Dam – an immense political liability for an administration for whom the Yamba dam cancellation was seemingly the only campaign promise it had not repudiated or altered beyond all recognition and a tumor that lurks within the budget passed by the House of Representatives last Thursday (J) – the Cabinet has just approved a further bill, again authored by the MLIT minister, providing funding for offsets and new economic revitalization plans for local communites that have been disrupted by the cancellation of dams. (J)

Who the hell is thinking up these bills? OK, the MLIT bureaucrats, given. But who in his or her right mind thinks that these bills will do anything but hurt the standing of the Democratic Party of Japan among non-aligned voters, who at 48.7% of the electorate are the prizes up for grabs in the next House of Representatives election? (J - with background in E)

These communities have already been pigs at the trough in the development phase of these cancelled projects. Now we are going to be giving them seconds?

Who the heck is in charge of this mess?


Later - Many thanks to reader PM for pointing out the broken links.

Into The Countryside Let Us Go

I recently got involved in a tiff with a person over what would seem to be a rather simple question, "To what extent to rural votes still dominate over urban ones in Japan’s Diet?" Having some idea of the answer to the question would give one insight into some rather pressing current problems in Japan, in particular the Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko’s non-decision on participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a problem he seemed to have licked until the White House uploaded to its website a readout of the Noda-Obama meeting that had the prime minister putting all goods and services on the table. Period. A formulation that guaranteed the prime minister would face a buzz saw when he returned from Hawaii.

Anyway, I tried to answer the way the newspapers do, or at least did on October 27: by publicizing the degree of inequality in voting strengths between the smallest electoral districts and the largest ones – the results of which I blogged about last week. Of particular significance was the fact that based on the 2010 census data, 97 of the nation's 300 electoral districts had populations greater than 1.99 times the size of the nation’s least populous district – meaning that the voters in close to a third of the nation’s districts were disenfranchised to a level in excess of the constitutionally acceptable limits as described in a Supreme Court ruling of March of this year.

No, no, my interlocutor persisted, how much more representation do rural voters have in the Diet than urban voters?

Now that is a very interesting question…and one that is very difficult to pry out of the data without colliding with bias. Is a rural voter a farmer, fisherman or lumberman? Someone who works in the processing of the materials provided by the primary producers? Someone who lives in a prefecture where half the workforce is in primary industries? A third of the workforce? A fourth? Is it someone who lives in a city surrounded on all sides by a vast area of dark, foreboding mountains? Is it someone living in a district stretching like a ribbon, with one tail in city and the other in pure farmland, with an increasing/decreasing level of urbanization along its length? Is it someone working as a clerk in a branch of JA Bank?

Furthermore, in most countries, there are boundaries, city limits where one can say, "OK, now I am in X City." However, in the great Heisei Consolidation (J) so many cities swallowed up previously independent rural communities that the statement "I am in the city now" became almost meaningless in terms of the density of population on the ground in a particular locale.

One can make certain gross guesses, of course. One can guess that the 97 districts with populations in excess of double the population of the smallest district are probably "urban" under a general understanding of the term. One can also guess that the 100 smallest districts by population are probably "rural" by the self-same general understanding. However, for the 103 districts in between, where does one draw the line between rural and suburban, rural and mostly rural or mostly urban but with a large rural backyard?

The meaning of “urban” and “rural” is further muddied by land use laws which seek to protect farmland within what are ostensibly urban areas. This author lives in one of the 23 central wards of Tokyo, the hard urban core of the greatest urban conglomeration on earth. However, in front of the building where I live there is farmland, whose produce I can buy from a small streetside stand open three days a week. A three minute bicycle ride away is an apple orchard, where one can pick one’s own apples in the fall. A two minute bicycle ride away is a grape arbor, where, if one can remember the day, one can harvest grapes on the vine for one's table.

