Lehman Brothers – September 14, 2008

The 9/11 anniversary occurred a few days ago, but today, exactly one year ago, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy which most believe resulted in the financial services meltdown leading to the current global economic recession.  Most business news devoted their stories about this event and its impact during the past year.
Last year, I took a [...]

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Japan’s Economy

I can’t believe it’s August 1st already – time certainly flies when you are having fun!
As a change of pace from all the Japanese summer festival postings, a short blog post about Japan’s economy, which is currently the world’s #2 largest economy (although may not be for too long as China continues its growth).

Recently [...]

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Japan In The News: Wage Cuts Supports Jobs

A recent Bloomberg article titled Japan Eases Recession Pain as Wage Cuts Support Jobs describes how Japan’s unemployment rate has remained relatively low amid the worse recession since World War II.
Japan’s unemployment rate is around 4.4% compared to 8.5% in the US.  In addition to cutting temporary staff (which does not count under the jobless [...]

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Japan’s Lost Decade

In a recent article written by Paul Krugman in the New York Times titled Japan Reconsidered, he wrote that Japan’s Lost Decade doesn’t look so bad now compared with the current situation in the US.
This article reminded me of the many recent references to Japan’s Lost Decade such as:

Globeandmail.com: Is Japan’s ‘lost decade‘ a [...]

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Japan In the News: Defying the Downturn

With the global recession, Japan, the world’s #2 economy behind the US, has been one of the most affected due to its high dependence on exports.  Severe troubles with the automotive and consumer electronics companies are constantly in the news these days.
But amid all this doom and gloom, several Japanese companies (some multi-national) in different [...]

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Time Magazine: From Japan With Love

The cover story of the December 1, 2008 Japan issue of Time Magazine, titled Japan Reaches Out, describes Japan’s growing soft power making it a responsible world leader, in spite of its poor political and economic situation.
Foreign interest in learning Japanese is stronger today, with nearly 3 million people worldwide studied Japanese as a foreign [...]

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Financial Times: Boring Canada’s Financial Tips for the World

James Flaherty, Canadian Finance Minister, recently wrote a commentary in the Financial Times titled Boring Canada’s Financial Tips for the World.  Certainly, the biggest news today is the global economic and financial meltdown, but Canada seemed to have minimized the impact as a result of its financial system and policies, which Flaherty describes as “boring”.  [...]

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Showa Japan: The Post-War Golden Age and Its Troubled Legacy

A few weeks ago, I attended the FujiFilm Square photo exhibition in Tokyo called Showa Japan seen through Dutch eyes.  The photographs, most in black and white, were both fascinating and interesting and I noticed a new book (not yet published in the US) titled Showa Japan: The Post-War Golden Age and Its Troubled [...]

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