Speech at the banquet of Emperor Showa, who addressed the post - war food crisis and conveyed his gratitude for the food aid, on his visit to the United States.
2022-10-24
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Emperor Showa who gave his life
When Emperor Showa visited MacArthur's office, he asked MacArthur to help the Japanese people in exchange for his own life. MacArthur later wrote, ``I was convinced that the man in front of me was the best gentleman in Japan.''
Request for food assistance in exchange for imperial treasures
In the winter of １９４５, Japan experienced a serious food crisis after the war, and Emperor Showa told Kenzo Matsumura, the Minister of Education, ``It is said that there are quite a few items belonging to the Imperial Household that have international value.'' Therefore, I ordered the director of the Imperial Museum to investigate and create a catalog.I would like to give this to America as compensation and use it as food to stave off starvation for the people for just one day. "Take the sea urchins with you," he ordered.
Food assistance realized
Matsumura was perplexed, but at the strong will of Emperor Showa, he delivered the inventory to MacArthur, who was surprised and said, ``I would not even honor it by taking away the treasures of the imperial family and offering them food in return.'' '' and said that after returning the inventory, they would take steps to provide food aid from the United States.
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A nationwide pilgrimage by Emperor Showa after the war.The distance traveled is 33,000 kilometers.
Immediately after the war, the Emperor visits GHQ MacArthur's office.MacArthur thought Emperor came to ask for help in exile.It has never been seen in Western history that the head of state who lost the war remains in the country.It was common sense in the world to change dynasties, execute, and exile.Hitler has already committed suicide and Mussolini has been executed.
The Emperor said to MacArthur, "No matter what happens to me, I want you to save the lives of the Japanese people"Surprised by this, MacArthur wrote in his memoir that his fundamental view of Japanese rule has changed.
After that, the Emperor will go on a nationwide tour.The purpose was to encourage each and every citizen by walking all over Japan.There was nothing the Emperor could do for the people during the occupation, and it was a conclusion that he was worried about.
It begins in the midst of a Far East military trial.GHQ disbanded japanese army and the people can throw stones at Emperor or hang him on the neck.In the confusion of the wilderness after the defeat.Walk in the places where anyone can kill you.It was a trip of the Emperor with that determination.
Touring in a crowd of tens of thousands of people, The total distance traveled nationwide is 33,000 km, and the total number of days is 165 days.There were only a few companions in GHQ.I was told that plants and trees will not grow in Hiroshima, where the atomic bomb was dropped.As a country, there was no knowledge of radioactivity at all, only rumors spread, and no one tried to get close except those who lived in Hiroshima.
In 1947, the Emperor was in Hiroshima.People were encouraged, and people other than Hiroshima changed their minds to think, "Now that the Emperor has come, Hiroshima should be fine."
It is said that many Japanese were brave to make a pilgrimage to post-war Japan, which became Yakinohara.
The nationwide tour was far beyond GHQ's expectations.I don't understand people welcoming me here and there, let alone a stone.Britain and other countries reported that the situation was surprising and spread throughout Europe.
The long tour ends with Hokkaido as the final stop.The only regret is that I couldn't visit Okinawa, which Emperor had hoped for all my life.His Majesty Akihito wanted to visit Okinawa where was under U.S.A.
Western countries were surprised that the Japanese's love for the Emperor remained unchanged after the defeat.
Emperor invited to the White House
In １９７５, Emperor Showa was invited to the White House by former President Ford as a state guest. American public opinion had little interest in the Japanese Emperor's visit to the United States, and it was never reported, but everyone could have imagined that the Showa Emperor would naturally hold a grudge against the United States. At his White House dinner, His Majesty the Emperor gave the following address:
``I have long desired to visit your country for many years, and if my wish were to come true, I would like to convey the following to your people. I would like to personally express my gratitude to your people for the warm kindness and assistance you extended to us in rebuilding our country immediately after that unfortunate war, which we deeply regret. I expressed my gratitude.
Furthermore, ``The number of people in both countries who are unaware of the recent war is about to exceed the majority.However, even if times change in the future, I believe that the generosity and goodwill of your people will be handed down among the Japanese people for a long time.'' '', the venue erupted with loud applause.