The urban harvest

August

October

As one heads out on one of the great arterial train lines or freeways, the size and number of these plots multiplies – all while one is ostensibly still in the city, as is manifested by the intense knots of urbanization around train stations, themselves surrounded by kilometers of low-level housing.

An aside, but this jumble of urban development, suburban sprawl and farmland is one of the main reasons the prime minister’s pledge to protect Japan’s "beautiful agriculture" (utsukushiki nogyo) from destruction by the TPP is so fatuous. Japanese agriculture is messy, indeed unsightly most of the time. One is hard-pressed to find a pretty valley or vista, as fields are cheek-and-jowl with so much suburban and semi-urban clutter. "Utsukushiki" for the most part it ain’t. We all know that the PM is a smoker…but has anyone checked to see what it is he is smoking?

This blending of urban and rural, or bleeding into of the rural into the urban, even in the capital, makes the definition of urban vs. rural voters so difficult to disentangle. Sure, this author lives in an urban area and thus an urban voting district. However, just down the street aways, in a sizable building, are the offices of JA Zenchu, the Central Union of Agriculture Cooperatives, for the ward. There are farmers in my neighborhood – mostly old, retired folks but nevertheless farmers, with produce for sale (though the corn crop this year failed, for some reason).

So how much pull do rural voters have over urban voters? Gosh, that would be an interesting question. However, one would have to make all kinds of arbitrary decisions, with significant consequences as to one's final result.

Suffice it to say that voters from districts where inefficient primary industries and inefficient secondary industries dominate have an inordinate amount of influence on the nation's decisions, due to their overrepresentation in the Diet, as compared to consumers and producers of the nation's surplus, who are crowded into districts with relatively poor levels of representation.

Trying to pin a number on the level of this misrepresentation, however, is a matter of individual judgment.

Up Against The Wall On The TPP

Prime Minsiter Noda Yoshihiko has an insane schedule this week, and all over a project that he inherited, not initiated.

Noda will meet with Kamei Shizuka (I will admit it, I include the live link solely for the singing) the leader of the People's New Party, the Democratic Party of Japan's coalition partner. Noda and Kamei will confer on whether or not Noda should notify the leaders of other Asia-Pacific nations this weekend that Japan will enter negotiations to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Given that Kamei spoke out against such an announcement at a multi-party meeting yesterday (en) one can be fairly sure of the tenor of today's conversation.

The DPJ's TPP project team will wrap up their search for a common ground within the party on Japan's participation in TPP negotiations on Wednesday. They will then report their findings to the prime minister and the leadership of the DPJ. That they will report the party hopelessly divided on the subject of the TPP with no common ground to stand upon is a foregone conclusion.

On Thursday, the prime minister will consult with the Cabinet, coming to his final decision, yes or no, on announcing Japan's participation to the leaders assembling on Saturday. He will then give a nationally televised press conference explaining his decision.

On Friday, the PM will face the hostile questioning of the opposition in Diet Budget Committee session. Despite the session's being ex post facto it promises to be an absolute doozy, given that every opposition party except the Liberal Democratic Party has already declared itself against Japan's participation in TPP discussions.

On Saturday morning the PM flies to Hawaii for the APEC meeting, and his fateful meeting with President Barack Obama, who is expecting a "Yes" from the PM on TPP.

The PM's mad week is testament to the difficulties of the decision facing Prime Minister Noda.

1) This a binary decision, yes or no, thumbs up, thumbs down. Noda, however, is Mr. Compromise, always trying to finesse a middle position, as was demonstrated in the offer made yesterday to the LDP and New Komeito to have the Tohoku reconstruction bonds have a 25 year maturity. The DPJ had been insisting on a 10 year maturity; the LDP had insisted on a 60 year maturity.

For the TPP, there is no gray area in between.

2) Unlike in the Republic of Korea, where the political classes made sure to reform the electoral system, diminishing the political influence of agriculture before embarking on full-scale, multi-directional free trade agreement initiative, Noda is stuck with a Diet elected through an unreformed electoral system, giving farmers and the domestic food production industry -- an extremely inefficient industry that by definition provides a lot of folks with jobs -- an inordinate influence over lawmakers and the government (How many bureaucrats are there in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries? Uncountable multitudes...).

