David Wessel On the Long-Term US Economy

David Wessel, economics explainer of WSJ, talks about what Mr. Obama should do for tackling the problems lying ahead of the US economy and the world economy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324073504578104464153878672.html

Mr. David has three points on fixing the US economy:

1) Human and physical capital that will pay off

Government spending ought to be focused on investments in human and physical capital that will pay off—which means spending less than projected on retirement and health benefits.

In regard to upward mobility,

The next four years would be more productive if they began with an acknowledgment that the gap between winners and losers in the U.S. economy has been widening. 

....the distance between the penthouse and the ground floor is growing yet the escalators of mobility—such as education—haven't improved commensurately.

Mr. David says that Mr.Obama needs to improve the education in the US, which is closely related to the accumulation of human capital.

2) Expansionary fiscal and monetary policy that will decrease unemployment

Fiscal and monetary policy should be calibrated to get more of them working before they become permanently unemployable.

3) Climate change that should be tackled soon

"Our climate is changing," New York Mayor Bloomberg wrote,"And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be—given this week's devastation—should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action."

...this will be hard for a political system that finds it difficult to look beyond the short term and the next election.

Mr. David says that it is not only Mr. Obama but also the future Presidents that should take the action for the climate change, but the US didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol

What will the US do for the climate change? I think it is most difficult for the US to tackle of all the issues that the US now face.

John Lott On Mr. Obama's 4 More Years

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/07/what-can-expect-for-america-economy-in-second-obama-term/

Obama doesn't believe in incentives, and penalizing Americans for working hard and taking risks means that the US rank will slip further behind the rest of the world.

Dr. John Lott says very clearly that Mr. Obama won't get the economy better. I chase his words because Dr. John Lott's words are really clear: he says no when he think it is wrong, and vise versa. 

 

I should keep an eye on what will happen in the US economy and what Mr. Obama will do for the US economy.

Mr. Obama will soon face the difficulty called 'fiscal cliff', which means the depressed economy we will see due to the end of the Bush tax cut and the beginning of the government spending cut.

I am looking forward to seeing how Mr. Obama will overcome it, and what Dr Lott will say about his economic policy.

New Words on Macro-economy

Recently I have seen new words in the newspaper related to macro-economy. This is a reminder for myself:

1)Austerity
It is a time of bad economic conditions where the government cuts its spending or increases taxes to reduce its budget deficit and debt.


2)Credit Crunch
As creditors become unwilling to lend money to businesses or individuals because debtors increase the risk of default due to the economic and political conditions.


3)Fiscal Cliff
In the US, Bush tax breaks end and the tax increases and spending cuts begin at the end of 2012, which could push the US economy back into recession.

4) Operation Twist
In an attempt to lower long-term interest rates with central bank's balance sheet unchanged, central bank buys long-term government bonds and sells short-term bonds.

Reference: http://lexicon.ft.com/

On the Work of Shapley

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2012/

Shapley and Roth won the Noble Prize in economics for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design.

I am now studying matching and search theory and it is a good timing. This is a focus on the work of Dr. Shapley and a reminder for myself; the below largely depends on Wiki, Nobelprize.org, and the article of the Washington Post(2012.Oct.15),

(1)Shapley Value(1953)
In a game where n players play cooperatively, how important is each player to the overall cooperation, and what payoff can he or she expect? The Shapley value provides one possible answer to this question.

(2)Shapley-Shubik power index(1954)
In a voting game, players with the same preferences form coalitions. Any coalition that has enough votes to pass a bill or elect a candidate is called winning, and the others are called losing. Based on Shapley value, Shapley and Shubik concluded that the power of a coalition was not simply proportional to its size.

The power index is normalized between 0 and 1. A power of 0 means that a coalition has no impact at all on the result of the game; and a power of 1 means a coalition brings the outcome of the game.

(3)Gale-Shapley deffered-acceptance algorithm(1962)
This is the reason Dr. Shapley won the Prize: In a large group of men and women considering marriage, both partners feel that they have gotten the most attractive possible match; Shapley and his colleague David Gale developed a process for ensuring that those matches are as stable as possible.

In the process, there are a series of rounds in which men and women rank potential mates, and matches are made until everyone finds a spouse and the system is stable.

Here's the excerpt:

The Gale-Shapley algorithm can be set up in two alternative ways: either men propose to women, or women propose to men. In the latter case, the process begins with each woman proposing to the man she likes the best. Each man then looks at the different proposals he has received (if any), retains what he regards as the most attractive proposal (but defers from accepting it) and rejects the others.
 
The women who were rejected in the first round then propose to their second-best choices, while the men again keep their best offer and reject the rest. This continues until no women want to make any further proposals. As each of the men then accepts the proposal he holds, the process comes to an end. Gale and Shapley proved mathematically that this algorithm always leads to a stable matching.

The specific setup of the algorithm turned out to have important distributional consequences; it matters a great deal whether the right to propose is given to the women – as in our example – or to the men. If the women propose, the outcome is better for them than if the men propose, because some women wind up with men they like better, and no woman is worse off than if the men had been given the right to propose. 

Indeed, the resulting matching is better for the women than any other stable matching. Conversely, the reverse algorithm – where the men propose – leads to the worst outcome
from the women’s perspective. (Nobelprize.org)

This idea is based on the idea of market/mechanism design and actually applied to how to match doctors and hospitals, students and public high-schools and kidney donors and patients. 

神経経済学事情(Recent Trend of Neuroeconomics)

神経経済学。人が意思決定する際、または公平感、幸福感、またはある種の熱狂が起こっているとき、脳の中でどのようなことが起こっているのかを考える分野、かな（？）

日本語でもすでに教科書が売られているが、まだまだ染みは薄い感がする。

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Marketplace-in-Your-Brain/134524/

この記事の最後の付録を見て思ったのは、北海道大学の論文引用数がカルテック（カリフォルニア工科大）に次いで多い、ということである。

この10年を採れば、日本は神経経済学大国？と言える（？）かもしれない。神経経済学の拠点（核）を今作っちゃえば、日本に優秀な研究者を呼び込み、さらなる経済学研究を盛り上げるチャンスだと思うのは、少々楽観的だろうか？

John Lott on Recent Slow Recovery

Americans have suffered two very slow recoveries – during the Great Depression and now. The most obvious common factor in both has been the Keynesian policies and massive regulations used to “cure” those downturns. Clearly, “financial crisis” can’t explain the current slow recovery.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/05/financial-crisis-cant-explain-current-slow-recovery/

That's just like Dr. John Lott..

On Dr Boskin's View on Debt and Deficit

Failing to rapidly begin bending the long-run debt-GDP curve down risks a growth
disaster, whose severity could be much worse even than the recent deep recession and
tragically anemic recovery. 

Left unchecked, it eventually risks a lost generation of growth, a long-run growth depression.

Boskin's recent report is quite to the point. It seems that large deficit and debt are closely related to lower economic growth rate.

See the Japanese economy: Sony, Sharp, Toshiba and Panasonic are all representative Japanese manufacturing giants and it has recently been reported that they all have a large deficit.

Hearing the news, I am wondering how the Japanese government's large deficit and debt caused the loss of these companies. Of course, yen appreciating is the major culprit and it may be one of the results of the deficit and debt.

I think that the yen appreciation is directly caused by the money supply increased by FRB(QE1&2) in the US. Can we think that it is also caused by the large deficit and debt?

 The prospect and then reality of higher tax rates, plus increased uncertainty about future fiscal policy, slows growth..., which might sharply raise interest rates.

Theoretically, higher interest rate could make the currency appreciate more. In this point the recent yen appreciation may imply the tax increase and spending decrease expected in the near future. Tax hike and spending cut should make the people spend less and less and save more and more. They should think that they should prepare for the tax increase and the future burden. It may be one of the reasons the Japanese economy has been stagnant for almost two decades.

Higher debt ratios eventually crowd out investment, as holdings of government debt replace capital in private portfolios.

I don't know if Dr Boskin implies, but reading his report I can't help wondering if the Japanese government knows what to do first to make the economy up. I might have heard of such a warning many times from many economists, but, as far as I can see, the Japanese government does nothing to do with the large deficit and debt.

Boskin's report:
http://siepr.stanford.edu/?q=/system/files/shared/pubs/papers/briefs/pb_11_2012.pdf

デフレは不況の原因か（２）

「デフレは不況の原因ではない」とするデフレと不況の因果関係論について、「デフレは不況の原因である」を仮に真とすると、

命題１：「物価が下がると名目賃金も同じだけ下がるので（マークアップ率＝１）、実質賃金は変わ

らない。だから不況は起こらない」

という論を論破することはできない。これが「反例」
になっているので、違うのではないかという「背理法」が成立する。

「実質賃金の下落の原因がデフレ」という人は、じゃあ名目賃金はなぜ下落するのか。答えは「物価が下がるから（デフレ）」。じゃあ、

物価下落率＝名目賃金下落率

なら「実質賃金一定」なりますよね。いやいや、実質賃金

の下落は「物価の下落率よりも名目賃金下落率の方が大きい」から起こった。では、
名目賃金はなぜ大きく下がったのか。物価がさがったから。じゃあ「物価下落率＝名目賃金下落率」？　

なんか、おかしいことが起こっています。

デフレが不況の原因か？

デフレが不況の原因だという。これは本当か？

ここに「風呂桶」がある。この中に水を入れたら、風呂桶の水位が上がる。水を入れすぎると風呂桶から水がやがてあふれ出る。さあ、何の話？風呂桶の話？

いいえ、風呂桶は「経済の生産能力」、水は「経済の総需要」、そして水位は「インフレ率」。不況とはいわば風呂桶の「水不足」に該当する。「水不足」、すなわちインフレを解消するには、「水を加えればよい」となる。「水位を上げろ」（インフレにしろ）でもいいが、「水位を上げる」には「水を入れる」（需要を創出する）ことがまず必要である。