After that, the story quickly spread throughout the United States, and for six days in a row, the front pages of newspapers reported on the visit of the Japanese Emperor to the United States. This event took place ３０ years after the end of the war.
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Upstream business strategically conducted by Japan.A form of processing trade in which Asian countries, including Korea, assemble and export them.
upstream business used to be a common practice.At that time, supply was scarce in the balance between supply and demand and supply were in short supply.The raw material is the most upstream and the final product is the downstream.Considering distribution, retailers sell to final consumers are the most downstream.If water doesn't flow, you can't do business, but in the age of oversupply, the story will change.The downstream retail stores are more powerful than the upstream manufacturing industry.Japan's 7-Eleven is a symbolic example of this, and OEMs want large companies to build private brands, and manufacturers want 7-Eleven to sell their products.
Japan has developed its upstream business.The strategy is to start with basic research, develop industrial machinery, and manufacture things require Japanese basic technology.Regarding the revision of export conditions for three strategic substances, including hydrogen fluoride, the South Korean government's insistence on supply chain integration means downstream integration, which is intended to put pressure on upstream manufacturing.
Lawmaker Matsukawa of the Liberal Democratic Party affirmed to the world that the global supply chain will not be in trouble.As they say, The world's supply chain never collapsed .
Almost all manufacturing industries in Korea are operated by Japanese industrial machinery and chemicals and parts manufactured in Japan.Currently, They are manufacturing by the basic parts imported from Japan.
National debt is not the people's debt - The country is not a company - Breakdown of government bond holdings that still do not penetrate public opinion.
The image at the beginning shows the breakdown of Japanese government bond holdings. I sometimes see people say that national debt is the nation's debt or that it is the same as corporate debt, but national debt is the government's debt, not the people's debt. Even if a country is compared to a company, companies do not borrow money from their employees. Debt comes from outside the company, and in this case, it involves purchasing Japanese government bonds from overseas. If most of the debt is overseas, it is natural that the company will default if it cannot be repaid. Purchases of Japanese government bonds from overseas account for 7.3%.
If you really want to say that it is the same as a company, would you say that purchases in Japan are borrowed and borrowed within the company or within the group company? Yoichi Takahashi considers the Bank of Japan to be the same as a subsidiary of the government, and explains that it is the same in terms of consolidation, regardless of whether interest is charged. The Bank of Japan holds 53.2% of Japanese government bonds. He is well known for introducing BS to show that the country holds government assets equivalent to the government's debts (excluding the holdings of the Bank of Japan). The total amount of government assets ranks first in the world, exceeding both the United States and China. Below is the balance sheet (BS) of Japan.
Furthermore, Japanese government bonds are mainly traded in yen, which means that there is no change in value based on foreign currencies. In the case of foreign currency transactions, if the value of your home currency plummets, the face value of your debt will rise accordingly. Suppose your country's currency drops to half its value. Alternatively, if the foreign currency used when trading government bonds doubles, the debt will also double, but since the transaction is in Japanese yen, there will be no effect at all. In an extreme case, former Prime Minister Aso said that repayment would be possible by increasing the number of yen bids. In this case, there will be inflation and the value of the yen will fall, but the theory is that the debt can be repaid because it is the face value of the yen. This was actually said by Taro Aso, a former Prime Minister and former Minister of Finance.
Secondly, the Japanese government is also the world's No. 1 creditor country. In other words, they have foreign bonds and foreign assets. The fact that we are currently talking about national debt as a problem is actually making a fuss about only the debt part, and in fact, Japan has the most foreign assets in the world. This assumes that the government bonds are denominated in yen as mentioned earlier, and if more yen is printed, the value of the yen will fall and the yen will become weaker. If you do this, overseas assets purchased in dollars or euros will increase in value when converted to yen, so the difference will be a large income. Even with the current depreciation of the yen, a large profit margin was generated due to the increase in the valuation of overseas assets.