Even though electoral reforms stripping the rural prefectures of their representatives is mandated by decisions of the Supreme Court, the Diet has not quite found the time to pass these reforms yet. The cart, therefore, is before the horse.

3) Yamada Masayuki is not kidding when he is saying that there will defections from the DPJ should the prime minister decide to press forward with formal TPP negotiations. This will be a body blow to the prime minister, who made unity of the DPJ one of his core promises at the party leadership election in September.

4) As stated above, participation in TPP is not Noda's cup of tea, but something he had passed on to him. The situation is completely different from the one that brough Koizumi Jun'ichiro into conflict with the membership of his own party over the LDP's addiction to the votes garnered by the postmasters and the pork barrel projects funded by the fiscal investment and loan program (FILP). Koizumi had been railing against Japan Post for two decades prior to the final confrontation with the party in July-August 2005. He was willing to accept party defections because he was fighting for his own hobby horse.

5) The effects of participation in large multilateral economic structures does not necessarily guarantee the passage of the internal reforms necessary to put a country on a sturdy politico-economic footing. Just ask the Greeks about this.

6) One can be a paranoid anti-Chinese nutter and pro-military alliance with the U.S. enthusiast...and still see the TPP as the stake through Japan's heart. Just read Inada Tomomi's piece in the Sankei Shimbun (ja). Yes, it is that Inada Tomomi, the one who tried to lead a delegation of LDP Diet members to Ulleung Island, only to be denied entry to the ROK.

All of the above must be swirling around inside the prime minister's head, probably without the necessary ironclad belief in the law of comparative advantage.

Lots of folks are predicting that in the end, the prime minister has no choice but to go forward with an announcement that Japan will be an active participant in TPP negotiations. Then again, as Michael Sutton has pointed out in The Japan Times (Link) a lot of folks in the "inevitable" business enjoying getting their salaries, plane tickets, hotel rooms and meals paid for by the kinds of companies that benefit most from trade liberalization.

What will the prime minister decide? Hell if I know...and that is the only intellectually honest answer anyone can give.

The Japanese Tea Parties

Not another political party!

Well, not exactly a party. Unlike the old boys club"Sunrise Party" (that's the new English name of Tachiagare Nippon! - why is it that this new translation set visions of the last scenes of Paul Schrader's Mishima dancing in my head? ) the Nippon Soshinto (the "Japan Regeneration Party"?) lacks the requisite five sitting members of the Diet to win official approval as a political party. Until such time as it does (it is not likely to) it will carry out its activities as a political organization (seiji dantai), meaning it will be campaigning without public funding.

Trying to campaign without a dollop of money from the public coffers fits in rather well with the basic ideological stance of this new autonomous conservative political organization. Founded by Suginami Ward mayor Yamada Hiroshi, former Yokohama mayor Nakada Hiroshi and Yamagata Governor Saito Hiroshi (in the abscence of an official name, Ethan Chua referred to the incipient party as "the Hiroshis") the Nippon Soshinto is dedicated to fighting the Democratic Party of Japan, which, in emulation of its predecessor the Liberal Democratic Party, is blowing out Japan's national budget though baramaki ("rose strewing") public works projects and indiscriminate social welfare spending. From the past utterances of its founders, the party will have a strong nationalist aroma (check out the photo of the press conference) -- Suginami Ward, for example, is one of the very few municipalities whose public schools make use of the controversial Fusosha New History textbooks.

In its combination of attacks on fiscal stimulus spending and a strong conservative nationalist cant, the Nippon Soshinto shares elements of the Tea Party movement in the United States. Both are growing out of a climate of fear, responding to the uncertainty after the election of a more liberal party to power, a shift in government spending priorities as a result of that election and an increase in fiscal deficits as governments try to counteract the depressive effects of the Great Crash of 2008.

