The end of the beginning

Ozawa Ichiro indicated, in a tearful press conference Tuesday evening, that he will stay on as DPJ president despite the indictment of his chief public secretary — but Ozawa's statement may have only been the end of the beginning of the final act of Ozawa's long career...

Is paper dead?

When I first came to Japan, long before the advent of mobile phones, I was impressed by the number of people I saw reading on the trains -- a literate society, I thought...

Will he stay or will he go?

Okubo Takanori, Ozawa Ichiro's chief secretary, has as expected been indicted by the Tokyo district public prosecutor's office for violating the political funds control law...

Ozawa is due to announce whether he will remain as DPJ president today.

Breaking down elitism

The financial market spotlight fell on my old company Livedoor when I split the company’s stocks by 100. That’s basically when public criticism of me really began to build.

At that time, Waseda University’s Tatsuo Uemura and Michio Matsui, President of Matsui Securities, were the most open critics of mine. In some cases, I don’t think I argued against much of the criticism. I used to think that it was a really adult approach to just let the ones who didn’t know what they were talking about talk.

The Forex Report

The Fed's plans to print money sees the yen rally.

Miscellaneous:

For the Western press, Japan is always rising

Forbes and AP have run nearly simultaneous articles reviving the "Japan rising" meme that I thought had died with Abe Shinzo's government.

The people lose hope

Jun Okumura notes that while the political world waits to find out whether Ichiro Ozada will survive the scandal in his political organization, the DPJ has revived an approach pursued in the earlier half of this decade...

Butter over guns

In the Asahi survey of political attitudes discussed in this post, respondents were asked to pick which portions of the budget that would like to see enhanced and which portions they would like to see cut...

The LDP agrees on something

While the Nishimatsu scandal continues to ripple through both the LDP and the DPJ and while all wonder whether next week will see Ozawa Ichiro's resignation as DPJ president, LDP members of all stripe

No diddling around with Diddlefinger

A Google Maps mashup makes it easier to find addresses if your kanji reading is not up to scratch.

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