 

すなわち、「水を入れる」ことが「水位を上げる」ための必要条件になる。

 

そう、需要を増やすことがインフレになるための必要条件となる。

 

では、「デフレが不況の原因」という主張をこの「風呂桶」の議論で見てみよう。

先ほどの文章を逆さにすればよい。「水を入れる」ためには「水位を上げる」ことがまず必要である。んんん？

実は、「水を入れる」ことは「水位を上げる」ための十分条件とはならない。なぜか？　風呂桶を小さくすれば、水位を上げることができるからだ。

つまり、デフレが不況の原因というなら、「水不足は水位が低いのが原因」と言っているのと同じである。ダムの水位が低いのは「降水量が低いから」と考えるのが普通であるが、「ダムの水不足」は「ダムの水位が低いから」だと、デフレが不況の原因だと主張する人は言う。

 

ダムの水位を上げるに は、別に「水を入れ」なくてよい。需要を増やさなくてもよい。「ダムを小さく」してもよいだろう。そう、経済の需要が一定なら、経済の生産能力を小さくす れば（石油コンビナートを破壊するなど）、「水位は上がる」（インフレになる）。

デフレが不況の原因。ならばその対策は簡単。デフレを解消すればよい。そのためには風呂桶を小さく（生産能力を破壊）してもよい。さあ、日本経済の復活のために、臨海工業地域を、日本の生産力を破壊しよう。あなたはこの結論に賛成するだろうか？？

 

Spend More Now!

I found a new book written by Paul Krugman, "End This Depression Now" in the book store on my way back home. Iｔ had been four years since I met Krugman in his book, "The Return of Depression Economics".

I am not going to write this new book review, but after reading it and seeing the recent news about the stagnant economies of EU and, of Japan, my home country and the third-largest country in terms of GDP, I feel like writing about what I think about how to end this recession.

 My view on how to get the economy right sounds Keynesian, but my point is not that of what Keynes and Keynesians tell:

(1) Spend money

Who should spend money? That sounds a good question, but that doesn't matter at all. If you are one of so-called Keynesians, you should insist that the government should spend much money to strengthen the aggregate demand in the economy. But I wouldn't think so: It is good for the government to spend the money to build new houses, schools, hospitals and roads in the east-northern part of Japan that was hit by the earthquake last year. It is also good for the general people not to worry about what to spend on, but to buy what they need now (I need new shoes and trousers for business now.) Who spends the money doesn't matter. That's my point of this article.

If you don't have any money, you can't buy anything you want (but I would ask you how you make a living now with no money at all. You should have some money in your bank account and, I mean, if so, don't be thrifty with your money. Don't keep it in the drawer and use it to believe that it should return back to us. That's what money is like. )

Money is not what we should save, but what we use to buy something necessary for you to enjoy your life. To the best of my knowledge, Keynes (maybe Marx too) must have warned us against stocking money.   

(2) BOJ should buy more long-term government bonds

A little technical, but a basic idea on how the money circulates in the economy. BOJ, the Bank of Japan, equivalent to FRB in the US and ECB in the European countries, buys the bonds issued by the government from the private commercial banks, and then the money is paid to the banks and they get the money. The commercial banks will lend the extra money to someone else who needs most to build a new house or a new plant, and if he or she can borrow the money, he or she will spend the money on building a new house.

The question is, are the private banks going to lend the money to someone? I know that a lot of professional economists cast doubt on this point and that it is BOJ that insisted that the money wasn't spent as the theory says.

In the case of the Japanese economy, the private banks actually have bought a lot of the government long-term(10-year) bonds, not to lend the money to someone. The banks don't want to take any high risk and don't want their balance-sheets downgraded. Not to have bad loan, they usually buy safe and low-risk government bonds and don't lend the money to someone. (Yes, buying the government bonds is equivalent to lending the money to the government. The banks believe that the government should never go bankrupt and that the bonds are thus safe to buy. I don't know if the government bonds are really safe for sure. )

That's why some critics, as does BOJ itself, insist that BOJ's buying the bonds doesn't make any sense.
   
(3) Don't worry about the government budget deficit and debt

My opinion is, the government should have as many bonds bought by BOJ and the private banks as they can. The money the government borrowed from them should be spent on some necessary public programs. If the money spent on such programs circulates in the economy as a whole, the production, employment, national income and thus the tax revenue should increase. The government doesn't have to worry about the large budget deficit and debt because it will be able to decrease the deficit and debt with tax revenue increasing. Sounds nice. It's like a dream.

However, does BOJ buy as many bonds as it can? That's the problem. The private banks buy the bonds because they don't want to run high risk to lend the money to someone. I don't think BOJ is likely to buy much more bonds than it has bought now.

(4) Forced saving and Forced spending

Furthermore, if BOJ buys much more bonds as they can, what should happen in the economy? Yes, inflation. According to some textbooks, it sounds true. But is that truly true? As long as the general people keep spending the money, inflation is likely to come, or the prices are going up in the economy. But, this is an important point in this context, if they don't spend the money at all and save all the earnings they get by working, inflation won't come at all. The money stays in the drawer or in their bank accounts.

The important question is, should the money be spent if BOJ buys the government bonds from the private banks? No one knows. Just the government's issuing and BOJ's buying the bonds don't make the money to be spent.

There has been an idea called 'forced saving'. It sounds like the government forces us to save money. Right, but the saving also means an involuntary one(it is saving that occurs due to no available goods to buy.) and there seem to be some definitions. As far as I know, forced saving means that real income, real consumption decrease, and thus real saving(=income-consumption) increases as the prices go up.

At any rate, what does saving work for our economy? I would think of it as short-term and long-term; In the relatively poor society, as people earn more than they spend, the remaining should be saved in order to rebuild their house or pay the tuition for their children in the near future. In the economy as a whole, more saving leads to more physical or human capital accumulation and thus to more production and more employment. More saving means that people get richer in the long run though they get poor in the short run. Actually, decades ago Japan promoted saving by cutting the tax on it and increasing saving was the one of the important policies conducted for high economic growth.

But now there are a lot of stuff in the economy and much is unsold. That's why the prices are going down because stores can't help cutting their prices to have people buy their products. In Japan deflation stays alive and the value of the money people have is going up gradually, which makes it better for people to wait for the money to increase its purchasing power.

People save more due to deflation, though the original definition says that it is caused by inflation.This time needs somewhat a challenging policy that has so a great impact on the behavior of such people that it can stop them from saving their money: Now it is the time for them to spend more, not to save more. As I get a hint from 'forced saving', I would call this policy, "Force People to Spend", or "FPS".

In the well-developed economies, should less saving lead to less physical or less human capital accumulation? and thus to less production? In the long run it is true. But such rich economies are capable to produce more than the people need. In contrast, poor economies (I would call "Malthusian/Ricardian economies". Malthus and Ricardo are the economists who lived the 18th-century Britain. The then Britain saw the age of "Industrial Revolution" in the late 18th century and thus the dawn of the modern "Affluent Society", where goods are going around and their standards of living are becoming on average higher. So decades ago, Japanese economy  was the Malthusian/Ricardian one and promoted saving for high economic growth. 

Rich economies(I would call Keynesian/Galbraithian economies. Galbraith is my favorite economist and wrote an influential book, "The Affluent Society".), we can easily see a lot of stuff being sold and at the same time being unsold in the store/shopping mall. The prices should be going down(yes, yen is appreciating as of 05/June/2012, which is likely to make prices down.) and thus the real value of the money people have in their pockets is going up, where people think they should spend less to hold more money. Thus less money circulates in the economy and thus less should be spent. That should be called "recession" and should be the problem to solve quickly. What should we do?  Government should do something for people to spend more, not to save more, yes "FPS".

(5) Learn Mr. Ikeda's double income policy*

In 1960 then the Prime Minister of Japan, Hayato Ikeda, declared the policy called "double national income" in the newspaper, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 09/March/1959. He identified himself strong in economics and finance, and he talked to the general people in the newspaper about what he thought about how to do for increasing the standards of life. What was "double national income"? What did he do? In fact, there was no concrete item in this policy. Mr. Ikeda did nothing but declared, (as Mr. Ikeda said in the Nihon Keiza Shimbun) "if there is the wise political leadership that induces you to work hard, it won't be impossible for you to double or triple your monthly pay in five or ten years."(Taro translated.)

Certainly that time was clearly booming: The Japanese economy, as well as the American economy, was growing fast, 10% average every year(This growth rate leads to double national income in around 7 years). In 1968 the GNP(Gross National Product) became the second-largest in the world and this (golden?) record hadn't been cracked until 2010. That time was bright, nothing was scared. That is what the Golden Age was like.

What Mr. Ikeda did is that he talked to the general people about how bright their future life will be and encouraged them to work, earn and spend more. His speak was very easy to understand and, say, one of his words was, "Poor people, eat barley. (It was then what poor people ate)!"    

(6) Self-fulfilling Economy

Mr. Ikeda himself didn't seem to be Keynesian, because in his duty, he didn't increase fiscal spending in an attempt to stimulate the economy. Rather, he was said to believe that that "the private companies should not be expected to ask the government for help but to take their own responsibility for the production activities."(Taro translated)

Of course, the government should play a big role to get the economy better: the government should take any possible action to induce the people to work, spend more. Mr. Ikeda's policy is one of the successful announcement policies and now I think we should follow his policy.

The economy(and we ourselves) is what is self-fulfilled: if we think we can do it, we can really do it. It sounds like Placebo effect, but something like Placebo should have caused the economy to move. It was Mr. Ikeda's double income policy: It wasn't based on any reasonable fact or data. Certainly, he had some great economists in his arm and they gave some advice to him, but double income policy itself didn't depend on any serious mathematical economic model because it was in the 1960s.

