As the scandals keep a-comin', the citizens are receiving what many believe is a healthy and long overdue reality check about those whom they've entrusted with their collective well-being. Politicians have always been suspicious types and bureaucrats only slightly less so. But now teachers, policemen and doctors have all become objects of derision rather than respect. And if we now fear them, it isn't so much because of the power they have over our lives but rather for their newly revealed capacity to do harm.

Bankers have long since joined these fallen elites. The Mizuho computer quagmire simply confirmed the public's worst suspicions about the financial sector: that not only do banks not have their customers' interests in mind, but that they can't even function on a day-to-day basis.

The Mizuho mess coincided with the implementation of the dreaded "payoff" system. As is often the case with English words adopted for a specific use in Japanese, "payoff" is inexact, if not downright misleading. Starting April 1, any principal that is kept in a time deposit is guaranteed by the government only up to 10 million yen in the event the bank fails. This policy will be extended to ordinary bank deposits in April 2003.