Japan’s leading business daily reveals a fundamental failure to understand basic fiscal governance. A provisional budget is sufficient to avoid disruption, yet the Nikkei Shimbun ignores this elementary fact while amplifying political attacks. This essay explains why such media behavior undermines economic recovery and public trust.

I currently subscribe to the Sankei Shimbun and the Nikkei Shimbun.
After reading today’s article in the Nikkei, I was reminded of a striking yet accurate book title once authored by Yoichi Takahashi and Hideo Tamura:
“The Ministry of Finance and the Nikkei Are Full of Fools.”
Although the title was likely chosen by the publisher, the substance was precisely on target.

Both authors are rare figures in today’s Japan who understand real economics rather than repeating second-hand doctrines from the Ministry of Finance.
Like other old media outlets, the Nikkei Shimbun has largely refrained from criticizing the Ishiba administration under Shigeru Ishiba, instead tending to affirm it.
This is an undeniable fact.

Until the Ishiba administration came into being, the Liberal Democratic Party maintained a single-party majority.
That was clearly the political legacy of Shinzo Abe.

What, then, did Shigeru Ishiba accomplish.
Through two national elections—one for the House of Representatives and one for the House of Councillors—he drove the LDP into historic defeat and reduced it to minority status in both chambers.

If we compare politics to corporate management, the matter becomes instantly clear.
The worst CEO in the company’s history brought a once world-leading enterprise to the brink of collapse.
A corporation whose technology had once dominated global markets was pushed to the edge.
Its international reputation and trust plummeted, while rival firms, smirking, began constructing massive factories right at its gates.

Then, the most lucid and decisive figure within the company assumed the presidency.
If that new CEO were to simply inherit the foolish budget crafted by the previous one, no company could possibly be rebuilt.

Unless the prior budget and policies were restructured, the company would have disappeared.
Market share had collapsed, and emerging competitors were about to overtake it.
Yet reforms restored market confidence, and stock prices continue to rise.

In such circumstances, who would blindly follow the plans devised by the worst CEO in history.

And yet, the Nikkei Shimbun—whose primary role is to discuss economics—fails to grasp even this.

Meanwhile, Yoichi Takahashi recently explained the reality succinctly on his well-known YouTube program.
“All that’s needed is a provisional budget. Just pass a provisional budget.”
“I believe Sanae Takaichi understands this. There is no option but to restructure the budget that Ishiba created.”

Without restructuring, it is impossible to revitalize the economy or rebuild Japan—this should be self-evident.

In its political commentary, the Nikkei Shimbun has degraded itself into little more than a second-rate imitation of the Asahi Shimbun.
Old media composed of nothing more than exam-trained mediocrities, whose thinking is shaped by Asahi-style narratives, are—without exception—indistinguishable from the Nikkei we read this morning.

Writing such foolish front-page articles merely to reduce public support for the Takaichi administration is not simple stupidity.
It is malicious, because these are people who harm Japan.

I am strongly tempted to use the title of Takahashi and Tamura’s book as the title of this very essay.