However, the voters being targeted by the Nippon Soshinto are not the defiantly ignorant rural astroturf rubes of the U.S. Tea Party movement. Indeed, the projected Nippon Soshinto voter is very nearly the social opposite of the Tea Partier: he/she is an urban or near-urban, upper middle class, highly educated individual. Indeed its policy mix seems directed at managerial, Nihon Keizai Shinbun reading commuter with few emotional ties to the countryside. Its macroeconomic stance is typically corporate - what can save Japan is unemotional, strictly-by-the-numbers government belt-tightening - or more colloquially, the "I got mine Jack, you have to fend for yourself" view.

Rolling into the House of Councillors election this summer, the voters now have the opportunity to choose from amongst three different flavors of non-LDP micro-party conservatism. The DPJ-led ruling coalition member People's New Party will appeal to social conservatives in the rural areas, the party offering wistful, even maudlin, depictions of a traditional Japan of several decades ago combined with trans-Keynesian levels of public borrowing and fiscal profligacy. The Sunrise Party will appeal to the somewhat paranoid nationalist voter, with party ideologues Hiranuma Takeo and Ishihara Shintaro banging on about how the DPJ is handing control of Japan to the South Koreans and the Chinese. In terms of economic policy, Yosano Kaoru will continue his Ahab-like pursuit of a solution to the burgeoning of the national debt, meaning the Sunrise Party will be running on the electorally poisonous promises of cuts in government spending and higher taxes.

[This, by the way, explains the reason why the mild and reasonable Yosano has joined forces with Hiranuma: it is not Hiranuma trying appear more reasonable by hanging out with Yosano, it is Yosano searching for voters whose fanaticism is intense enough to makes them willing to swallow the harsh medicine of higher taxes.]

Finally there is the Nippon Soshinto offering a "liquidate the farmers, liquidate labor, love the nation" plan for the nation's reconstruction in the hopes of captureing the attention of the members of middle-aged urban/suburban managerial class and their spouses (cue the devilishly handsome new party secretary-general Nakada Hiroshi).

In short, in the House of Councillors election, conservative voters have a choice between Shabby Socialist (PNP), Bad Tasting (Sunrise) and Organization Man (Nippon Soshinto) flavors of ex-LDP Japanese conservatism.

Further Cracks in the Levee

In a decision taking one more chip out of the edifice of power that thwarted the popular will, inflated the importance of rural votes and helped perpetuate rule by the Liberal Democratic Party, Hiroshima High Court judge Hirota Satoshi has found that differences in the size of voting age populations inside House of Representives districts leading to dilutions of voting strengths greater than two-to-one are unconstitutional. While Hirota ruled against the plaintiff, a Hiroshima Prefecture man whose own voting district in the August 2009 elections has a voting age population 1.47 times larger than the least populated district the nation (Kochi District #3) he did state a seemingly obvious but heretofore ignored principle:

"It is difficult to think that without any (specific) constitutional sanction, a single voter living in a least populated district gets two votes or, conversely, that two voters in a high population district get only one vote."

Slowly, slowly the courts have been chipping away at the vast disparities that exist in voting strengths, starting with the first decision in December 1972 that found unconstitutional a difference of greater than 4.99 in voting strengths. The informal standard since 1990 has been anything greater than 2.99 is unconstitutional, challenges of a 2.0 standard having failed in 1996, 2000 and 2005.

For those who believe in the wisdom of the people, particularly a highly educated people with a general neutrality towards religious or other ideologies, the court's timidity heretofore in giving the people their constitutionally guaranteed equal voice in how they are governed has been an infuriating and demoralizing spectacle. With this ruling, there is hope, albeit a late one that Japan's stumbling responses to the decay of the last 20 years will come to an end.

