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The road to fiscal hell is sometimes paved with the best intentions. As Europe’s politicians seek to win electorates round to brutal budget cuts, they would do well to look to the experience of Japan.
Tokyo
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If Hollywood were making the movie, the imminent confrontation between Michael Woodford, the former CEO of Olympus, and the directors who…
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I scan my memory, jumbled and blurred by hangover, jetlag, lifelag. Got it – he’s a media figure, fronts up current affairs programs, TV and radio. A real pro, and a nice guy too. “You’re looking well,” I respond.
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Disaster reveals national character in the starkest possible way. Japan’s response to the unprecedented triple blow of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown has demonstrated both its strengths and weaknesses – to the world and perhaps to the Japanese themselves.
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“When my mother was 10, she was evacuated to Sendai and saw the whole town get bombed flat. My father experienced the big air-raids on Yokohama. Their generation started out when there was nothing left of Japan but smoking ruins. Don’t worry about us – we’ll definitely recover this time too.”
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Long-term residents of Tokyo tend to be blasé about earthquakes, but this one felt different right from the start. It announced itself with a thunderous jolt
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By orchestrating a massive appreciation of the yen in the mid 1980s, the US condemned Japan to decades of stagnation and ended the challenge to its own economic hegemony. Effectively Japan was forced to commit financial hara-kiri.
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John Veals is the villainous hedge fund manager in Sebastian Faulks’ best-selling credit-crunch novel “A Day In December.” He is a man with no friends, no culture, no interest in anything other than making money. His nefarious machinations lead to the failure of a major British bank, enabling him to make huge profits from his short positions. Other characters in the novel include Gabriel Northwood, a virtuous lawyer, and Roger Malpasse, a retired banker of the old school.
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I am a digital cat. I was designed in Mumbai and manufactured in Shenzhen. Where I live digital cats outnumber children. That’s because they are much cheaper. If you cannot afford the latest version, you can buy a second hand product at a shop called CATOFF.
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You are a little-known politician who has enthused the public with promises of change. You win a thumping electoral victory. You succeed a tired and discredited administration whose policies helped create the worst economic crisis in decades. And then your problems start.