2010-8-16
What we can see from the markets over the past few days.
They are vividly showing us that the Bank of Japan and the government have repeated the same kinds of responses throughout these twenty years.
The difference between twenty years ago and now is that, until now, the media—whose members themselves belonged to the income bracket earning more than 10 million yen a year and were untouched by the suffering caused by the economic downturn—and the commentators and academics dancing along with them had been puffing on cigarettes and drinking coffee amid genteel dilettantism.
Now, with the rapid expansion of the internet and the enormous increase in the number of people participating in the markets through it, the public knows overwhelmingly more than before about the trends and realities of the capitalist economy… The monopoly on knowledge in this field collapsed long ago, exposing how little the media and politicians have studied.
In this respect, too, people are probably abandoning the established media and political parties in an avalanche.
It is nothing less than reaping what one has sown.
The markets are now also vividly showing us how, and to what extent, they have diminished Japan and its national strength.
There is no god in the market, but it is broadcasting to the entire nation that whether a country prospers or loses its strength depends on those governing it at the time, or on the capabilities of the elites influencing them, and on the capabilities of the media.
Looking at the markets over the past few days and the responses of the government and the authorities, we should now be able to understand everything.
It is only natural that the judgment of media organizations where most employees earn more than 10 million yen a year by the age of thirty becomes clouded… It is inevitable that they fall into dilettantism—a taste for meandering at low altitude—which is the worst way for human beings to be… especially amid economic competition.
It is also inevitable that the government and the Bank of Japan, having treated those media organizations and commentators with no worries whatsoever about their own livelihoods as public opinion, have spent these twenty years continually repeating the kinds of responses we have seen over the past few days.