Smoke and mirrors. The entire Japanese miracle was just that. For fifty-plus years of one-party rule in a democracy (of sorts), business as usual meant biting the bullet when economic trends were in a tailspin and taking a few crumbs more when indicators skyrocketed.
Even the bubble “keizai” era – when making money was as easy for some as watching stocks and real estate shoot through the roof – risk-aversive, disciplined and highly-controlled Japanese – a majority of folks here – watched from the sideline as the rich and the reckless got richer and richer.
Then, when the bubble burst a majority of these gamblers and their assets went south and the conservative, play-it-safe majority and pundits who sat out the boom sneered at these fleetingly rich bums suddenly turned poor fools with taunts of “I told you so (fool)!”
So now we have the first post-war changing of the political guard, just as unemployment figures also reach post-war highs. By western standards, of course, the less than six percent unemployment rate seems quite enviable.
But did you know that the squeaky-clean figures for unemployment do not include people who work even one hour per week, nor women (relegated to the kitchen or PTAs for good reasons or not) and who have never participated in the work village?
Obviously the number of unemployed by overseas standards would hover at between 15 and 20 percent. That is why so many young people choose or are forced to stay at home until their mid thirties or beyond.
More and more, you see people worried that the lifetime system has collapsed and that the prospect for gainful employment in Japan is lessening by the breath.
The collective dignity of the Japanese is shot. Jobs are disappearing, salaries are leveling off, and outsourcing and temp working are surging.
In other words, we are at the dawn of the entrepreneurial boom. Sayonara to salary man drudgery. Hello innovation. In the worst of times, the best will arise.
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