"Force people to spend"(FPS), as I insist,  is not as it sounds like: Each one is induced to spend more, not forced to spend more by the fearful central planner. The government should do something to induce people to spend more and, in this point, the government's role is not so small. Just only cutting tax or great public programs won't get the economy better, but the strong leadership(not dictatorship!) that seems like it gives birth to something new will get the stagnant economy right: Something will change. Something will happen. Such kind of bright expectation(belief or trust), though it isn't based on any reasonable fact, should induce the people to move forward, work more and spend more.

It is not so easy for the government to build such an environment, but we have a success story. Some pundits might say that their believing such a past success story has made Japan mad and stagnant ever, but I don't think so. The more people believe their future is bright or isn't necessary to worry about, the more money will run around. The economy will get recovered soon. Why not think so?   
 
*Reference: Yomiuri Shimbun, 08/October/2011

The Jazz Age 1920s

Reference: http://ivanterzic.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/around-the-world-in-the-1920s/

良い税制

ハーバード大学マンキュー教授は、良い税制の特徴を４点挙げる：

（１）課税ベースを広げる＋税率を下げる：各種控除をなくす
（２）所得ではなく、消費に課税する：消費税を活用
（３）バッズに課税する：ガソリン税を活用
（４）税制を簡素化する

財政赤字の原因

財政赤字の原因：
（１）非合理的・政治的原因
（２）予算制度の違いにより，財政赤字問題の深刻さに違い

財政赤字の解決手段：
（１）財政運営をルール化
（２）透明な予算制度とする

Have Fight With Me

(Caution) Not ill-intentioned, parodies Prof Mankiw's announcement:

To walkout ec 10 students (only):

I will take up to ten walkout students out to fight after Wednesday's lecture at my favorite Harvard Boxing Club. Join me if you are interested in the group. First come, first beaten!

Robert Sutton

http://bobsutton.typepad.com/

Nice blog!

新しい政府

民主主義を問い直す
戦後、我々は学校で「民主主義は良いこと」、「民主主義ありき」と教えられ、私も「民主主義こそ人類が求めてきた約束の地」だと考えてきた。しかし、結局のところ社会科の教科書には「民主主義が何たるか？」が書かれていないし、「良いもの」とだけしか教えられていない。戦後民主主義とは何だったのか？
いまこそ、問うべきときはないのではないのか？

戦後世界の幻影
戦前、世界は「失業」と「デフレ」に悩まされ、これが帝国主義的な軍事的覇権主義の台頭を許し、「戦争」という「恐怖の公共投資」で解決してみせた。戦後世界はこの教訓からアメリカでは「雇用法」（1946）が成立、日本では３大民主化改革（1946-7）により、「失業」と「デフレ」は政府により解決されるべき社会的課題として認知されていく。これが高度成長の基盤になり、「中産階級」（村上泰亮）を生み、巨大な消費社会が誕生した。

しかし、この「豊かな社会」（ガルブレイス）の代償として「財政赤字」と「インフレ」（ブキャナン＝ワグナーはこれは「民主主義のコストである」とした）を招聘し、１９７０年代以降フリードマンらの理論的支援もあり、「レーガニズム」、つまり「小さな政府」によって解決できると反駁したかに見えた。８０年代の中曽根行革にもその思想は受け継がれた。

高齢化は財政破綻を招く？
先進国は「インフレ」こそ解決できたとはいえ、「デフレ」、されに「高齢化」こそが次代の課題として台頭している。「高齢化」は福祉財政の拡張を招来し、「財政赤字」の拡張をことごとく許している。民主主義社会では福祉予算のカットは受け入れられにくい。議員も選挙で争点の対象にしたくない課題としてしる。

モディリアーニのライフサイクル仮設によれば、福祉予算の膨張は将来増税の期待を生み、これが現在の消費を減らし、貯蓄を増やしている。貯蓄の増加は有効需要を冷やし、生産・雇用・所得を減らす。当然、税収も減少するなかで、行政コストの切り詰めは遅々として進まず、歳出だけが増えていく。結果財政赤字と、その結果として政府債務の累積である。

今必要なのは税収に見合った規模の政府であるのだが、それができない。いまこそ「高齢化時代」の「政府」を作るべきである。

景気対策より成長戦略を
３つ提案がある。まずは税収が増えないので、
（１）政府活動を小さくする。
公務員の数とその給与を減らし、福祉予算も減らす。年金の給付も引き下げる。かわりに高齢者に雇用の機会を提供する。退職年齢の引き上げ、賃金の年功スライドを抑制するのも一つである。しかし、人口構造が高齢者に偏る現代ではこれは難題であることは明白である。

（２）解雇規制の撤廃
何より問題なのは「正社員の解雇が難しい」ということである。ホワイトカラーの正社員は生産性が低い上に、生産性以上の給金を得ている。これは問題なのだが、労組の力や社員の勤労意欲向上もあり、なかなかホワイトカラーのクビ切はできない。まさに「社内民主主義」が「低生産性」と「報酬インフレ（デフレ時代では実質報酬は増えている）」をもたらしている。今必要なのは民間企業の構造改革、すなわち生産性の低い部門を切り捨て、経営資源（ヒト・モノ・カネ）を生産性の高い部門へのシフトである。

（３）高等教育の改革
有望な人の育成が急務である。初等教育の充実も必要だが同時に高等教育、大学、専門学校、大学院大学、研究所の研究活動も必要である。すべて学生には貸与でいいので無利子の奨学金を与え、有能な教員を充当し、勉学に集中できる環境を作ることが必要だ。怠惰な学生には退学勧告を行い、有能な学生には報奨金を与える。これは研究者も然りだ。勉学や研究が社会に役立てるよう奨励することがなによりも必要である。

ただ大学の研究者や学生を増やすのではなく、大学行政も取捨選択が必要である。学生や教員への評価を大学や外部機関が行い、この評価に基づく支援制度が必要である。評価の低い学生教員に退場を願うのは至極当然である。学生・研究者たちの反論があるかもしれない。しかし、自分の研究勉学に高い自信があるなら、自分で基金を募って研究すればいい。それだけのことである。

羹に懲りて膾を吹く

今の日本人にもっとも当てはまる語。

大恐慌、インフレ、そしてデフレ

ケインズは１９３０年代、大恐慌を解明するためマクロ経済学を作った。（経済学第１の危機）

１９７０年代、世界はインフレに見舞われ、フリードマン・ルーカス・サージェントはインフレと経済政策の役割を明らかにするため、新しいマクロ経済学（動学的一般均衡モデルにつながる）を作った。（第２の危機）そして、サージェントは今年ようやくノーベル賞を取った。

そして、いま、世界はデフレ+財政赤字（日本経済化？）に見舞われようとしている。今だよい解決策は得られていない。この第３の危機をいかにして乗り切るのか。

以下、３点が問題である。
（１）デフレは何が原因か？
（２）金融政策はデフレを止められるか？　財政政策はいまやデフォルトの危機を抱えている以上無理。
（３）デフレが人々の間の「自信のなさ」から来るとすると、
どのように「自信」を生み出すのか？　そして、それは可能なのか？

On Econ Study

It is not easy for grad econ students to find out the themes of research. They are so busy in teaching that they can't study as they want.

I graduated from a graduate school of economics in 2005 and I re-started studying economics in 2007 and flied to a graduate school in the US, but returned here in 2008. Now I am in a teaching position at some private schools(not college or university) and trying to continue to study economics.

Recently I found a microeconomics book written by Takashi Negishi(1989), a worldly pioneer of general equilibrium theory: It has less than 250 pages and every item is written so shortly that I can follow. I try to read Chapter 4 on general equilibrium.

Until now I have tried several economics books and I found it difficult to understand economics by using them. Professor Maddala of Ohio State, they say, once said, "you can't learn anything from a fat book", and now I should completely agree with him.

I have tried to select a couple of econ texts(Micro: Varian(1992) and Dixit(1990), Macro: Barro&SalaiMartin(2004),Romer(2006)) and to focus on them to study micro and macro. I had a lot of macro texts, Blanchard&Fischer(1989), Obstfeld&Rogoff(1996), Sargent(2004),Farmer(1993) and so on, but it was too much for me to study the basics of macroeconomics. At last I decided to sell all these books and said to myself, "don't read too much and think more yourself first".

Before I went to the US, I had an interest in international finance, currency union, exchange rate fluctuation and open-macroeconomic policy. But reading the related research papers, I found it important to study macroeconomics and tried to study Ramsey model(optimal growth theory/RBC model). And then continuing Ramsey model, I found it more important to study general equilibrium model and studied basic micro theory, consumer-producer theory and Walrasian competitive equilibrium. Finally studying general equilibrium, I found it much more important to research 'equilibrium' and '(static&dynamic) optimization', of which modern microeconomics consists.

One day I was told one book by Prof Drewianka of Wisconsin Milwaukee and I tried to read it after I came back here. It was Schelling(1978), Micromotives and Macrobehavior, that I found interesting: Not too much but should be careful to read in order not to miss important ideas. It researches individual optimizations and social equilibria, and more on the related socio-economic matters. Reading it, I found it much more important to study the inter-relationship between micro optimizations and macro equilibria(phenomena) when I try to research some basic but difficult-to-understand macro issues, the determinations of interest rate, prices, exchange rate and national income.

Now I try to write plainly the interaction of agent behaviors and macro phenomena by using two key elements of modern economics(optimization and equilibrium) by using some related researches, Becker&Murphy(2000) and modern classics Akerlof(1984). Through basic study on economics, I would like to understand macro behaviors that have attracted social interests among people. I don't know how many years it takes to write it but I believe it is very important to keep trying.