Representative Sanae Takaichi has advocated the ``Japanese Economic Resilience Plan,'' which calls for a temporary freeze on primary balance (PB) regulations and calls for industrial investment through the issuance of government bonds. She says that even if inflation were caused by printing more yen, it would not have a big impact if the inflation rate was less than 2%. Currently, the yen is depreciating due to the difference in interest rates due to the Fed's interest rate hikes, but the original goal is to induce a depreciation of the yen through the issuance of government bonds and increase the number of bonds, strengthen international competitiveness, and increase wages and tax revenues through rising prices. If the manufacturing industry returns to Japan due to the weak yen, GDP and tax revenue will increase, and government debt can be reduced. For now, this is just the effect of a weaker yen due to interest rate differences, but we are already seeing significant results.
In other words, those who claim that government debt is bad have the completely opposite idea. What ruined Japan after the bursting of the bubble was rather the primary balance discipline, the inability to focus on single-year income and expenditures and to make long-term investments. Japan tightened its finances in the most critical economic situation. If it is the same as a company, when the company is in crisis, the company's safe is closed like a shell, and for the past 30 years, the company has been operating in a state of poverty and not being able to make long-term investments. This is the so-called curse of PB by the Ministry of Finance.
Public opinion without examining Abenomics - there is no point in criticizing it based on contradictory premises.
There are some surveys and opinions in public opinion that Abenomics has ruined Japan, but is that true? First of all, what is Abenomics? Were you asking people who answered the same question as in the poll, or were you asking people you didn't know? I wonder if asking someone I don't know will give me the results I expected. First, let's review the three arrows of Abenomics.
Three arrows of Abenomics
Bold monetary policyFlexible fiscal policyGrowth strategy to stimulate private investment
Monetary policy is still ongoing, but former Prime Minister Abe has said that the consumption tax increase was decided in advance and was carried out at a time when it could not be postponed, so he was unable to fire a second arrow. In other words, Abenomics is actually the first arrow in a variety of environments. In other words, I would understand if there was an evaluation of the fact that it did not advance to the second stage, but I have doubts about evaluating Abenomics itself.
Next, I will list some of the achievements of Abenomics.
Main achievements of Abenomics
The total national and local tax revenue will reach a record high of 107 trillion yen in fiscal 2019, up from 78.7 trillion yen in fiscal 2012. The stock price, which was around 8,000 yen, rose to over 24,000 yen under the Abe administration. Public pension investment profits increased by 57.6 trillion yen in seven and a half years. The effective job opening ratio was 83 job openings for every 100 people in 2012, and 164 job openings for every 100 people in 2019. Business operators improved their treatment due to the labor shortage. The minimum hourly wage rose from 749 yen in 2012 to 901 yen in 2019. The rate of children from single-parent households going on to university increased significantly from 23.9% to 41.9%.
Sanaenomics (Japanese Economic Resilience Plan) will be published. Representative Sanae Takaichi announced a policy to carry on Abenomics during the last presidential election.
Sanaenomics three arrows
Financial easingFlexible fiscal stimulus in times of emergencyBold crisis management investment/growth investment
What they have in common is that monetary easing policy will continue, and if the Takauchi Cabinet is elected, the government will implement aggressive fiscal policy.
The fact that the Japanese government's balance sheet was introduced for the first time in 1995 means that the Japanese government did not have the concept of strategic investment, which companies take for granted. How can you invest without a balance sheet or cash flow statement? It was only a matter of being able to compare the income and expenditure for a single year, or the previous year. The term "primary balance" has come to be used like crazy. At that time, Japan believed that deregulation would revive the economy, and the government repeatedly took the approach of relaxing regulations through legal revisions.
As a result, the Japanese government was unable to rebuild the national economy or make strategic investments for economic growth after the collapse of the bubble, which was an unprecedented economic crisis. More than 30 years have passed since we stubbornly closed the doors. Then, companies moved their manufacturing sectors to emerging countries, and GDP and tax revenues mainly went to neighboring countries such as China, creating a dual wage structure of dispatched labor in order to prevent an increase in the number of unemployed people in Japan. . The economic disparity that arose from this process is said to be one of the causes of the current declining birthrate.
So, has Abenomics ruined Japan? Would that also mean denying Sanaenomics? Or will we continue to turn down investments from the government as we have been doing, paying close attention to the primary balance under the guidance of the Ministry of Finance and listening to the beautiful words of fiscal consolidation? The point of contention should be to gather opinions on whether or not bold fiscal spending by the government is necessary. In any case, regardless of whether the policy is better or not, there are parts where it seems like the point at issue is not policy at all, but just an extension of a personal attack, which is unfortunate.
