One Rotten Apple


Now, the value of the Japanese "Yen" has fallen down.

Once one dollar was 80 yen, but last week one dollar was 140 yen. The exchange rate of the yen looks like a roller coaster. The instability of the yen gives bad influence for the Asian economy, so the Chinese Prime Minister called Prime Minister Hashimoto to maintain the steadiness of the yen.

The Japanese economy is currently in a recession. The Japanese government is only helping banks. During the "bubble economy", banks invited companies to borrow money. After the collapse of the "bubble economy", they collected the loans. Due to the lack of funds many companies went bankrupt, but afterwards the banks do not lend out money, there is only a little amount of money in the market economy. This situation prevents the Japanese economy from coming out of the recession. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Hashimoto has not made a statement about the weak yen.

What does the Prime Minister and the banks think about their responsibility ? The Prime Minister has the responsibility to overcome the recession, the banks also has a responsibility to help companies grow. The Japanese government places a lot of importance on banks. The Japanese government and banks doesn't care about many companies going bankrupt in Japan.

Sometimes I wonder if the Japanese government has updated information. In Japan, some people still believe that landmines are necessary for defense. We are informed by military analysts and the experience of "Gulf War‡U" that estimate of 18 hours would be needed to breakthrough the landmine fields to Kuwait. There were 9,000,000 landmines set up there. In fact, it only took an infantry corps two hours to breakthrough. Although the Japanese governments know this, they continue to believe the effectiveness of landmines. Furthermore, the Japanese media echoes the same opinion as the government.

Japanese people are demanding that the Japanese government have a more analytical mind and take action to overcome the recession. The action should be worthwhile for the nation as a whole not just the banks.

If we leave one rotten apple in a box, all apples will go bad.

06/19/98