Written on July 2, 2019, this essay examines the excessive reaction of the opposition and the media to the so-called 20 million yen retirement fund issue, and sharply criticizes the emptiness of their attacks and the decline of journalism.
Through Kiyomi Tsujimoto’s “hundred years of security fraud” remark, the backlash against the Financial Services Agency report, and the Mainichi Shimbun’s reporting on the National Strategic Special Zones, it reveals how an obsessive anti-Abe posture is destroying normal policy debate.
Based on an essay by Ruhi Abiru, this piece portrays how the media and the opposition are steadily losing their own credibility.

2019-07-02
I found myself thinking how remarkable it was that the very person who had caused the genuine “legislative secretary salary fraud case” in 2002, swindling 18.7 million yen in secretary salaries, could so readily utter the word “fraud.”

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
A media that tightens the noose around its own neck.
The opposition parties too would like to launch attacks on the administration ahead of the election, but they have no real centerpiece.　
The issue of the 20 million yen retirement fund caused an uproar.
A report by a Financial Services Agency council was made public on June 3, and it became known that it stated that as retirement funds for a couple, “approximately 20 million yen would be necessary over 30 years.”
Minister Aso declared that he would refuse to accept this report.　
In response, there was heated outrage, with remarks such as “This is an unprecedented cover-up operation” by Hiroshi Ogushi of the Constitutional Democratic Party, and “Did they start saying they would not accept it because it might be disadvantageous in the election?” by Toru Miyamoto of the Communist Party.　
Kiyomi Tsujimoto also criticized it, saying, “This is a fraud of a hundred years of security.”
This was criticism of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s statement at the House of Councillors Settlement Committee on June 10 that “the ‘hundred years of security’ of the pension system is not a lie.”
I found myself thinking how remarkable it was that the very person who had caused the genuine “legislative secretary salary fraud case” in 2002, swindling 18.7 million yen in secretary salaries, could so readily utter the word “fraud.”　
Ms. Tsujimoto’s criticism is mistaken in two senses.　
If a “jobless household” at the age of sixty-five were to live until ninety-five on pension alone, then of course it would fall short.
Many people recognize that “funds for old age are necessary” and that “savings for old age are necessary.”
So even if an estimate comes out saying that 20 million yen is needed, it is pointless to call that “fraud.”
To begin with, almost no one among the public thinks that one can live through old age on pension alone.
What the ruling parties are calling “a hundred years of security” refers to the pension system, and it does not mean security until one is one hundred years old at all.　
Moreover, the very assumption of being “jobless and without savings” at age sixty-five is unrealistic.
Normally, if one has worked until the age of sixty-five, one would have savings at least in the range of several million yen.
In fact, a figure has been given that the average savings at age sixty is about 29 million yen (according to a PFG Life survey).
If the argument were raised from there, saying, “This much is lacking for old-age funds,” I could understand it, but to bristle and criticize such a hole-ridden story is itself nonsense.
The opposition seems ready to intensify its criticism, but just wait a moment.
Have the opposition parties ever proposed a social security system under which one could live through old age on pension alone?
I do not mind if they think up a counterproposal from now on.
But if the substance of that counterproposal were “a 25 percent consumption tax,” that would be staggering.（laugh）　
This “20 million yen problem” is being taken up one after another by the wide shows on every channel.
Surely the people making those programs also understand that it is impossible to live for thirty years of old age on pension alone.
Yet they recklessly snap at the Financial Services Agency’s report as if to say, “Outrageous.”
With this, normal discussion becomes impossible.
Here too, the harm of the Abeno-sayers who try to use everything, no matter what, as a means to attack Abe is showing itself.
If things like this are repeated over and over, it is the public that will suffer the loss.　
There are also questions as to why the Financial Services Agency issued the report at precisely this timing.
It may be a device by the Ministry of Finance to justify raising the consumption tax and to activate asset management.
However, in this case, I do not think it will spread in a major way like the “Mori-Kake” issue.　
The Mainichi Shimbun is energetically reporting suspicions concerning Hideshi Hara, deputy chair of the working group that first examines regulatory reform proposals, over the government’s National Strategic Special Zones.
It says that a consulting company in a cooperative relationship received about two million yen in consulting fees in 2015 from an educational corporation in Fukuoka City that had been considering a proposal.
Was Mr. Hara targeted because he had argued that the establishment of Kake Gakuen’s veterinary school proceeded properly and had nothing to do with the prime minister’s intentions?
However, Mr. Hara himself is responding sincerely and thoroughly in rebuttal, and on the contrary doubts are rising about the Mainichi Shimbun’s reporting and article-making process.
In the end, it seems highly likely that this too will end without much excitement.
If the media continue reporting in this way, I find it strange that they cannot see how they are tightening the noose around their own necks.
To be continued.