我が経済学研究

最近、天牛書店（古本屋）で根岸隆『ミクロ経済学講義』を見つけ、３０歳にして始めて読んだ。現段階では読破していないが、非常にスマートで、読みやすい本である。僕向きの本に久々に出会った気がする。もちろん他のテキストでミクロ経済学に習熟していることが、この本の内容を理解するための必要条件になる。

アマゾンのレヴューで、小生はかつて西村清彦氏の『経済学のための最適化理論入門』、成生達彦氏と岸本哲也・吹春俊隆氏の『ミクロ経済学』を評したが、西村本は、勉強を進めるうちにDixitのOptimization in Economic Theoryに代替できると考え、古本屋へ売却した。成生＆岸本・吹春『ミクロ』本はまだ手元にあるが、「そろそろ卒業しなければ」と思いきや記述が簡潔で、教えられることが多く、今だ捨てられないでいる。

西村和雄氏の『ミクロ経済学』（東洋経済）は大学院へ入る前に使っていたが、VarianのMicroeconomic Theoryに代替できると考え、古本屋へ売却。いろいろあたらずに、少数のテキストをじっくり読んで身につけようと考え、他の経済理論本も売却し、ミクロはVarian（1992）とDixit（1990）、マクロはBarro=Sala-i-Martin（2004）とRomer（2006）、斎藤誠『新しいマクロ経済学』（ただし、前の版、1996版）（最近は加藤本も加わった）に絞って集中的に勉強している。２００７年から取り組んで早４年。「大きな本から何も学べない」という加藤涼氏の『現代マクロ経済学入門』（2006）の序文ではないが、小生も全く同感している。いろいろ寄り道せず、最初から上記に絞って勉強すればよかった。

今だよくわかっていない項目もあり、経済学の勉強は平坦ではない。小生は経済学に向いているとはやはり思わないが、それでも続けることに意味があると考え、時間を見つけて勉強に集中するようにしている。

大学ではなく民間の専門学校で経済学を講ずる今の身分は決して安定ではないが、この機会を大いに利用し、更なる経済学研究にまい進していきたい。

ちなみに今の研究テーマは「ミクロの意思決定とマクロ現象ならびに政策の関連性」。

過去は国際金融を勉強しようと考えていたが、これはマクロ経済学の周辺領域であると考えるようになり、マクロを勉強しなおそうとRamseyモデルからやり直した。やがて、マクロ経済学を勉強するうちにこれは「（動学的な）一般均衡理論の応用」だと考えるようになり、ミクロ経済学を消費者⇒生産者⇒市場均衡と順番に勉強しなおした。

そして、ミクロ経済学は「最適化」と「均衡」という２つの要素で構成されていると考え、最適化理論（Maximum Principle&Dynamic Programming）を勉強し始めた。これら現代経済学の根幹（最適化と均衡）について、簡潔に触れているのがSchelling（1978）本だと思うようになった。これはゲーム理論本ではなく、経済と社会現象の見方を論じた社会科学の経典である。もうすぐ日本語訳が出るらしいが、何故３０年もの間翻訳されなかったのが不思議である。しかしながら、Strategy of Conflicts(1960)はまだ読んでいない。（関連本にAkerlof（1984）があるがこれも優れた古典であるが、まだ読破していない。こちらは日本語訳がある。）

非常に大きな研究テーマであるが、小生の中では現代の経済学を「最適化」・「均衡」の観点から簡潔にまとめた文献がないと思う。広くミクロ経済学本ではいくつかあるが、どれも総花的な観が否めず、面白くない。大学院教科書のMasColell（1995）が最たる文献である。

SchellingのMicromotives and Macrobehavior(1978)やBecker&MurphyのSocial Economics（2000）で扱われたテーマを自分なりに解読し、modelを組み、個々人の選好の変化、社会的な好みがマクロ経済にどのような影響を与えるのかを、学部ミクロ＆マクロの知識でも読み解けるぐらいに簡潔にまとめていきたいと思っている。現実に起こっている経済の均衡を理解するためには、ミクロ経済学、マクロ経済学の違い、古典派・ケインズ派の相違を超えて、社会学や心理学といった周辺領域をも統合化しないといけない。

「選好」の研究は決して新しい分野ではなく、既に多くの先行研究が存在している。しかし、少しでも現実社会への視座を広げようとするとき、古いテーマを洗い出すことが必要だと考えている。いまはそのための貴重な時間である。

On Government

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkOcFVBoA-o&feature=related

Cohabitation

This is a new word for me. I think this becomes more important in a modern democracy.

On Facebook

Everyone should read while 'facebooking'.

Thief, Liar and Killer

Why is thief and robber criminal? Because it's the against the law. (Right! but why does the law prohibit it?)

The proper answer is that "if thief is permitted, soon there'll be nothing to steal in the world".

If you can jump a restaurant bill, there'll be no restaurant that serves you in the world. If you can always tell a lie, no one trusts you anymore. If you can kill someone you hate, you'll be killed someday and should be careful!

The point is not because it's against the law, but why it is against the law. The point is not how much you should be punished for thief, but what kind of punishment affects your behavior: If you don't want to be killed, killing should necessarily be prohibited and the killer should be forced to be in jail.

Reference: Schelling(1978), Micromotives and macrobehavior, pp33, "woodcutter and bystanders"

Walkout and Sit In

I've never seen such a students' walkout or sit in in Japan. For me, it is very, very good for students to think about their politics, to discuss the political/social problems, and to do something related to their society even though it actually doesn't change the society at all.

I welcome walkout and sit in. But you guys should attend the class and ask Prof Mankiw to discuss. This is the first task that you should do(even though I missed class as a student and I have no qualification to give such advice).

Anyway I envy you because here in Japan there are (said to be) too many grass-eating young students( those who don't work hard, have no girl/boy friend, and no hope/dream for their future) . It seems that I can't have anything to expect them to make "the second Japan's miracle" come true.

However, I will struggle to study economics in order to have them think about how their society really works and how they should play an important role in the society.

独立自尊

世間の評価に拘泥せず、「権威主義」に陥らず、自己決定できること

On Talk with Communist

Taro: Hey, man! This is my pen, don't take it!

Communist: No, it's not only yours, it's mine also.

Taro: OK...., give it to me, please.

Communist: No, it's mine....

On Crisis

If you think of this situation as a crisis, it should be a crisis.

What is Good, What is Bad?

Depends on you!

Wanna Be Rich?

As an old lesson goes,

getting rich is more often the result of patience than of good luck.

カネ儲けについて

民間企業はもっと「社会貢献」すべきである。しかし、企業はもっと「カネ儲け」をすべきである。「カネ儲け」をもって「社会貢献」とする。これが企業の存在理由である。

近年の不況は東北の震災の影響もあり、長期にわたって続く見込みである。その中で「カネよりも大事なものがある」と言う世の言説に多大な共感と同情が寄せられている。

しかし、我々の生活の中で、企業は「カネ儲け」をすることで、人を雇用し、生産活動に専念し、所得を生み、結果、豊かな消費生活が実現する。それが資本主義経済である。それゆえ、民間企業は「カネ儲け」に専心することがまずもって第一である。

たとえるなら、「カネ」は資本主義経済を動かす「ガソリン」である。ガソリンがないと、車は動かない。同様に、カネがないと我々の生活も立ち行かない。経済にカネが回って初めて世が豊かになる。資本主義こそが、我々に与えられた最後の「生きるための手段」であるのだ。

安物買いの銭失い

安物買いの銭失い」という諺がある。

その意味は、「安いものは品質が悪く、すぐに壊れて買い替える必要があるので、高いものを買うより損だということ。」　

しかし、もう一つ意味があるように思う。「安いものはたくさん買ってしまい、後で不要不急であることに気がつき、結局使わずに捨ててしまうということ。」

１００円ショップ、９９円ショップで買い物するときは要注意。

The Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth

This is the book.

今年５月自殺者が増えた

ウェルテル効果というのがある。

今年５月に自殺者が急増したのは、女性タレントの自殺の影響だった――。清水康之内閣府参与（ＮＰＯ自殺対策支援センター・ライフリンク代表）が４日、内閣府の自殺対策会議でそう報告した。

　減少傾向にあった月別自殺者数が５月、前年比１９．７％増と急伸したため、当時の担当大臣だった蓮舫氏が東日本大震災との関連を含めて内閣府に分析を指示していた。

　その結果、今年初めからの自殺者数は１日平均８２人だったが、人気女性タレントの自殺が報じられた翌日の５月１３日から１週間は１日平均１２４人に増え たことが判明。増加分の半数以上を２０～３０代が占め、女性の伸び率が高かった。清水氏は原因として「女性タレントの自殺と関連報道が考えられる。政府と してはメディア各社にガイドラインの策定を呼びかけるべきだ」と指摘した。

Dynamic Scoring

If you cut the tax, how much income could you increase? This is the theme of this article. This is not only so an interesting, but also a practical issue.

Culture of the Tea Party

Everyone doesn't like tax. Tax has really a great political power; brought the American Revolution, caught Al Capone and caused the World War Two(Hawley-Smoot Tariff).

Happiness Needs Trust

The recent development in economic research tells of what is different from the usual textbook of economics:

What he’s found in comparative studies of nations is that both the level of corruption and the degree of trust in society are important predictors of well-being. “Corruption is a measure of trust in society, and trust, it turns out, should be essential to well-being.”

Countries where the level of trust in society is very low have a lot of difficulty thriving economically—so you need a certain level of trust to get moving.

(Trust) will have an extra contribution to human welfare because happier societies are ones where people trust each other and spend a fair amount of time catering to social needs.”