After the Storm

A monstrous typhoon has passed through the country. A few unfortunates lost their lives; many more people suffered injuries, several dozen lost their homes. The power went out in many places as wires ripped from their moorings. Most of the country's jets were grounded; most of the express train runs were cancelled. Yet much of the country's transportation and distribution network still functioned, despite the heavy rain and the wind. A staggering percentage of the labor force commuted work. Television crews, sent out to document the projected devastation, had little to capture in the way of storm dramatic storm damage. The slathering of the coastlines and riverways in concrete, the aesthetically asinine replacement of wood frame houses and public buildings with steel-framed, ceramic tile encased strongholds, lamented often enough here, seems to have preserved the populace from suffering catastrophic losses.

As, I suppose, they were designed to do.

Would it not be ironic that in the aftermath of the defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party, whose passionate intertwining with the construction sector led to the birthing of uncounted thousands of public works projects costing uncountable trillions of yen transforming Japan into a fortress against nature, leading to the party's being shackled to reputation of environmental and fiscal nihilism -- that the purportedly wasteful and pointless flood-control and wave-action defenses actually turned out to be crucial to beat back rising seas and supertyphoons?

That Japan, courtesy the LDP, would turn out to be the only country prepared for the consequences of climate change?

Will the DPJ Betray Its Constituents?

Short Answer: "Yes. "

Slightly Less Short Answer: "Yes -- by definition."

Long Answer: The Democratic Party of Japan has two routes to power.

One route is to take on the trappings of the traditional LDP, rely on promises of fiscal support to interest groups in the over-represented rural districts and the reversal of the market-based reforms of the Koizumi years, eke out enough wins in rural, suburban and urban districts to become the majority party in the House of Representatives, then cement its victory by doling out political patronage to the rural districts from out of the economic surpluses generated in the party's tradition strongholds in the urban and suburban areas, thereby seriously compromising the DPJ's longtime identity but leaving the electoral map undisturbed.

The other route is to take on the trappings of the traditional LDP, cobbling together enough angry anti-establishment, anti-market-based reform votes possible to eke out enough wins in rural, suburban and urban districts to become the majority party in the House of Representatives, then immediately turn its back on the rural districts (many of the party's rural representatives will be freshmen, by definition--and thus expendable, by definition) passing legislation eliminating and consolidating many rural electoral districts and multiplying suburban and urban ones - all this being done out of the noble intent of "eliminating disparities in the relative voting strength of the citizens" ("ippyō no kakusa") - transforming the electoral map without seriously compromising the DPJ's longtime identity.

In order to win a majority of seats in the next election, the DPJ must compromise on its traditions and ideals. However, to cement its electoral victory -- to make the victory reproducible - the DPJ must make permanent changes to either itself or to the electoral map.

Yesterday, in an agreement with the New People's Party, the DPJ agreed to alter its election manifesto on the issue of postal reform. Under the new formula, the DPJ will call for revision of the Koizumi era laws privatizing and splitting up the post office's many functions.

In return, the DPJ - New People's Party alliance hopes to receive the votes of the members of the National Special Postmen's Association (Zenkoku Yūbinkyokuchōkai, or Zentoku, for short). Party leader Ozawa Ichirō and New People's Party leader Watanuki Tamisuke had dinner on Wednesday night with Zentoku president Urano Osamu.

Aha, so it is the DPJ's traditional identity that is getting the chop!

Not so fast.

First, technically, the DPJ had no input in the reforms of the post office enacted after the LDP's landslide victory in the 2005 House of Representatives elections. The reforms were the handiwork of Prime Minister and LDP President Koizumi Jun'ichirō. By modifying its stand on postal reform, the DPJ is merely changing its opinion of an LDP-instigated reform.

Second, cloning the LDP in order to beat the LDP is a one-shot deal. When the citizens find out that handing Ozawa Ichirō and the Democrats power does not lead to a new, different style of governance, they will toss the DPJ out on the street in the very next House of Representatives election, including and especially many of the party's core leaders.

