I haven't heard a single person comment about this. Hardly the "hot topic on the streets". And Livedoor is much, much, much smaller than Enron. It's just another dot bomb, founded on lies and BS, dazzling those who don't know any better, except about 5 years too late. What's the big deal? The 4th category of opinion, in my experience the most common, and which you left off your list: "Livedoor is a nothing company, inflated with hot air and sustained by idiots hoping to make a quick buck off the next round of idiots, which is meeting its inevitable demise as the truth comes out".

What are those songs you're talking about? Where do you hear them?! I haven't heard them anywhere, not on the news, not anywhere. Hardly the "theme song for Tokyo"?!

Either you're hanging around with a crowd that is OBSESSED with this story, or you're blowing it out of all proportion, or you're making it all up. I just sat in 3 coffee shops for 4 hours and heard an awful lot of conversation and gossip, but I didn't hear the words "Livedoor" or "Horie" even once.

You don't believe that the Japanese understand the Livedoor scandal as through the prism of Footloose?

Most of the channels had "Urgent News" breaks that Horie got arrested. It's hard to say that this hasn't developed into an enormous story at this point.

Sho needs to get some real friends.

It's gone from 堀江もん to　堀江ブタ to 堀江容疑者 in record time.

He's dethroned, demoralized, detained and facing delistation.

Sever Yahoo! news updates per hour for the last few days -- it's major.

2:00am - Fuji Terebi prexy wants financial recompense.

Well you would have heard people saying "Horiemon", like he is some yakiniku or something. And seriously, people are talking about this. And these people are in Japan. And they are Japanese too, mostly. And they ALL have Bonnie Tyler on their iPods.

Neither I, nor any of the japanese I asked, have any idea what you are talking about. Bonnie Tyler? The Footloose soundtrack? WTF?

Of course I hear people talk. I'm not saying it's a non-story, of course it's news. It's a largish company, and the emerging scandal, while kinda expected, is still hardly a positive development. But you're making out it's some kind of large-scale cultural event. Saying that people are associating these events with songs? And "when Horie triumphantly came on the scene, a lot of people started playing Denise Williams' "Let's Hear it For the Boy" " .. ?

Er, no they're not. And as the charming "real friends" comment .. if you're hanging around people who have Bonnie Tyler on their iPods, it's not me who should be considering finding better friends.

I just saw some freeta playing chicken on some huge tractors out on Yamate-dori.

I must have heard the name horie or some variation of it 40 times today... at a middle school. several times from the students. no one seems unaware of this, and everyone I know has at least an awareness of livedoor for a few months... except my gaijin friends.

sho should get some real friends.

I wouldn't be hard on Sho - he didn't even have an upbringing that involved the Footloose soundtrack!

yeah, mayne i dont know about tokyo, but up here in hokkaido this has been the story on the news non-stop 24/7 for the past several days, it never seems to not be on TV. and while my students (高校生) probably couldn't articulate the intricacies of the investigation prosecution, they all know about it and have a fair amount of interest in it, to the point where we discussed it for half-an-hour during long home room on friday, and will probably discuss it again this week.

and while i dig the footloose references (kenny loggins=unfuckwithable) everytime i'm in tokyo i hear far more queen than anyhting else.

thank you for your link. I don't know about being put together all alone with the Leftists though, given my political and economic leanings. Let this be a warning to people who are hoping to read some lucid socialist commentary at the link (had a few people visit via your blog yesterday).

I should be reading your blog at home because your flavour of cynical humour and commentary has had me grinning like a cheshire cat and the people sitting across from me are getting uncomfortable....

Yes people are talking. My days are spent in Marunouchi/Otemachi so I hear a certain kind of talk about this from a certain kind of people, but wherever else I go I hear it.

If this were a Greek tragedy, right about now us rule of law/free market people would be the impotent chorus wailing "we told you so" while the hero rushes off to his pre-ordained doom.

Aneha who? Huser what? TSE failures where? Banking scandals wah?

And dont you just love how the media has become a pack of wild dogs waiting to tear up the corpse of Horiemon?

I think someone on Joi Ito's site pointed out that if indeed the books were cooked, that is illegal (thogh VERY common practice in Japanese accounting according to the methods reported) but the share exchange takeover method used does not seem to be illegal in Japan.

I really need to go on a media fast or go read some Momus right about now...

What happened to Yoshikawa Hinano anyway?

M&A using stock rather than shares are not a problem, of course.

Using intermediaries in takeovers per se is not the problem, it is the use of this mechanism (when the intermediaries are not independent but under de facto control of the buyer and therefore for all intents and purposes the acqusition has been completed) together with the delayed reporting of this acquisition timed to manipulate the stock market.

When the acquisition of Money Life was announced, it was already a de facto member of the Livedoor group.

Lots of other inconsistencies are being reported regarding this transaction.

The TV news has been talking about nothing else but Livedoor for over an hour now.

fukumimi: your point is well taken but I regard that as a structural problem that shareholder disclosure laws are far too lax. Again, as I understand it, Livedoor did not violate the law with their method even considering the late reporting. Of course I may be wrong.

Absolutely agreed that the structural problems are a key issue (and as far as the bigger picture is concerned, much more important than Livedoor itself). Legislators and regulators need to wake up. Don't hold your breath.

I think there is a distinction which needs to be made regarding the acqusition reporting. Even if it was late, if the announcement reflected the acquisition date as being the date when Money Life became a de facto member of the Livedoor group (by being purchased by the investment fund), rather than the date when the investment fund transferred Money Life stock to Livedoor Finance in an intra-group transaction, I would not see this as being a problem. However, it appears the latter transaction was announced as the acquisition, and is being reported that it was done so as a part of a set of moves designed specifically to manipulate Livedoor Finance's share price. The information being leaked out by the Prosecutor's Office is pointing in this direction.