Re: [Pen-l] Krugman: This is really, really bad

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

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
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