Not a good thing, especially for the party's core leaders.

The better, more Machiavellian strategy will be to betray the party's newest supporters in the rural areas (and the revived alliance with the People's New Party) not the party's base in the cities and suburbs. New supporters will be fickle and untrustworthy anyway - they had until so very recently been the supporters of another party. Sacrificing their interests in favor of the "nation as a whole" will be easy. (Sacrificing the alliance with the People's New Party, which petulantly suspended cooperation with the Democrats over the nomination of Ikeo Kazuhito to the Board of Governors of the Bank of Japan, will be even easier.)

The Democratic Party will also almost certainly promise to take good care of the Diet members whose electoral districts are marked for elimination ("A nice new Kanagawa single seat district with ocean fronting, perhaps? What's not to like?")

Are the Democrats duplicitous enough to pull this off? The strongest indication of that the answer is "Yes" came in June when House of Councillors Speaker Eda Satsuki (a Democrat, though officially non-aligned for appearances' sake) very quietly asked the House of Councillors Reform Conference (San'in kaikaku kyogikai) to look into the reapportionment of House Councillors district and regional bloc seats in order to rectify the huge disparities in between the voting strengths of the least populated and most populated prefectures.

Now such a reform of the voting strength disparities in the House of Councillors (at their worst, up to 5 times - meaning that the votes of some citizens are worth 1/5 the votes of others) has been a longtime topic of House of Councillors deliberations.

It has also been, for an equally long time, something of a parlor game. In some publications the member of the House of Councillors are called "Senators," and that is not a bad description. Like the United States Senate or the senates in other republics, the House of Councillors is not supposed to proportionally represent populations. Representing populations proportionately is the job of the House of Representatives.

(Whether the Diet's House of Representatives actually does this is another question...a question whose answer is "No.")

Indeed, by not reflecting proportional voting patterns, the House of Councillors--when it is operating according to its constitutional ideals--is supposed to function as a brake on populism.

(Hello, Twisted Diet!)

So if the apportionment of House of Councillors seats does not necessarily have to be representative to be constitutionally useful, then what is Eda (who is no dummy) up to?

Could it be that apportioning more House of Councillors seats to the urbane and suburbane prefectures (the most likely reform proposal--because one cannot cut the number of Councillors in a prefecture below two) is a dry run for a similar reform in the House of Representatives? Fighting voting strength inequality in a House the DPJ already controls will be giving the DPJ not only the experience in how to conduct a revolutionary reform of a Diet House--but the moral authority to do the same to a House it does not yet control?

Perhaps...

It would certainly open the way for transforming a cobbled-together, skin-of-one's-teeth, promising-the-moon, fundamentally dishonest election victory into a secure, possibly permanent Democratic Party majority in the House of Representatives.

Unless, of course, some one points out to everyone Ozawa and the Democrats cannot possibly fulfill the promises they are making.

Right, Maehara-san?

The Bust Up

TH - Hashimoto. I always thought it would be Hiranuma.
MC - It's the smart move. Hashimoto was always smarter.

So it begins.

Hashimoto issues call to create new party
The Japan Times

By Setsuko Kamiya, Staff Writer - Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - Former Kochi Gov. Daijiro Hashimoto said Tuesday he will form a political group with an eye to creating a new political party that will work to decentralize governmental power.

Hashimoto, a half brother of the late Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said he hopes to launch the new party in time for the next Lower House election.

"People's lives do not exist in the Nagata-cho or Kasumigaseki districts," said Hashimoto, referring to the neighborhoods where the Diet and the government bureaucracy are situated. "They exist in the local communities. This system where the central government controls everything needs to be exterminated."

Hashimoto said his policy plan works to transfer more tax revenue and administrative power to local governments while leaving responsibility for international affairs and national security in the hands of the central government. He also said the central government should shape the policies for ensuring people's livelihoods and boosting economic growth...

Now the let's-make-a-deal, so-it's policy-you-wants free-for-all starts.

