I remember the fat balding important guy and the small cute non-threatening girl apologizing on air, but I’m surprised to hear that someone actually lost their job over it. If the peasants are revolting over this media fakery, how does ‘Kissu Iya’ get away every week unscathed? Or is its ‘fakeness’ part of its overall appeal?

well, this was the news. there would seem to be more push for honesty there than on the bad breakup show.

Koizumi really played this election beautifully. He some how made a vote for the establishment party anti-establishmentarian. Incredible!

Also, how can there be a 10% tax, when clearly prices at the register are the same as prices on the label. Therefore tax = 0%. Yay! (Actually I find that really convenient, though it does allow politicians to move the consumption tax around while feeling less heat for it.)

Kissu Iya is faked? Nooooooooo... My world is shattered! How shall I survive Mondays now? ;-)

koizumi is handsome.

anyone catch the horie satellite interview last night on fujitv (I think)? They teased him over and over for losing, enough to get him a little riled up.

What next, perhaps the fact that Bobby has 1-kyu level Nihongo??? No way!!!!

well they cant bust all the yarase shows or there would be nothing left on TV cept some kimono parade jidaigeki and baseball

Wait, you forgot all the shows where cute (or, if they're blokes, fat) presenters visit restaurants and squeal "oishiii!!!" through mouthfuls of food.

Oh, actually, they're lying most of the time in those too, aren't they? Damn.

as i predicted ages ago,

http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/2004/11/this-and-that-part-1.html

momus in his dotage has finally started bitching about japanese politics on his blog, but he hasn't really made the obvious clear enough, i.e. it was the JAPANESE PEOPLE who voted for koizumi, not some abstract noun like "capitalism"...

nick, your apologia was aimed at the wrong target.

but do we see him chastising the aesthetically in tune but politically clueless denizens of his favorite country for their little voting snafu? of course not!

and finally, we have clear evidence that, contrary to what nick may maintain, 'When the housewife is lazy, the cat is...even lazier!'

BRAVO!

I spent a little time fact checking momus on his page

thanks!

sorry to double up, but anyway, re-reading my original post (URL up there ↑), i found the following statement quite telling, seeing as how it was written about a year ago, and seeing how much and how little things have changed:

"Why do David and I have serious crits/doubts/reservations about Japanese culture? Well, perhaps it is because he and I have both lived here a while, both enjoy private, public (we are both doing music) and academic lives (grad school), and also are FLUENT in Japanese.

Again, Nick says “Perhaps, living there, you take 80% of this stuff for granted. Perhaps you don't value the things I value. It sounds to me like you value above all contention and political debate.”

It isn’t that we take these things for granted, it is just that we take these things into CONSIDERATION, along with a HOST of OTHER DATA. As to what we VALUE as compared to you...well, to this I cannot say much. By the way, I do value a healthy, vibrant political forum, in ANY country!

Theoretical question: Nick what if someone gave you unequivocal proof that Japan were in the gestational stages of developing a/an national/international political awareness/consciousness? Would you nurture and encourage this development, or have Japan undergo a political frontal lobotomy (right along with your Japanese language skills)?"

triple up on it!

(i thought this one was good too from that old post 11/30/2004!)

"Hey, do you know what I THINK　WOULD BE EXEMPLARY? If people in Japan (notice I didn't say Japanese people) people were into frolicking with cute little doggies at designer cafes in Daikanyama AND playing political hardball AT THE SAME TIME, and not just standing around on the sidelines as the US WAR MACHINE'S personal 応援団, cheering with their war chest contributions! Now, THAT Japan would kick ass, and it would surly outshine any anachronistic love for older version of it that anyone might hold."

I would have commented on Momus' post, but the LJ system is blocking me. Maybe my sister's IP address has been blacklisted for some reason. (Conspiracy!)

Japanese politics is very easy to criticize if you have no historical knowledge of the system, think that elected politicians actually hold power, and see the world in black-and-whites of capitalism (bad!)/communism (good!).

Japan is ruled by non-elected bureaucrats who are more preoccupied with micro-managing and centralizing the entire state than actually adapting the country to the 21st century. Communism entails public ownership of everything, and that doesn't even moderately describe the Japanese economy: It's just state-run, non-free-market capitalism. The bureaucrats pick the two companies who will get to have a duopoly in an industry, and all the other companies with new ideas have to fend for themselves through a jungle of over-regulation. And whatever the case, consumers come last.

Japanese companies have shown a valient self-restraint with CEO salaries (partly stemming from 1950s labor union strength), and I don't think there would be an automatic deterioration in public morality if the free market came to town.

