2010-8-26
Among my classmates and school seniors are people who are now, or have been, presidents of Japan’s truly distinguished large corporations, or those regarded as prestigious… These are the companies that have shouldered Japan’s burdens and led the nation…
I think it is only natural that they want to employ workers—the Japanese people—and keep employing them.
Even so, particularly amid this historic financial upheaval… they would also have hardened their hearts and carried out restructuring… one of its major components would be workforce reductions or pay cuts.
Yet anyone who follows the markets even a little should know the range of exchange rates that the companies supporting and leading Japan as an industrial nation had assumed as their absolute limit… the minimum necessary to maintain profit margins that were nevertheless low compared with those of companies simply adhering to the cunning, greed-driven capitalism of the twentieth century… always ready to restructure, always ready to sell themselves off.
People working at foreign securities firms that spearhead short selling in the Japanese market are revered for their backgrounds and given prominent roles by the Japanese media, whose grasp of economics is weak, but why, at a time like this, do they make statements such as that, from the standpoint of the yen’s purchasing power parity, it is not expensive at all, and even an exchange rate in the 70-yen range would be no problem (I believe an even lower figure was mentioned)?
Is it to support your company’s continued short selling?
Or is it to provide a protective talisman for your own deeds?
How is Japan’s economy supposed to improve if the yen strengthens further and share prices fall?
And you, of all people, should know how long it takes share prices to recover once they have fallen substantially.
If you say that there is nothing to worry about because Japanese share prices will return to their levels of twenty-five years ago even if this keeps happening, then please present your esteemed theory through the media.
Or consider these companies, which I am convinced are among the world’s leading corporations, and whose products are… frequently… so wonderful that it is no exaggeration to call them moving…
For example, having been forced to endure a painful life as a single man for many years, as though undergoing an ordeal ordained by God, I thought, “This is it, this is the ultimate,” and took the plunge, buying and installing Hitachi’s “Wind Iron” washing machine, which is wonderful in every respect… For a while, I was almost in love with this product…
If, for example, the things Samsung makes are more wonderful and even more moving than what these companies create, would you please tell me?
If that is why our country’s nine major manufacturers lose to Samsung alone in net profit, please enlighten me.
If companies in other countries truly make things that are more wonderful and moving than those made by these companies I respect and consider outstanding, then please enlighten me.
You can have your views published in major newspapers and weekly magazines at any time, so I look forward to hearing from you.