Who is Japan's first female prime minister candidate?A rival candidate who is being dragged out as an attempt to disperse women's votes.
The moment Makiko Tanaka comes up as the next prime minister, Japanese public opinion feels hopeless. He inherited the position of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, and became popular in the media for his oratory skills, and became the Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Koizumi administration, but his actual political beliefs are unclear and he is no longer just making political jokes. People in the audience began to notice that this was the case, and the audience grew tired of his speech, which was filled with repeated slander against Liberal Democratic Party members.
As a result, she lost the election in Niigata's 5th ward, which was her father's seat, and was not elected even after a proportional restoration. This is a loss for a second-generation lawmaker with experience as prime minister. In other words, she was out of favor with both the Liberal Democratic Party and her local constituency. Personally, I think that she will run as a candidate for the Democratic Party if she thinks it is impossible for her to run for the Liberal Democratic Party, and that it is completely unclear where her political beliefs lie.
It is surprising that the media is once again elevating this person. I wonder if it's the media that's lifting it or the audience that's lifting it. It seems like she could be a candidate for the next president if she talks about politics and money issues in a fun way. In the first place, she probably won't even be able to return to the Liberal Democratic Party. How can she become the president of the Liberal Democratic Party without becoming a member of the Liberal Democratic Party?
Another female member of the Diet who has been nominated is Tokyo Governor Koike. She seems to be working hard to talk to Tokyo Governor Koike about whether or not she will run in the general election, but Mr. Koike seems to have clearly denied her candidacy. In the first place, how will she become a member of the Diet if there is no dissolution before the presidential election, and will she become the president of the Liberal Democratic Party?
Looking at it this way, it appears that what some media outlets are trying to do is divide the vote for a female president. Perhaps it would be better if she were well-known and a woman, but her purpose was to suppress candidate Takaichi. In the ranking of women's politicians who they would like to see become Japan's first female prime minister, Yuriko Koike came first, Makiko Tanaka came second, and Sanae Takaichi came third. The first and second place candidates are not even Liberal Democratic Party members.
Is the party ticket issue the result of a sound whistleblower? In Japan, a spy paradise, you can do whatever you want.
The public prosecutor's office is said to be looking into the party ticket issue, but the main concern is the source of the leak. The original story is an article in the Japan Communist Party's Red Flag Newspaper dated November 6, 2022, but it feels strange that a specific group is being hit in a domino pattern like this. We have seen a pattern in the past in which scandals are discovered one after another within the administration, resulting in a decline in approval ratings. I always wonder who is leaking this.
Japan is said to be a spy paradise, but how many spies are there in Nagatacho? I have no idea how many people are from which country or from which country. Since GHQ was involved in the central government of Japan under trusteeship, some people say that by extension it has a thorough understanding of the system, and that the CIA and others continue to infiltrate and collect information. This is not to say that whenever problems occur in Japan, it is the work of spies, but rather that they could easily do it if they wanted to.
If another country is in charge of a scandal involving a Japanese politician, and it becomes inconvenient, should we leak it?
In China, I sometimes hear people say that Xi Jinping is a smart leader because he advocates eradicating corruption, but this is ridiculous. It can be said that the anti-corruption movement is what created Xi Jinping's dictatorship. Xi Jinping has monopolized real power by eliminating political opponents one after another on the grounds of corruption. In addition, no one can say anything because they have the public security thoroughly investigate corruption by all Communist Party members, have evidence gathered, and arrest any strange behavior. Corruption-free cases in China are rare, so it's like almost everyone is threatened.
From the perspective of these countries, it seems easy to infiltrate Japanese politicians' personal secretaries, public secretaries, accountants, etc. with intelligence agents. Is Japan already so suppressed in various areas that it cannot even enact an anti-espionage law? At the very least, there is no doubt that corruption is a no-no, but if espionage from other countries is allowed to do whatever it wants, it would be as if Japanese members of Congress were also held hostage.
It is necessary to solve the problem of political funding fraud, but if information management is sloppy, there will be no problem.
