thanks!
Craig Freedman wrote: > Good question. I will try to provide a quick response. Bureaucrats in > Japanese government tend to exert a lot of influence. The Ministry of > Finance was dead set against expansion citing growing budget deficits. > Also much of the previous (prior 1997) fiscal spending had gone to aid > the construction industry (a major contributor to the LDP) with projects > located in rural LDP strongholds. This created several scandals with > multi lane highways being built in areas without traffic. Starting in > 1997 infrastructure spending begins to shrink as then Prime Minister > Hashimoto brings in economic reforms. Koizumi comes in on a sound bite > program of economic reforms. In reality he has little interest in > economics and is concerned with cementing his own political power within > the LDP. One way of doing so is to attack those factions of his party > that serve the highway and other infrastructure interests. The way to do > so is to starve these factions of funds. This can all be done in the > name of economic reform which will make Japan more competitive and solve > Japan's economic problems. In addition all during this time a number of > bureaucrats at the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan had been > dead set against any expansion claiming that it would only bail out weak > Japanese corporations and perpetuate the dysfunctional Japanese economic > system. What Japan supposedly needed was widespread economic reform and > restructuring. -- Jim Devine / "Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business." -- Tom Robbins _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