Still Support Mr. Kan

Prime Minister Naoto Kan survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament on Thursday in the 480-seat lower house by a margin of 293 to 152. He could keep power from reverting to the oppositions, Liberal Democratic Party, Komei Party and Your Party, which sponsored the no-confidence vote. (06/02/2011, The New York Times)

At first, some members (faction) loyal to one of the Democratic Party’s heavyweights, Ozawa Ichiro, appeared to vote for the no-confidence measure. But before the vote Mr. Kan implied that he would step down after fulfilling his political duties, and then many of them decided to vote against it.

Yomiuri Shimbun, the leading newspaper read in Japan, summarized that his winning the vote meant a “life-prolonged treatment” for the Kan Administration. However, I guess it meant rather a “unique choice” left available to the ruling party and the oppositions, and the Japanese people.

If Mr. Kan had lost the vote and dissolved the lower house and held a general election, the Democratic Party might lose and the oppositions might win it, but do they have a stronger leadership than does Mr. Kan to take over him? No! No one knows what will happen “after Kan”.

Should Kan Step Down?

There has been a growing tendency to hope that Mr. Kan will leave the office. But I can’t find the clear reason for his leaving the office and can’t understand the people who request him to leave. Yomiuri Shimbun also agrees to his resignation, and reasons that he hasn’t took the leadership to deal with the Big Earthquake disaster on 11 March, and the nuclear power crisis that the quake caused. However, I can see the reasoning as rather the disguise that the oppositions use to draw him out of the office.

What Kan Faces Now

I reduce the political challenges into three that the Kan Administration should tackle: (1) reconstruction of the disaster area, (2) fiscal reform on tax system and social welfare for the coming aging Japan, (3) negotiation for EPA with EU and TPP with the US. And then I would ask you: could someone else solve the problems? Or help the victims better their situations? First of all, we have to ask these questions for those who agree. It is the voters’ right.

If the Democrats (especially faction closer to Ozawa) requested Mr. Kan to step down, they would have to explain to us who will take over him and what better will happen to us. Moreover, if the oppositions requested that (as Mr.Oshima of the LDP did), and then they promised to cooperate with the Democrats to vote for the government budget, the Democrats would have to ask the explanation for who they think will take the next leadership and what they plan to do for the recovery of the disaster and the large budget deficit. (as Mr.Yamai of the Democratic Party did) That should be the responsibility of the ruling party.

What is a True Leadership?

Kakuei Tanaka, now the legendary ex-prime minister of Japan, the accused in the Lockheed Scandal in the late 1970s, and the father of Makiko Tanaka, Democrat, once said to a reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun, “your job is to accuse me, my job is to be accused by you”, and accepted a dinner with him. This is the episode, an old-timer political pundit, Hisaichi Miyake, introduced on a TV program.

Many blame Mr. Kan for his lack of the leadership, but some years ago, ex-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, whom now many appraise for his strong leadership, was blamed and cast doubt on by the press.

Needless to say, a leader always faces a fierce conflict of interests in his leading party and Parliament, and has hardship in making an important political choice and decision that may have a great influence on many people’s everyday life and status. The larger his party and Parliament, the more time it takes to harmonize the Diet members’ interests and to get his or her to understand and to pass the budget in Parliament. That is what keeps Mr. Kan inactive and slow to tackle the nuclear crisis. Yes, of course, Mr. Kan should have the responsibility to ask the opposites to pass the bills much more quickly.

It is so natural to blame him for his slow action, unclear statements, and weak leadership that might bear a great risk of a political vacuum. In the background of saying that “a leader should be one accused and criticized”, there should be a political responsibility he should take by completing a careful verification and confirmation of whether the decisions he takes a lot of time to make is really consistent to his belief and idea of politics he talks to the people or the pledges he commits. And this is the leadership that we need now and that we ask Mr. Kan to take.

People usually need a leader like “a knight in a white horse”, which means the leader who leads them to the right direction that they really need to take. However, that’s untrue and, we should note that the best friend of decision-making and action in a parliamentary democracy is “time” itself.

It is natural to ask Mr. Kan to take the action much more quickly for the victims who have no house, but his slow decision and action cannot be the critical reason for his resignation. Not only Mr. Kan but all the Diet members should also tackle and solve the problems at the same time. (How many bills have they submitted since the 3.11 crisis? )

Your Platform, Your Trust

Yomiuri Shimbun suggests that the ruling party completely revise the Democratic Party’s platform, what is called “the Manifesto”. We could remember the very hot summer when the Democratic Party won the general election. It was on 30, August in 2009. It won more than half the seats in the House of Representatives.

The reason is not only that people got rid of the political show of alternating Prime Ministers directed and produced by the LDP, but also that the pledges the Democratic Party committed seemed so new and fresh: for example, the restructuring of civil service, monthly allowance to a family with children (¥26,000 per child), cut in gas tax, free tuition for public high schools, banning of temporary work in manufacturing, and halting of increase in sales tax for the next four years and so on. (Democratic Party of Japan; Wikipedia) These had so a large impact on voters that the LDP, ex-ruling party lost the election.

In the background of the birth of the now Kan Administration, there was the irresponsibility of Mr. Hatoyama, ex-Prime Minister (now a harsh critic of Mr. Kan) who promised to draw the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) out of Okinawa, which I think had much more impact on the Japanese people, but later broke this promise and left the office, and of the factions of the Democratic Party who criticize Mr. Kan just as a TV show pundit without regarding themselves as the leaders belonging to the ruling party.

The Manifesto is a promise to the national people. Some of them vote not for the Democratic Party, but for the Manifesto itself. If they would try to revise it, they should ask the will of the people. That’s the way they can keep themselves trustful. Mr. Ozawa insists that he fulfill the Manifesto, and it is worthwhile praising. Politics should be on the base of a “promise to the people” and begins to have the raison deter by fulfilling it. In the case of breaking it, distrust of politics begins to spread among people, and leads them further into the depth of the political chaos, “the merry-go-round Prime Minister”.

Yes, Kan “Kan”.

Politics builds on the basis of the mutual trust between leaders and the people. Some political philosopher might say it is the “contract” between them. That is why the leaders can lead the people. A true leader is not a knight in a white horse, but one who can face harsh critics sincerely. If you request Mr. Kan to step down, you should post what you think to do next beforehand. The press, I think, should also show the public who will be the next possible Prime Minister, and what he or she should do as a good opinion leader in Japan, even though it is so ridiculous.

In conclusion, I support Mr. Kan.Who is better than him as a Prime Minister to tackle the post-crisis political and fiscal problems? Some pundits predict that it will be much more difficult for Mr. Kan to pass the bills because the oppositions will not support him in Parliament. But who can get the support easier? No one can. Only can Kan, right?

Mr. Kan should pass the budget for the reconstruction of the disaster area first and tackle the related problems. That’s the best (or the only) way to avoid a political vacuum in Japan many fear most, and to help better the victims’ health and welfare.

私はそれでも菅首相を支持する

内閣不信任案
菅内閣に対する不信任決議案は２日午後、衆院本会議で採決され、賛成１５２、反対２９３（投票総数４４５、過半数２２３）で否決された。

不信任案は自民、公明、たちあがれ日本の野党３党が共同提出した。菅首相の政権運営や党運営に批判的な小沢氏支持議員らが、野党に同調して賛成する動きをみせた。５月３１日夜に会談した鳩山由紀夫前首相が首相に退陣を要求。小沢氏は１日夜、不信任案に賛成する意向を表明するなど造反の動きが広がり、不信任案可決の公算が大きくなっていた。（産経新聞、６月２日木曜日）

読売新聞（６月３日）の玉井政治部長は、不信任案の否決は「菅内閣の『信任』」を意味しない、という。「期限付きの延命措置」だという。しかしながら、それは、「延命措置」というより「残された唯一の選択」ではなかったか。このまま総選挙をやれば、民主党は負け、自民党が与党になるかもしれない。しかし、その自民党、又は公明、みんなの党に後を引き継ぐだけの指導力を発揮する者がいるだろうか。いなかった、のではなかったか。

何故菅首相はやめなければならないか
「菅首相退陣」、そして「ポスト菅」の期待が高まっている。しかし、私はどうも菅首相がやめるべき理由が見えない。「菅退陣」を声高に言っている人々を正直理解できない。読売新聞は６月３日の社説で「政府与党が一丸となった機動的な震災対応ができない」ことを「菅首相の責任」とし、「首相退陣」の具体的な理由に掲げるが、理由にはなっていない。むしろ、「3.11」が「首相退陣の理由」として、政治利用、つまり与野党の政局に利用されているように見える。

「ポスト菅」の姿とは
今我々が考えるべき政治課題を３点にまとめよう。①震災復興、②税・社会保障の改革、③TPP・EUとのEPA交渉。そして、こう問いかけよう。「菅首相の退陣」によってこれら３点の問題が早く解決するのか。さらに、「菅首相の退陣」はより多くの国民、特に震災の被害者の理解と福祉向上に役立つか。

この点を我々は真剣に政権与党ならびに野党議員に問わなくてはならない。これは有権者たる我々の責任と義務でもある。

そして、民主党内部の一部（小沢グループ他）が「菅首相の退陣」を要求するならば、「ポスト菅」の具体的構想と、「ポスト菅は菅首相よりもいい政権運営ができること」を早急に国民の前に示すことが必要である。「・・・レポート」でもいい。西岡議長による「西岡論文」はただの「首相退陣要求」に過ぎず、「首相退陣後のヴィジョン」を示さなければならない。

さらに、野党が首相の退陣を要求し（自民大島氏）、その引き換えに予算関連法（特例法）案の成立に協力する、というのであるなら、政権与党である民主・国民新党は「ポスト菅」についてどのように考えているのか、対案を示すように野党側に強く要求すべきである（この点は民主山井氏が指摘している）。これこそ、政権与党の責任である。

