Creating crises and then denying responsibility while mobilizing intellectuals.
This essay examines Asahi Shimbun’s match-pump journalism and how its praise of deflation inflicted lasting damage on Japanese society.

2016-08-25
They create the situation themselves, yet act as if they know nothing about it, mobilizing scholars and cultural figures en masse.
This kind of conduct is what is known as a match-pump.
They create the situation themselves, pretend ignorance, and then mobilize scholars and cultural figures to deliver commentaries filled with superficial moralism.
It goes without saying that this method has been demonstrated time and again through the numerous fabricated articles produced by Asahi Shimbun.
Despite this, they continue to commit such wrongdoing without the slightest reflection.
Looking back, Asahi Shimbun failed to recognize that the turntable of civilization was turning in Japan, regarding it as nothing more than a mere bubble.
What they were advocating at the time was precisely an encouragement of deflation.
“The philosophy of frugality.”
There should be readers who remember that this was the very phrase Asahi Shimbun loudly promoted in its editorials at the time.
I remember feeling puzzled as to where on earth such a bizarre argument had been dredged up from.
On deflation.
Regarding the evils of deflation, I held almost exactly the same view as Peter Tasker, who at the time was repeatedly ranked as Japan’s top stock analyst.
Readers know this well.
They also know that our arguments have been perfectly vindicated over more than twenty years.
He put it this way.
Deflation is not bad for vested interests—that is, for those who have already become part of the establishment and enjoy stable, high incomes.
The problem is that it delivers a heavy blow to young people and the socially vulnerable, and that it becomes an extremely unfavorable era for entrepreneurs as well.
Judged from this perspective alone, the malice and viciousness of those at Asahi Shimbun are beyond description.
In other words, deflation was beneficial to them.
While producing more than ten million young people over the age of thirty who could not secure regular employment and earned less than two million yen a year.
Only the employees of Asahi Shimbun and its affiliated broadcasters continued to enjoy their own golden age.
With annual incomes exceeding ten million yen, rock-solid job security, comfortable pensions, or prestigious post-retirement appointments as professors at sympathetic universities.
Although since August of the year before last, I suspect things may no longer be proceeding exactly as before.