In America, the people who would support such a paternalistic view of government - where our Dads know better what to do with our lives than we do - are "conservatives." I don't think Koizumi really wants to get the government out of people's lives, but I think it's ridiculous to somehow claim that the old Japanese system was this epic liberal, semi-Socialist state, dedicated to helping the average citizen. Everything was cronyism, just kept at a level of extravagance that does not bother the public. The Japanese people are vaguely interested in "reform," but how could there be an adequate political debate in the country when the most educated higher-education graduates are the least politically-conscious citizens?

david say: The Japanese people are vaguely interested in "reform," but how could there be an adequate political debate in the country when the most educated higher-education graduates are the least politically-conscious citizens?

and i say: so then perhaps nick should have aimed more at the education system?

Communism entails public ownership of everything, and that doesn't even moderately describe the Japanese economy: It's just state-run, non-free-market capitalism. The bureaucrats pick the two companies who will get to have a duopoly in an industry, and all the other companies with new ideas have to fend for themselves through a jungle of over-regulation. And whatever the case, consumers come last.

You're nailing your neo-liberal colours more and more unambiguously to the mast here. Sure, call what I (following Karatani) was calling "communist capitalism" "state-run capitalism" if you like, I don't think we disagree there other than on terminology. America also has cronyism: did you hear that key contracts for the rebuilding of New Orleans have already gone to Halliburton? And America's pretty de-regulated already, isn't it? So cronyism and de-regulation don't have much to do with each other, it seems.

As for "whatever happens, consumers come last", are we talking about Japan, the most advanced consumer society in the world? The place where people stand on the street with clipboards, trying to spot new trends? The place where Tower and HMV have much wider and more eclectic stocks than their western counterparts? Are you quite sure that Japan puts the consumer last?

I don't think there would be an automatic deterioration in public morality if the free market came to town.

I think it's fair to say that a lot of small businesses currently protected by the government would go out of business, though, wouldn't they? Thus limiting consumer choice to, you know, Wal-Mart and the other giant. Isn't monopoly the natural tendency of unregulated free markets?

The place where people stand on the street with clipboards, trying to spot new trends? The place where Tower and HMV have much wider and more eclectic stocks than their western counterparts? Are you quite sure that Japan puts the consumer last?

Momus, you realize that Japan isn't all trendy teenagers, right? While the ever-dwindling number of kids may possibly "come first" in some vague way, the rest of the country is crushed under artificially high prices and lacks protection from defective products.

America also has cronyism.

Absolutely so, but the level of cronyism swings with the party in power. It's not the fundamental idea of governance.

Isn't monopoly the natural tendency of unregulated free markets?

Can I get a view on this?

Well, this is part of a long debate, right? Schumpeter seems to think so, but he sees the consolidation as a building block to socialism. If one company controls an industry, it's easy to have the reigns thrown over to the government.

A neo-liberal would certainly want gov't interference to keep the market more open, i.e. anti-trust cases. I personally think this is a better strategy than having the government "pick winners" and then try to keep the market as closed as possible. (Admittedly, America has a brighter past in this realm.)

Real socialism caused by the evolutionary change of human society - which we have yet to see - is one thing, but Japan is just another "fake" semi-socialism, propped up solely to keep everything within the centralized government's control. If we can't have the real thing, the question is, what serves the people next best? I doubt that it's crony capitalism or state-enforced oligopoly. I like my Apple computer and iPod, and I doubt that those two systems would produce just a product. (That's of course an opinion based on the idea that the world is just trendy consumers.)

Marxy: domestic CEO salaries (as publicly disclosed) may be low but the level of off the books compensation here would make even Jack Welsh blush.

Momus: Indeed Tower Records Shibya blows away even the 4th & B'way Tower in its heyday (lets all take a moment of silence for 4th & B'way). However in regards to monopolies things are not entirely clear cut. NTT is my favorite example. For years they claimed DSL of any type would not work in Japan. They used their state influence to prevent any competitors from entering the business until somehow a small company called Tokyo Metalic was given a license to test DSL in a remote community. Essentially NTT wanted to protect their very unprofitable investment in ISDN switching centers as long as they could. Now NTT is pretty much the only DSL line carrier in eastern Japan and they also are the primary carrier for fibre lines.

The very same monopoly which gave consumers per minute billing on analog lines and extremely high priced domestic long distance held back consumer choice in communications services until they were in a position to crush any competitors or do backdoor service deals with other providers. Sure nowadays we have better IP services at lower prices than the USA where competition exists under incompetant regulators, but consumers were held back for years to get to this place. Thank goodness at least there is some genuine market competiton with fibre. Anyways my point is monopolies are a mixed bag.

Oh and as far as "choice" goes with those shotengai shops, there really isnt much choice as to what products are available and prices are often as much as double as what can be found at a convenience store or supermarket. As much as I love my neighborhood shops, I definitely like being able to go to Costco sometimes.

I also wonder how much low Japanese CEO salaries come from the fact that they filter from inside the companies instead of having to be "bought" from outside.

Chris: do you have any more info on non-salary CEO perks?

marxy: not gathered in one place. that observation was made based on "oral history" and news items I've read over the years. It would be interesting to see if there is anything published (in any language) which accurately surveys the matter. somehow I doubt transparency or honety will be forthcoming.