2010-8-5
I will explain concretely what is so good about my proposal.

The people working for Japan’s listed companies… In particular, those who compete with the world and continue to hone their intellect and technology day after day in their respective fields… Some work for companies that hold an 80 percent share of their markets, and many of their companies rank among the world’s top twenty. The fruits of their labor would accumulate as national wealth instead of being taken by foreign investors… Their sense that their work is worthwhile would surely double… Claims about companies with a high proportion of foreign investment and so on are, in fact, nonsense.
The fruits of their work are being drawn away from their own country—not even to poor countries, but into a greedy form of twentieth-century capitalism in which a snot-nosed young man in his twenties can naturally earn fifty million yen a year, or even more than one hundred million yen while still young.
The result is “Japan’s lost twenty years,” the pension problem, and the many other problems now facing our country that I have written about.

The fact that foreign investors account for 70 percent of daily trading in the stock market is equivalent to saying that they receive 70 percent of the daily trading profits.
The fact that foreign investors own 45 percent of all issued shares, worth 88 trillion yen, means that, at the average dividend rate of 2 percent for companies listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, 1.76 trillion yen goes into their pockets.
Of course, this money does not flow into domestic demand.
It does nothing at all to expand domestic demand.

If, on the other hand, my proposal were put into practice… If ten trillion yen were directed into daily trading, creating one of the world’s largest markets with twelve trillion yen traded each day, the present share held by foreign investors would immediately fall to the ten-percent range. Thus, 80 percent of daily trading profits would go toward domestic demand…
Only spending proved by receipts showing that the money went to consumption would be tax-free… If one hundred trillion yen were directed from personal assets now sitting in banks and postal savings into the purchase of shares for dividends—that is, long-term holdings—the present foreign ownership ratio would fall to the thirty-percent range, while shares held by domestic investors would rise to the seventy-percent range, amounting to 296 trillion yen.
A 2 percent dividend on that would come to the enormous sum of 5.92 trillion yen.

This money would go toward consumption… For if it were not spent on consumption, it would not be tax-free… By how many times would that expand domestic demand? The amount would be immense… The performance of companies in every conceivable industry would improve dramatically.

The present instability, caused by an excessive reliance on exports and a strong susceptibility to factors outside the country, would also end in an instant… Amid this prosperity—prosperity that could fairly be called greater than America’s—many children would be born…
In return for accepting an annual income of five million yen after working throughout their lives, 90 percent of the people would enjoy the happiness of families of four or five, or six or seven including grandparents; their own happiness and their families’ happiness, free of the severe responsibilities borne by elites…
They would enjoy not only cherry-blossom viewing in spring, swimming in the sea in summer, viewing autumn leaves in fall, and skiing or hot springs in winter, but also outings and other pleasures every weekend.
They would work to gain a carefree life that elites cannot have… The population would keep growing toward twice its present size…
In other words, Japan’s golden age would continue for another 170 years.

Unlike Europe, which remains a class society; the United States, where the gap between rich and poor is too great; China, with its ever-present instability arising from ideology and its large population; or countries where poverty rooted in religion persists indefinitely, Japan would prosper for another 170 years because it created the first nation in human history without classes, ideology, or religion.

Of course, our prosperity would also bring great benefits to poor countries precisely because it would contain its own problems.
Our many contributions as a country of ever-advancing technology.
Our contribution through the continued creation of wonderful products.
Through the inflow of goods from other countries to meet our immense domestic demand, we would contribute to the world on a scale far greater than we do now. As a true superpower in economic terms, a hegemonic nation that leads the world, we could remain the world’s most important country and continue to prosper for another 170 years.

In other words, we could fulfill our role as the hegemonic power in the economy to which the turntable of civilization has turned.

I declare that there is no proposal better than mine.
Only my proposal is suited to the role our country must fulfill.
That must also be God’s will.

♪If you listen closely♪ you should be able to hear it.