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Noriko Hama
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Nov 28, 2011
'Japanization' needn't be an economic curse word
Everybody walks in fear of Japanization these days. Everybody wants to avoid their version of the lost decade. They don't want to see their economies become locked into a never-ending spiral of deflation, Japanese-style.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Oct 31, 2011
Deciphering eurozone: financial stability quest a study in surrealism
EFSF stands for European Financial Stability Facility. Or so they say. I can only see it as standing for European Financial Science Fiction. How can it be anything else given the nature of the arrangement?
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Sep 26, 2011
Prime Minister Noda the no-sider can have no one on his side
So yet another Japanese prime minister comes out of the woodwork. One gets so tired of talking about revolving doors, merry-go-rounds, musical chairs and passing the parcel.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 29, 2011
Global fiscal reactor meltdown contains a warning for Japan
Public finances are melting down in Europe, in America and of course Japan. The situation is going nuclear, left, right and center. It's not so much China Syndrome as it is Global Syndrome.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 1, 2011
Debt surrealists defy reality: What looks like default not default
Images of "The Treachery of Images," the painting by the Belgian artist Rene Magritte, who wrote "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe") under his his impeccable portrait of a smoking pipe, keeps flashing off and on in my mind as I look at what is going on in the increasingly surreal world of...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 27, 2011
Futility and resignation make for poor drama in Japanese politics
"Sheer futility," Quoheleth says. "Sheer futility: Everything is futile!"
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 16, 2011
Old proverbs should be minded even in tough economic times
Recent news of the restaurant chain Yakiniku-zakaya Ebisu serving contaminated raw beef to its customers makes me think of an old Japanese proverb. It tells us that "poverty breeds stupidity." All old proverbs are invariably wise. They also tend to be true most of the time.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Apr 18, 2011
In a globalized world, beware the lonely going to war with the only
Only one or lonely one. This may be the question that nations start asking themselves in the aftermath of Japan's threefold disaster.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 21, 2011
Old-style survival skills put local shop owners in disaster limelight
A week after the earthquake and we are still living with the aftershocks, and in more ways than one. While the earth still shakes under us now and again, shakes of a different kind also keep coming: nuclear power plant failures, radioactive contamination fears, rolling power cuts, panic buying and sudden...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 21, 2011
JGBs, credit and 'that kind of thing': Kan's known unknowns
T he credit rating company Standard & Poor's downgraded Japanese sovereign debt late last month. With an AA- rating, we are now a notch below Spain, whose possibly looming debt crisis has been unnerving EU financial authorities for some time.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 23, 2010
'Bottle Imp' poses warning for currency and bond markets
Watching the dollar's recent plight in the foreign-exchange markets, I am reminded of a fascinating story I came across some years ago in an anthology of supernatural tales called "The Bottle Imp." It has its origins in German folklore and goes something like this:
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 19, 2010
DPJ, finances victims of own conspiracy, cock-up, complacency?
Conspiracy or cock-up? That is the question that invariably comes to mind when something goes very badly wrong in business or politics. As it has done in both of these two worlds in Japan lately.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 14, 2010
Can 'Citizen Kan' take Japan's voters to the promised land?
The Bible tells us that "those who sow in tears sing as they reap" (Psalm 126).
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 3, 2010
Accusations about Japan's youths lacking 'animal spirits' off mark
The old are invariably critical of the young. Japan is no exception. The older generation finds much to bemoan in the attitudes and behaviors of their successors.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 29, 2010
Global crisis, Act IV: Currency turmoil starts to wreak havoc
I don't like to say I told you so, but I told you so. Back in July last year, I wrote in this column that the post-Lehman shock world was participating in a drama in five acts, in which the fourth was likely to be where currency turmoil hits the stage.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 1, 2010
Message for Hatoyama from his patron saint
Saint Thomas More is the patron saint of politicians. As a Catholic myself I should have known this before, but the information actually came to me quite recently via the Mainichi Shimbun. So many thanks to the newspaper for this piece of religious education.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jan 25, 2010
What if Clarke had embarked on an economic odyssey?
The movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," Arthur C. Clarke's epoch-making science fiction masterpiece, was first published in 1968. Its sequel "2010: Odyssey Two" came out in 1982. To put "2010" more precisely in its place, it was actually the first sequel among three. The ultimate resolution, if such it may...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Nov 30, 2009
When real is nominal and nominal real: the world of falling prices
A newspaper headline tells me 'Pace of growth picks up in Japan." The actual figures bear out the statement. Japan's real GDP registered a quarter-on-quarter increase of 1.2 percent in the July-September quarter. The Japanese economy is expanding.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Oct 26, 2009
Warped triangles show global economy being pulled toward ruin
I have triangles on the mind lately. I used to think that economic activity was a triangle with growth, competition and distribution making up its three sides. The perfect triangle is equilateral. That is to say, its three sides are identical in length.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Sep 21, 2009
'Alien' prime minister, new-look Cabinet bring change to old politics
Politics is not the kind of stuff you normally stay up to watch on the telly long into the night. Not unless scandals, drunkenness and other juicy activities are involved, of course.
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

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