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Friday, July 25, 2003 |
Another (depressing) sign of the times
Something I read in the paper this morning:
Friday, July 25, 2003
Number of Suicides Tops 30,000 in 2002
TOKYO [~] The number of people committing suicide in Japan exceeded 30,000 for the fifth straight year in 2002, with suicides stemming from economic difficulties logging a record high, data compiled by the National Police Agency showed Thursday.
The total number of people committing suicide reached 32,143, up 3.5% from a year earlier, of whom around 60% were aged 50 or older. The figures reflect the increase in the number of people losing jobs and the growing number of debt-plagued individuals as Japan's long-running economic slump continues, the NPA said. (Kyodo News)
A common method of suicide in this country, where gun ownership is severely restricted (even cops check in their guns at the police station before heading home), is to throw yourself in front of a train--especially on the Chuo (Central) Line that runs east into downtown Tokyo and which is how I get to work every day. and yes, there was another hideous bottleneck this morning as the clockwork schedule of East Japan Rail was disrupted by some poor soul ending it all. It's a depressingly common--and valid--excuse for being late. In fact, if I tell people I was late because my train was delayed, they know what I mean and they know what has happened.
Even more depressing is that fact in the second 'graf of the story, which notes that 60% of suicides are age 50 or older. Japan, like a lot of countries in the west, has a population that is getting grayer, and despite the fact that old age is revered much more here than the US and that children are expected to take care of their elders, a lot of people are feeling enough despair or hopelessness about their futures to end it all.
11:31:00 PM  |
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The Daily Requirement:
One columnist I've been reading quite a bit lately, now that I've noticed his existence, is William Pesek, Jr., whose work appears regularly in the Bloomberg Asia section of the International Herald Tribune (Since the IHT doesn't go for fancy graphics (like, you know, boldface titles--or, for that matter, titles generally) to set off regular columns, it's hard to maintain regular reading habits--or to even notice in the first place--regular writers or columnists. Even their Op-Ed page is a blur of typographical grayness, no matter which op-eds they're publishing.)
Pesek's beat is economics and business in East Asia, and as you can probably imagine he writes quite a bit about Japan. Since I'm pig-ignorant about economic issues (though not as much as some politicians I could name), I look forward to reading Pesek's column to educate myself somewhat about what's happening in the local economic sphere. Kind of like a regional Thomas Friedman, but far less annoying. This recent commentary, for example, certainly made me wonder if there's any hope for Japan:
Japan's Unique Snow and Intestines Argument
July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Rarely do comments by a central banker cause one to spit out coffee. Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui seems to have succeeded.
Fukui, who's charged with ending deflation, last week said: "I don't 100 percent trust (imported) economic theories." It was during a speech in which he argued for new economic theories tailored to Japanese society, and it's the talk of Tokyo.
The comments were disturbing for two reasons. First, what does Fukui think Japan has been doing these past 20 years? Far from importing international ideas, the world's second-biggest economy ran away from them. All the while its problems have grown larger and so have the costs of fixing them.
Second, Fukui offered his thoughts at a conference meant to educate people on monetary economics. At such an event, it would be nice if Japan's monetary guru offered a more accurate appraisal of his nation's policies.
After all, there's nothing "imported" about the zero- interest-rate policies of the BOJ. The group he singled out, "the economic society of American people," has no hand in the unabashed socialism Tokyo practices. And there's little international about Japan's banking system or markets.
The rest at http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&sid=ab6kE_VgOiWY&refer=columnist_pesek
I was really hoping that Fukui might help the Bank of Japan (Japan's central bank, the equivalent to the US's Federal reserve Bank) see some reality about reform, but geez, this doesn't look good.
More Pesek Columns:
11:05:34 PM |
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8:45:13 PM |
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Another Book for My Shelf
'The Great Wave': A Fateful Encounter of Nations.
The opening of the Japanese mind in the 19th century incited a reciprocal awakening in America, writes Christopher Benfey. By William Deresiewicz.
[New York Times: International]
Okay, yet another book for my Amazon Wishlist (a reminder to myself for when the book comes out in paperback).
The subtitle of the book is "Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan", and the review indicates that the book will be an antidote to the simplified high-school-history-text narrative that exactly 150 years ago the Americans, in the person of Commodore Matthew Perry and his Black Ships, came to insular and isolated Japan, kicked in the door, and brought the blessings of civilization to the backwards natives.
The First chapter of the book, by the way, can be read at the New York Times website, at
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/books/chapters/0720-1st-benfey.html
6:59:47 PM |
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