Published on July 16, 2019.
This essay, originally issued on July 29, 2018, compares the economic indicators of the Democratic Party administration with the five years of Abenomics, based on an interview with Kikuo Iwata in the monthly magazine Voice.
It discusses real GDP, real employee compensation, gross national income, deregulation, and MEXT’s entrenched regulations, while also examining the relationship among nuclear power shutdowns, fossil-fuel power generation, photochemical smog, China’s air pollution, and abnormal heat.

July 16, 2019.
It is likely abnormal high temperatures caused by the greenhouse effect resulting from that tremendous air pollution covering the skies over Japan together with the continental high-pressure system.
The following is a chapter published on July 29, 2018.
It is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The achievements of five years of Abenomics.
—If only there had been no increase in the consumption tax rate, the five years of Abenomics would have been perfect.
What exactly changed?
Iwata.
There were so many things that I made a table of them.
It compares the economic indicators of the Democratic Party administration period, from 2011 to 2012, with the economic indicators of the five years of Abenomics, from 2013 to 2017, on page 23.
Although the Democratic Party administration was launched in September 2009, the factors that brought about the high growth of 4.2 percent in 2010 were external factors, namely the rapid increase in Japanese exports due to the quick recovery of the world economy after the Lehman shock, and the increase in consumption brought about by the eco-car subsidy and eco-point policies of the Aso Liberal Democratic Party administration, which the Democratic Party administration continued after September 2009.
For these reasons, the high growth of 2010 was not brought about by the Democratic Party administration’s own economic policies after it came to power in September 2009, so the period affected by the Democratic Party administration’s economic policies is regarded as the beginning of 2011 through the end of 2012.
First, let us look at the annual average increase in real GDP, gross domestic product.
During the Democratic Party administration, it was 3.39 trillion yen, while during the Abenomics era, it was 7.982 trillion yen.
—That is an increase of more than double.
Iwata.
Next, if we look at the average real GDP growth rate, it was 0.7 percent during the Democratic Party administration and 1.3 percent during the Abenomics era, again nearly twice as high.
—When people say “Abenomics failed,” what country on earth are they talking about?
Iwata.
Moreover, compared with the Democratic Party administration, the Abe administration originally started from almost zero percent growth, so for five years it continued to produce results exceeding the previous year every year.
Incidentally, when calculating the average growth rate, it is a mistake to add up each year’s growth rate and divide it by the number of years, and even some experts misunderstand this point.
On the other hand, to summarize the economy under the Democratic Party administration, under deflation, where deflation raises real wages, the real wages of “regular employees” rose at the expense of the real wages of “non-regular employees.”
In 2012, during the Democratic Party administration, real employee compensation increased by 1.3 percentage points, but 0.8 percentage points of that came from falling prices.
In other words, real wages were rising because prices were falling.
From the worker’s point of view, one tends to think that “it is good for wages to rise,” but deflation squeezes corporate profits.
If corporate performance declines, the overly high real wages of regular employees become a burden, eventually leading to restructuring, high unemployment, and a decline in the job-offers-to-applicants ratio.
By contrast, looking at 2017 during the Abenomics era, real employee compensation also increased by 4.2 percentage points, but the difference is that while inflation lowered real wages, the real wages of general workers other than regular employees rose significantly.
Along with the sharp increase in the real wages of non-regular employees, the unemployment rate fell and the job-offers-to-applicants ratio rose.
—The Democratic Party, which was supposed to be liberal, was an administration “cold toward non-regular workers.”
Iwata.
Another important figure is the average real gross national income growth rate.
During the Democratic Party administration, it was only 0.06 percent, but during the Abenomics era it rose dramatically to 1.7 percent.
This was largely due to the depreciation of the yen brought about by monetary easing.
Real gross national income includes real GDP and net receipts from abroad, and also adds, as trading gains, the relative rise in export prices against import prices.
It can be said that the exchange rate shifting toward a weaker yen had a positive effect on gross national income.
In this way, the results of monetary policy have already appeared, and there is no doubt that it will continue to serve as the basis of policy.
What remains is how to advance fiscal policy and deregulation.
However, this deregulation is not progressing at all.
For example, regarding the establishment of the veterinary medicine faculty at Kake Gakuen, which the mass media criticized, the problem lies more with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology than with the Prime Minister’s Office.
In approving the establishment of a new veterinary medicine faculty, MEXT used a “notification” that is not a law to turn away new entrants at the gate, and it is MEXT, which has solidified its ministry interests through bedrock regulations, that should be denounced by the public.
This essay continues.
Now the reality of MEXT, which had been controlled by people such as a certain Maekawa, whom the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and others used in order to attack the Abe administration—the reality befitting Maekawa’s juniors, who practice obedience in appearance and betrayal in secret—is being exposed in broad daylight.
What kind of faces are the people in the news departments of the Asahi Shimbun and NHK wearing as they report on this?
The same applies to the fact that, as a result of the anti-nuclear-power and anti-restart reporting they have shouted since 2011, they stopped 54 nuclear reactors and forced more than 30 million kilowatts of power generation, more than the entire generating capacity within Kansai Electric Power’s service area, to be replaced by fossil-fuel power generation that emits greenhouse gases.
As a result, not only was 15 trillion yen of national wealth lost in just three years, but Japan’s skies were frequently covered with photochemical smog for the first time in 40 years, bringing warming and abnormal weather.
The other day, when the center of Tokyo, especially Nerima Ward and other areas, reached abnormal high temperatures close to 40 degrees, I searched for a map showing the distribution of PM2.5.
As expected, the sky above Nerima Ward was covered with photochemical smog.
Media outlets such as NHK explained that this abnormal high temperature was caused by the overlap of two systems, the Pacific high-pressure system and the continental high-pressure system, but I am convinced that the truth is the greenhouse effect resulting from the overlap of photochemical smog and the Pacific high-pressure system.
When Japan was hit by abnormal high temperatures, the sky above was covered with photochemical smog, and this is obvious at a glance if one looks at the PM2.5 distribution map.
Even if one concedes a hundred steps, where does the continental high-pressure system come from?
Needless to say, it comes from China.
The sky above China is already polluted to a level at which humans can no longer live, and anyone would be stunned if they saw the numbers on a PM2.5 distribution map.
It is likely abnormal high temperatures caused by the greenhouse effect resulting from that tremendous air pollution covering the skies over Japan together with the continental high-pressure system.
Because there is a strange reluctance to criticize China, this is not reported at all.
They could never admit, even if their mouths were torn open, that the torrential rains were the result of the combination of photochemical smog caused by their own anti-nuclear-power and anti-restart reporting, and China’s air pollution.
This essay continues.