指導力とはなにか
昔田中角栄元首相は政治記者に「あなたは批判するのが仕事、私は批判されるのが仕事」と言って、政治記者との会食に快く応じた、というエピソードを政治評論家の三宅久之氏が語っていた。

「指導力のなさ」が菅首相に対して言われるが、強力なリーダーシップを評価される小泉首相もかつて「丸投げ」と揶揄され、そのリーダーシップにマスコミは疑義を投げた。指導者は常に様々な利害調整の場に立たされ、難しい選択とその政策実行を迫られる。指揮する組織が大きければ大きいほど、その調整と意思決定には時間がかかる。国会・党・政権内部での見解・意見の相違も当然でてくる。法案成立のため、協力を仰ぐのに時間がかかる。菅首相の法案成立の「鈍さ」はそこにあるのではないか。もちろん、菅首相は野党に早期に協力をしてもらうことを嘆願すべきである（自民谷垣氏に入閣要請しているが、谷垣氏は断っている。）

とにかく、リーダーに対する「対応が遅い」、「発言がはっきりしない」、「政治空白だ」といった非難・批判は、当然のことである。「指導者は批判されるもの」と言う言葉の背景には、なによりも時間のかかる意思決定が、野党との調整もさることながら、常に自らが信条としてきた政策理念または、国民に約束した公約（マニフェスト）と果たして整合性があるのか、という「周到な検証と確認作業」を常々やり通さなければならない政治的責任を背負っていることがある。この政治的責任を全うすることこそ、「指導力」ではないか。菅首相にそれがあるのか問わなければならない。

人は「白馬の騎士」のようなリーダーを求めるが、議会制民主主義における意思決定と実行の最高の友人は「時間」なのである。「時間がかかる」事を理由に「首相退陣」を求めることは、3.11の対応を早くして欲しいと言う世情から当然ではある。が、3.11の対応は、首相だけの問題でなく、全国会議員の政治責任の下で果たされるべき問題であるはずだ。（国会内で、予算関連・震災復興のための議員立法がこれまでいくつ出ただろうか？地元の後援会の写真ばかりHPに載せてる議員の先生方が多いように思うのは私だけだろうか。）

マニフェストの大きさ
ところで、「首相退陣」とならんで、マニフェストの「大胆な見直し」を読売新聞は唱えるが、２００９年８月３０日に第一党として、衆議院議員総選挙で勝ったのは、首相交代劇に明け暮れる自民党政治への苛立ちもあったが、なによりも「子供手当て」に代表される「民主党のマニフェスト」も大きい。そのマニフェストの政策原資は、特別会計などの霞ヶ関「埋蔵金」でまかなうとし、徹底した「無駄の排除」を掲げて「事業仕分け」にも、ややパフォーマンスであったかもしれないが、着手するとした民主党の意思表明は，国民に自民党にはない「新鮮味と爽快感」を与えたのではなかったか。

しかしながら、「普天間基地問題」について自ら責任を取り辞任した鳩山首相に代わり、菅首相が政権運営するにいたった背景には、そうしたある種の国民に与えた「新鮮味と爽快感」を踏み潰した鳩山首相の、思いつきとしかいえない発言の転換と、自分たちが政権を担うと言う気概に欠如し、評論家郡と化した「（小沢系）民主党議員」がいたのではないだろうか。

マニフェストは国民との約束である。民主党よりも、そのマニフェストに票を投じた人もたくさんいよう。もしこれを変更するのなら、民意を問わなければならないのではないか。マニフェストを何が何でも実行する、という小沢氏の姿勢は評価に値する。政治は「国民との約束」の上で成り立ち、それを果たすことこそ政治の存在理由である。これを裏切れば、政治不信は深まり、日本人はさらなる混迷の淵に突き落とされよう。

嘘つきはあなただ！
そう、政治は「信頼」なのであり、「約束」なのである。政治哲学者なら「契約」と言うかもしれない。その時々の情勢で、もしその契約を変更するのなら、事前に報告し、民意を問うのが、政治の信頼を損なわない良策である。

そして、その「約束」に基づき、信任された松木議員の「造反」についても疑問がわく。松木氏に問いただしたい。「先生、『造反』を国民と約束してきましたか」と。横粂議員について、「先生、民主党を離党すると約束されましたか？」と。そして、いささか政治家として「発言の重み」を自覚しない「不信任案に賛成するといって反対に転じた」民主党議員の方々に「あなたがたこそ、嘘つきだ」と。「あなたがたこそ、政治不信の元凶だ」と。

評論家をしたいのなら、議員バッチをはずし、私と同じように民間で活動すべきだ。税金で評論家活動をしないでいただきたい。政治家の仕事は、「菅辞めろ」などという「評論」ではなく、日々日本を取り巻く環境を研究し、関係者のヒアリングを重ね、法律を作り、実行に向けたスキームを国民に示し、国民と対話することである。それができないであるなら、議員辞職すべきである。

菅首相のやるべきこと
真のリーダーとは「白馬の騎士」ではなく、「厳しい批判に真剣に直面できる」人である、と私は考える。メディアのいっていることはやはり間違っているように思う。「菅首相退陣」を求める読売新聞も、「ポスト菅」を示していない。「世論形成」に値する誠意と責任ある報道をやるならば、多少ばかげた空論でもいいから、「ポスト菅」を示すべきだ。

しかし、私は菅首相は辞めるべきでない、と考えている。「第２次予算案・特例法案を成立させ、３．１１対応に全力を尽くすべきである。」この一言に尽きる。誰かもっといい首相候補がいるだろうか。誰が、何を、どのようにするのか。ちゃんと示してから、「首相退陣」を論じるべきだ。菅首相は今ただやるべき上記のことを実行すればよい。これこそが、政治空白を防止し、国民の福祉に寄与する唯一の残された良い選択なのである。

Stagnation and Inflation

Here's Paul Krugman's article. That's awesome!

Worry Makes Us Happy!?

...worry about success causes students to study harder to gain admission to better universities. It makes assistant professors work harder to earn tenure. It leads film makers to strive harder to create the perfect scene, and songwriters to dig deeper for the most pleasing melody. In every domain, people who work harder are more likely to succeed professionally, more likely to make a difference.

Good post! If we face difficult situations to tackle, we should remember that this is the next step we should take.

自殺について

自殺についての詳細なデータである。

（１）自殺死亡率の年次推移をみると、明治32年の5,932人から昭和11年の15,423人までは増加傾向を示しているが、昭和12年から戦時中まで減少傾向となっている。戦後についてみると、ドッジライン以降のデフレ不況（1949～1950）、なべ底不況（1957～58）と第１次平成不況（1991～93）、第２次平成不況（1997～2000）では特に高い推移を示しているように見える。明治以降一貫して、自殺率は増加しているように見える。

（２）性・特定年齢別自殺死亡率をみると、自殺死亡率は男性の方が多く、男性の５０～５４歳台の自殺率の増加が目に付く。

（３）性・年齢階級別死亡数に占める自殺死亡数の割合、自殺の死因順位をみると、平成15年の自殺死亡数の総死亡数に占める割合は、男女とも「25～29歳」が最も高くなっている。

（４）死亡曜日別にみた自殺をみると、月曜日が多く、死亡時間別にみた自殺では、男は「０時台」「５時台～６時台」が多くなっており、女は「５時台～６時台」「10時台～12時台」が多い。月別にみた自殺では、多くの年で４・５月がピークになっており、配偶関係別にみた自殺では、男は平成７年・12年ともに「離別」がすべての年齢階級で高く、女は40歳以上については、「未婚」が「離別」と同程度となっている。

（５）都道府県別にみた自殺では、　最高は男女とも秋田県、手段別自殺死亡数割合では、「首吊り」が最も多く、男女ともに14大都市では「飛び降り」が多くなっており、郡部では「縊首」「薬 物」が多くなっている。

（６）職業・産業別にみた自殺では、「就業者総数」では男32.9、女8.9、「無職」では男70.8、女21.9となっており、特に男の「無職」が高くなっている。また、就業者を職業別にみると、男女ともに「第１次産業」が高くなっている。男では特に「サービス職業従事者」が高くなっている。

非常にラフなまとめであるが、「男で、２０歳代後半、未婚か離別、無職または第１次産業かサービス産業従事者、秋田県在住で、４月か５月の月曜日の明け方５時ぐらいに自殺しやすい」と言う結論が得られる。これが何を物語るのかは分からないが、傾向として見られるようだ。

On Suicide

I am used to watching the newspaper reporting the suicide of the well-known in Japan. I am interested in this social problem because there are some people who don't want to live longer even in one of the economically well- developed countries in the world, Japan.

The Economist seeks the cause a little bit, though it seems to be somewhat frequently pointed out by western people:

The samurai tradition views suicide as noble (though perhaps out of self-interest, since captured warriors were treated gruesomely). Japan's main religions, Buddhism and Shintoism, are neutral on suicide, unlike Abrahamic faiths that explicitly prohibit it.

As is known in Japan, Japanese people have not been more religious. Rather, that may be possible to think of as one of the causes: they are less likely to think that life is something blissful given to us from the heaven, or, that committing a suicide is morally a bad thing as the above excerpt implies.

The Economist goes, Financial concerns are cited in one-fifth of suicide notes; almost half of all suicides are unemployed.

However, the unemployment rate is much higher in France(7.4%) and Germany(7.5%) than in Japan(4.0%). (Data is as of 2008, OECD) It seems to me that unemployment is not so closely related to suicide rate. Economic reason is one of the influential, but is not most influential in the suicide behavior. Anyway, this suicide rate tells that something is wrong with the Japanese society.

Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, and Youtube

Ten years ago, we never had blog, twitter, facebook and youtube. Now we enjoy them everyday and, for many people, joining facebook has became part of their everyday life. Recently I've been busy dropping comments on the facebook and haven't updated this blog.

What does this change in informational technology bring to us?

While updating the blog, I am wondering if we've really changed the world view by using facebook, twitter, youtube and blog: We can so easily catch up with what is happening in the world by using them.

We don't necessarily need to find the people in other place. Use facebook to search whom you want to make friends with. We don't necessarily check up TV programs. Use youtube to find out what we want to watch most. We don't necessarily meet people at the cafeteria to chat. Use twitter to say something trivial. We don't necessarily opine to the press. Use blogger to write down what you have in mind.

Certainly we are now in the world that is different from the ten-year-ago world. Could we have imagined what this world is like ten years ago?

Now we spend our time on some activities that were never experienced ten years ago. Our society and economy must change in some different way. We never imagine what the end will be like. I don't have any pessimistic view on this technologically informational change.

Rather I would feel like writing that our future will be very bright: People talk to each other without any political constraint. In Egypt, people drew down Mubarak from the power. We never thought of it without having this informational change(How could a very large number of people get together immediately?). We now have a powerful tool to change the world view and the world itself.

I try to foresee what this technological change is bringing to us.

Rebuild the Economy

Japan is in a government-financial problem: the government tax revenue is less than the expenditure and issues a lot of bonds to meet the deficit. Japan is in a serious debt. How to solve it?

Just only three ways to have in mind:
(1) raise the tax
(2) cut the spending
(3) boost the economy as a whole

Should try all of these? Should try two of the above? Should try one of the three? Say, if you boost up the economy and raise the tax at the same time, you should spend less and the whole economy goes bad and the tax revenue decreases. So should the economy do if you cut the spending and boost the economy. We seem to have such a trilemma.

Regarding this old and new problem, Alberto Alesina of Harvard University and Roberto Perotti of IGIER might have the hint:

fiscal adjustments

(1) which rely primarily on spending cuts and cuts in government wage bill have a better chance of being successful and expansionary.

(2) which rely primarily on tax increases and cuts in public investment tend not to last and are contractionary.

The above research is empirically derived not theoretically, but (which I think Kan's advisors know) Prime Minister Kan has to know this because he tries the latter to increase the consumption tax and to cut the public spending. Pls don't miss the coming social experiment!

On Growth Strategies

Takeo Hoshi of UC San Diego and Anil Kashyap of the University of Chicago give some remedies for the stagnating Japanese economy:

They say what cause the stagnation are (1) the aging of the workforce, (2) the natural limits to export-led growth, (3) the tolerance of a dysfunctional banking system that supports 'zombie firms', (4) bad fiscal and monetary policy.

They say the policies are needed to improve growth and to raise productivity.

They recommend the following policies:
(1) accepting high-skilled foreign workers to increase the labor force,
(2) promoting more research collaboration between universities, companies and government to help technological progress
(3) enhancing free trade areas to help the industries raise productivity
(4) eliminating the regulatory separation of kindergartens and nursery schools to improve child care services and to encourage more talented people.

These suggestions are very interesting, but these have been already accepted and tried(not enough now, but gradually) by some policymakers. I think these might work if more people vote for them and believe these will help the Japanese economy revive.
The resource: 26/01/2011, WSJ

How To Read the Income Data

The elasticity of son's income with respect to father's income is about 0.5 in the United States.

Regarding this study, Mankiw says that that 0.5 estimate is roughly the correlation between father and son income, ...and that the fraction of variance of son's income explained by father's income (R-squared) is only 0.25 and is called the "heritability" of a characteristic.

...some of the heritability of income must come not from inequality of opportunity but from the genetic transmission of talent. ...it would be shocking if we did not find some significant heritability of income. And that would be true even if equality of opportunity were perfect.

Needless to say, this low income mobility observed in the United States should be (1) the result of the tax system(Americans face lower tax rate than do Europeans) and, in my conjecture, should have been (2) an Americans' motivation to get ahead and, what's more, one of the causes of the dynamism of the American society: people work harder if they can get rewarded larger and longer. If they know they should pay more tax as they earn more, they are less likely to work harder from the outset and thus are more likely to earn at least no more than they used to earn.

I am not sure whether the above data can tell us about the heritability of character or talent(it is clear that we should research more on it to make it sure), and its resource research says nothing about the difference of race, the places where they live, career and education.

At any rate, we should be careful of the income data that we can get from some academic or official researches when we talk about the recent income gap observed in several developed countries.

How To Cut the Deficit

I like Mankiw because he thinks up an interesting (ironic) analogy when he talks about difficult economic issues;

Plan to reduce the budget deficit: the federal government writes me(=health care) a check for $1 billion and increases the tax(=for fiscal sustainability) by $3 billion. This means that giving me that $1 billion will reduce the budget deficit by $2 billion.

This is not about the fiscal problem that America has, but that Japan has:

Plan to reduce the budget deficit: the federal government writes me(=child care) a check for 1 billion￥ and increases the consumption tax(=for fiscal sustainability) by 3 billion￥.

How to Tackle Your Exam

Science 14 January 2011: Vol. 331 no. 6014 pp. 211-213
DOI: 10.1126/science.1199427

Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom
Gerardo Ramirez and Sian L. Beilock*

Simply writing about one’s worries before a high-stakes exam can boost test scores.

Anti-Consumptionism!?

Many young Japanese has not bought goods and service recently: they cut the spending on the fashion and food, don't buy a car, don't go on a trip, and try to save money. They are about to play a big and new role in the goods market in Japan.

Last year a book titled A Study on the Generation of Anti-Consumptionism (this title is translated by Taro and this book is published from Toyokeizai and only in Japanese), and subtitled "Stupid to buy a car, isn't it?" was released and went through several printings.

Anti-consumptionists are the young people of late 20s, and they were born after the bubble economy in late 1980s burst. They have generally a trend toward or taste for less consumption even though they have regular earnings. Interestingly, some of them are low paid part-timers and others have a regular job or full-time job and thus stable earnings.

They consume much less than older generations expect: they don't go to karaoke(to enjoy singing in a room with friends) and a restaurant without coupon, prefer eating at home to eating out and don't like a drink that is harmful to their health.

I found the article on almost the same topic and it said that some of the young people have become"grass-eating men" who prefer clothes and cosmetics to cars, and avoid life in the fast lane. (The Economist, November 20th-26th 2010, special report) So they can also tend to be "grass-eaters", but the men named grass-eaters are generally the ones who don't like making or having girlfriends.

The reason they consume less is, the article says, as follows: when they were teens, they went through the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the subway attack in 1995, the bully in the schools and suicide, the Big Bang in Japan(the reform of financial and banking system) . Especially, they were damaged by the bully in the schools and were forced to be inconspicuous, to read the atmosphere in the schools and to make a shallow friendship with each other.

They tend to fear being made fun of and really want to look smart, which promotes buoyancy and rivalry among them, and thus makes them want to look carefully at others' face and to look nice: Such a common generational experience brings about a common generational mentality, which makes them worry about their future and thus consume less.

The above sounds reasonable, but it seems to me that it doesn't tell what makes them consume less, or what makes them worry about their future. I think there's more an economic cause behind this than a sociologistical or philosophical one.

Many business people are worried about such anti-consumptionists because they consume less and give a negative impact on the economy as a whole; They are more likely to shrink the dampening Japanese economy. However, they are reported to be attracted by the people from abroad and may turn out to be a new Japanese generation who pursues a new and different lifestyle from that of the older generations, as some optimists say.

In my view, a new generation gives a new lifestyle, and changes the structure of preference and thus of demand in the economy, say, in which they change a demand for a peaceful music to a fancy car and TV set.

But in the short term, anti-consumptionism should decrease the aggregate demand of the Japanese economy. Today's newspaper said that almost half of the child benefit offered first by the government this year goes to saving for their children. The child benefit doesn't make them save, but spend more on their children. They save more and consume less, which leads to more depressed economy which forces people to save even more and consume even less. It is called "the paradox of thrift".

Anti-consumptionism may be another or a new version of thrifty lifestyle.

We should need the policy to boost up the economic activity and to stimulate the people's spending in a weakened economy. Anyway, no wonder the Japanese economy will not soon recover from this slump. (Source: Diamond online, 08/12/2010)

Mobile phone in Chaplin's Circus (1928) ?

Many people have been surprised at the scene. I don't think she had a cell phone to make a call.

On Marrying Self

(Reuters Life! 22/10/2010) - Chen Wei-yih will marry herself. Uninspired by the men she's met but facing social pressure to get married, the 30-year-old Taipei office worker will hold the reception next month in honor of just one person.

"Age thirty is a prime period for me. My work and experience are in good shape, but I haven't found a partner, so what can I do?" Chen said. "It's not that I'm anti-marriage. I just hope that I can express a different idea within the bounds of a tradition."

Taiwanese women are marrying later and less often as their economic status advances, fuelling government concerns about a drop in the birth rate and its impact on productivity.

Only 40 percent of women surveyed earlier this year by the education ministry said they imagined married people could live better than singles, local media said.

But as Chen cannot officially register a marriage to herself, if she finds a man later she will wed again."If I had a steady boyfriend, I wouldn't do this," Chen said. "it would be offensive to him, anyway."

When I read the above post, it was so interesting and I was a little surprised that we could marry ourselves: I didn't have such an idea!

Some people who firmly trust tradition may say that this is not called a wedding and marriage and that she just wanted to attract public attention; Some of them may feel bad about or resist it. Marriage should come true when men and women love and agree with each other on it; Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship.

However, recently it has not been unusual for some men/women to get married with some other men/women and it is called the same-sex marriage. I do not say that it is good or not and I have no idea about it, but I know that some people may feel bad about it and that it is open to dispute. Self marriage might also catch public attention and new discussion.