Hiranuma Takeo, the Sith Lord of Japanese politics, should be kicking himself with a booted foot. His announcement of the formation of a new party, long threatened, was supposed to trigger the avalanche of realignment.

Instead, he gets pipped by Hashimoto Daijirō, one of the most consistently popular politicians around, pushing for deregulation--a subject which he, a former governor, actually cares about--unlike some commissions we could mention.

What a Hashimoto-led party lacks in strength right now it can more than make up in sense later. From all indications, Hashimoto understands decentralization, both why it is necessary and how it should be done.

Whether sensible policies sensibly carried out can be an electoral winner is a question. The national injury sob story of the revisionist right tugs at the heartstrings of persons on either side of the urban vs. rural divide, the most obvious social division in the archipelago. It has a proven track record as a vote-getter on the national scale.

For at least today, however, the "Hiranuma Conservative Party" spectre has to cede the camera to a less maudlin political project. If the announcement of the formation of Hiranuma's party comes too soon after this announcement, it could even be portrayed as a "rushed response to the Hashimoto challenge."

Hiranuma, who has been noodling about in round after round of ryotei politics, discussing realignment with Japan New Party leader Watanuki Tamisuke and New Daichi Party leader Suzuki Muneo over very expensive meals in exclusive traditional eateries, has blown his chance to be the first out of the blocks.

Then again, a person with an obvious contempt for so many would hardly understand the concept of product rollout and the importance of being first-to-market, now would he?

Later - Oh darn. Tobias Harris of Observing Japan has been bitten by the classic American film bug too.

A Wish List, Opened

How?

That is the inescapable question.

After the hoopla and security overkill of the Toyako Summit dies down, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet will be left with seven weeks of housekeeping duties and summer reading time before the start of the extraordinary session. The political classes will disperse to their home districts for seven weeks of vital constituent hand-holding and, when appropriate, backslapping—-an ominously long time for politicians to be immersed in a bath of personal and local complaints. In the absence of an election, the nation will largely put politics aside, focusing its attention on what is truly important: the Koshien high school baseball tournament--which probably will not, for demographic and wealth reasons, be won by a team from the Hokuriku, Chugoku, Shikoku or Tohoku regions.

But once this idyllic summer—possibly the last summer of the LDP's era of dominance—comes to an end, the Prime Minister, his Cabinet, his party and the ruling coalition will find themselves facing a daunting question.

How?

How will it be possible, in just a few months before the New Year, to draft and pass legislation

- reforming the payment system of the wildly unpopular eldercare system
- fulfilling the first phase of decentralization
- laying the groundwork for a fundamental rebalancing of the tax system
- renewing the Indian Ocean Maritime Self Defense Forces dispatch
- shifting the gasoline tax revenues from road construction to the general fund

over the determined opposition and delaying tactics of large segments of the Liberal Democratic Party, not to mention the knee-jerk opposition and delaying tactics of the majority in the House of Councillors?

And what about the big items on the agenda, the looming multifaceted issues requiring a flurry of action after years of benign neglect, such as:

- providing for the physical and financial needs of burgeoning population of the very old, at a reasonable cost
- righting the crippled, parasitic economies of the rural areas
- providing the legal and ideological framework for an influx of immigrant labor, both skilled and unskilled, temporary and permanent
-reversing the growing number of suicides
- fulfilling promises made at international events like TICAD and Toyako
- increasing the birth rate
- reversing the runaway destruction of the environment, both global and local
- preparing for a post-hydrocarbon-burning world
- providing for Japan's security as the world's power relationships undergo a phase of rapid realignment (and keeping the Americans happy with the Japan-U.S. security alliance through a more gradual and less episodic evolution)

all while the two largest parties in the Diet do not speak to each other...the bureaucracy is demoralized and despised...and the press and intellectuals are perceived to be shabby, corruptible and narcissistic?

How is it possible to change everything that must be changed--when everything that must be changed is .....everything?