Comment by CNote

May 28, 2007 @ 9:01 am

I haven’t listened yet but see that you talked about Pensions and Crime and Safety-my comment in a round about way touches upon the two and I would like your comments. This morning’s Financial Times reports that Japan will change the Casino Law in the next 2008 diet session to allow Vegas type gambling. In a not so direct way they eluded that Japan is copying Singapura and Macau. (As stated in another thread…this “me too thing” bothers the heck out of me and could possibly be at the root of many problems;)

The government sees this as a way to reach their goal of 10m tourist by 2010-they hope to pull in the Russians and Chinese within 200km. (***Rumor Note*** Ishihara is trying to give Tsukiji the boot under the pretext of safety and sanitation in order to gain control of that very valuable piece of real estate in East Ginza b/c he wants to build Las Vegas style casinos on that land.)

They also see it as a way to plug a tax revenue gap in the face of a declining population in addition as a way to reinvigorate the local populations who are not enjoying the most recent economic boom. They say it will create jobs too (hmmm…declining population so we need to create more jobs that we cannot fill).
The see all the buzz Singapura and Macao is generating and want in and like Singapura to (dis)encourage the (low-class) Japanese from going they are going to have door charges. At the same time the government is going to support the building of entertainment complexes, theme parks etc. around the locales to create a family friendly image(again hmmm…)

So I touched upon the Pension issue now the Crime. I’m know next to nothing about the yakuza or organized crime in general. As an economist I am (slightly) aware of what government/market failure creates-opportunism by criminal elements. I hear organized crime touches almost all aspects of Japanese society from politics to business. In the face of the (percieved) loss of safety in Japan at the hands of foreigners currently, how will Japan maintain the sense of public safety with low crime rates after jumping on the casio bandwagon? There is a lot of holes hear that don’t add up and this is what happens when you fail to create your own ideas but instead wait insecurely in the background and then shout ME TOO!!! ME TOO!!!

Comment by Cal Hobbs

May 30, 2007 @ 3:11 am

Abe’s ratings rise as his Cabinet falls and his Ag Secretary hangs himself.

I pity the man if he really died in the hospital after the hanging. Not exactly a quick way to go.

Comment by ken

May 30, 2007 @ 3:45 am

Actually, Cal…I stuck it in the post…hours after we recorded, Abe’s ratings took a nosedive. It will be interesting to see where they go from here…

Comment by DeOrio

May 30, 2007 @ 1:32 pm

CNote, the casino gambling thing is something that comes up fairly regularly. Ishihara has talked about it for years - first in an underground complex in Kabukicho, then in Odaiba, now he wants to move Tsukiji to Odaiba and put the casino in Higashi-Ginza or thereabouts.

I agree that this particular path is poorly thought-through. There are better ways for Tokyo to generate revenue and adding casinos to the pachinko, crowding, etc., is not going to make the city much nicer. (Add in the fact that Ishihara has Yoyogi Park slated as a site for one of his Olympic stadia, and you have the governor almost single-handedly making the city unliveable.)

I also agree with you that the job creation portion rings hollow. Are people going to be brought in from the economically depressed countryside to work in the casino in one of Tokyo’s wealthier areas? Seems kind of silly.

Violent crime rates do appear to have gone up, especially if you focus on gun crimes. If nothing else, high profile crimes have increased. Aside from an occasional statement by the NPA that foreign crime is increasing or statements to the effect that immigration would bring more crime, I am not sure how much is being blamed on foreigners - seems like wayward youth are most often the target, even though youth crime numbers are down.

As I said in the show, guns in Japan generally come from yakuza and it is really hard to see what the police are doing to seriously fight organized crime. Japan has RICO-like laws, but continues to arrest low-level thugs and ignore bosses. I think there’s some kind of collusion between high-ranking officials and high-ranking gangsters.

If you are saying that casinos would almost certainly prove irresistible to the yakuza, I agree.

I guess the only point about which I would disagree is that those problems are due to a “me too” mentality. Macau has plenty of crime, do do Vegas and other gambling centers. Vegas was fairly original, but that didn’t spare them the problems of gambling. That said, it would be nice to see Japan realize it didn’t need to compete with less-advanced (for lack of a better term) countries.

It drives me nuts when I hear, for instance, that the government is worried about China having passed Japan in steel production. The protections for rice are nutty, too.

Japan certainly does need some original ideas.