By the way, when I studied economics, my professor said that getting married is just like finding a job. Now I see. Before getting married, we have to find a good partner; We can't marry a bad partner. It's almost the same in finding a good job: we can't work for a bad company all day long.

In my opinion, if the self marriage is a good/the best choice of life for you and it doesn't violate others' interest, health and property, I believe you can do it without any other restriction /obstruction. I don't understand those who want to marry themselves though(we can't have a good night without a good partner!), but if they are satisfied and they don't disturb others' lives, I have no reason or I can't find any reason for disagreement on it. Do whatever they want and be happy!

Nobel Prize 2010

I hope the Nobel prize of economics will go to Nobuhiro Kiyotaki of Princeton as the first Japanese Nobel winner.

Facebook Unfriending

I saw an interesting post in the newspaper. One grad student found some reasons for Facebook unfriending.

Facebook is, as you know, a worldwide social online networking where friends meet to share photos, news and gossip .

The word 'unfriend' came from Facebook and it is defined as “to remove someone as a 'friend' from a social networking site such as Facebook.”

The reasons for Facebook unfriending are as follows:

No.1: frequent, unimportant posts.

No2: posting about polarizing topics like religion and politics.

Moreover, the research found that those making friend requests stood a much higher chance of being abruptly unfriended and that at the same time, those doing the unfriending seemed to hold the upper hand in the relationship.

I think this may be something helpful for some other research on how to keep better relationship between, say, employees and employers in the labor market, men and women in the marriage market, and so on.

At any rate, Facebook itself is UNIMPORTANT. People just enjoy unimportant posts, don't they? They just break boring time. I believe in our life we sometimes need unimportant things as well as important things.

BOJ Follows Roger Farmer?

NY times(05/10/2010);TOKYO — In a surprise move Tuesday, the Japanese central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate to a range of 0 percent to 0.1 percent, a tiny change from its previous target of 0.1 percent but a symbolic shift back into an age of zero interest rates.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) also said it would set up a fund of ¥5 trillion, or $60 billion, to buy Japanese government bonds, commercial paper and other asset-backed securities amid concerns about weakening growth in the economy, the world’s third largest, after those of the United States and China. The bank also kept its credit facility for banks at ¥30 trillion.

According to the one book written by Roger E. A. Farmer of UCLA, How the economy works,Oxford University Press, Roger says in this book,

"Control of an index fund(=mutual fund*) is the ideal way to implement this idea(=stabilizing stock market movements and preventing them from devastating the real economy),..."pp.159
*mutual fund : a basket with some stocks, bonds and other assets

"To maintain the interest rate, Fed(=US central bank) intervenes in the market by buying and selling Treasury bills(liabilities issued by government) in exchange for money,... (and at the same time) announces a price path for index funds and stands ready to buy and sell these funds each day at the announced price." pp.160

However, BOJ didn't announce the purchase of index funds/mutual funds and didn't say it follows Prof Farmer, but when I heard this news tonight I recalled Farmer; it seems to me that BOJ's announcement of purchase of Japanese government bonds, commercial paper and other asset-backed securities will have similar effects on the economy to what Prof Farmer's suggested.

I am not sure what Farmer says is going to happen in the Japanese economy when BOJ seeks the above new policy measures, but I would like to watch what's going on.

By the way, the press seemed surprised at the BOJ announcement, as Hirokata Kusaba of Mizuho Research Institute says, “The latest move gives off a much more powerful impression than past, incremental measures, which had sparked market disillusionment”

“Though there will be debate over the effects of the monetary loosening, I believe the Bank of Japan has done all it can at this time”

At the same time we can say that BOJ has no more policy tool to shore up the economy, as Richard Jerram of Macquarie Securities says,

“despite the (BOJ's) exaggerated language claiming that this is radical,...BOJ is apparently acting reluctantly and de-emphasizing the temporary nature of the measures, which is likely to limit the impact" and “There is a stark contrast with the Fed’s ‘whatever is necessary’ approach.” **The parentheses are added by Taro.

At any rate I am sure that this BOJ's action will soon lead to a widespread debate among economists and policymakers all over the world.

Behind the Boom of Brain Training

What is called 'brain training' or 'logical thinking' is booming among the people in Japan.

I don't know whether I should say 'brain training' and 'logical thinking' in the same context (these words may be quite different to some people), but anyway I can see many books titled 'brain training' and 'logical thinking' in the amazon.com.

It shows that many people want to become more brainy/smarter than ever, doesn't it? I try questioning myself about it and it seems to me that many people, especially business people as well, think that they should be smarter on their own in their everyday life.

I don't know if it is good for them to become brainy. Let me assume some situation of chat: while we are chatting, I always try asking, "what is it?", "what do you mean by this?", "it doesn't make sense", "that part of your tale sounds illogical", and so on. It is as if we were always in a discussion/meeting in class at school. I would get tired if I were always asking and questioning while chatting.

The issue I would raise is," do we really have to be smarter/thinking logically everywhere and every time in our life?" To be honest, I am not sure if we should do.

I don't always respect people trying to be rational or logical: I would like to ask such a king of people, "what part inside you do you defend?" It seems to me that they are likely to care themselves only, or that they just try to look nice and smart. It is just as if I dressed up.

This effort for trying to be smart is a kind of the waste of the time and money. Anyway it doesn't always help.

What 'efficiency' means?

In bookstores, I can always see some books on 'an efficient resource management' or 'efficient corporate governance' or 'efficient blah blah blah'.

By the way, what do you mean by 'efficient blah blah blah'? I don't understand it at all! What is efficient? Are you efficient? Hmm...I have no idea.

My English dictionary tells me that it means 'working well'. It's a good answer and most people who say 'efficient blah blah blah' probably may mean so by it.

However, economics tells me somewhat different definition of it: efficient means 'happier'. It's a little ambiguous and it sounds subjective although economics deals with objective social problems, but for me it is rather a correct way of using this word.

When I think of what to change in my life, say, what to cut down on in my spending, what to throw away in my bookshelf and how much to drink in this bar and so on, I usually think of 'the Pareto-efficient' and it means 'happier', say, "if I drink a little more, to what extent will I be happier?".

Usually this word is used on the public policy conducted by policymakers and the effects on the economy and the people's lives: Assume there are two people, A and B and they try to trade each other. If A can't be better off/happier than ever unless A tries to make B worse off/less happier, A is in the 'Pareto-optimal/efficient' condition and vice versa.

Pareto is an Italian sociologist in the 19th century and the Pareto efficiency is used when economists think about the deals between some people, that is, an 'inter-personal' trades, but it's not the wrong usage when I talk of an 'intra-personal' trades between today's Taro and tomorrow's Taro on what or how much to choose to eat/drink*.

Anyway in terms of economic thinking, an 'efficient resource management' should be the one that makes the people related to it happier/more satisfied, rather than that reduces the cost and raises the profit.

*Some alert readers may say, "if you want to talk about Pareto-optimum/efficiency, you should touch on the Edgeworth box, contract curves, core and the first/second theorem of welfare economics". I know I should use these ideas if I talk about it formally.

The Fall Comes

Looking at the above picture, I feel the fall has come. The man in the picture who harvests rice for a festival is, with all due respect, our emperor. (The picture is from Jiji press.)

Money is Important, But...

In some major countries like the US, Germany and here Japan, it is not easy to get a new and good job. Many people fear that they will have no job and lower pay. Some of them may also fear that they will have no more moderate and stable life.

Everyone hopes that he or she will have a good job. What I mean by 'a good job' is, of course, high-paid job.

However, some people may say that money is not so important as we expect in our life. There are many different views on that, but to live a healthy life in our modern society, making money should be considered first like this, "how much can I earn by working for your company?"

Here in Japan, maybe, in some other countries, there's a saying: "well fed, well bred". When surfing the web, I found another saying, "manners and money makes a gentleman", "poverty is an enemy to good manners."

Our job or career should be always our major concern in our life and when thinking about living a good life not to feel poverty, we must rethink of our current job and career, "will we be able to keep it for long?".

Good job depends on what we think as a good job, but how much we earn is always first concern and we can't tell a lie on it like,"money is not important, but happiness is always important." Happiness and money must be closely connected each other(and some research prove it) and needless to say, there's no happiness in a one-dollar-in-a-day life.

However, at the same time, there's happiness in a one-million-dollar-in-a-day life, isn't there? That should be another question to think of. Personally I can't imagine what it is like to be such a life, but there may be another problem, say, on how to manage to choose what kind of assets or how to inherit their property to whom.

In my opinion, I am happy that I can eat, read and sleep in a house with a well-built roof. I don't hope too much that I will live in luxury (I would like to live in luxury, having nice dinner and drink and bedroom), but I actually hope I will live a simple and stable life. If I can't live such a life now, then I should take some action to better it and that time should make me think money important in my present life. (No inflation is considered now. If there's the fear of inflation, my above view will be quite different. Behind my view the value of money, the purchasing power of money is important, not money itself when considering what kind of life we would like to lead.)

I believe that saving money doesn't mean just cutting down on our expenditure(cutting down on our standard of living makes no sense!), but thinking carefully of what to buy.

Some commentators on TV or in today's newspapers suggest that we should save money for our uncertain future life, but our future is always uncertain and the most certain thing on the future is that the future is always uncertain. And that's why we should think carefully of what we need most in today's life.

Don't be afraid of our future life too much, yes of course, we need to think of it, but thinking too much is not so helpful when we face some difficulties in our career. We should think of what we can do now because it is clear that we can't do what we can't do now.

If we think that we need something for our current or future job, we should now be studying or preparing for it(there's no money but there's much time! Time is also as important as money in our life), and if we need higher paid job to keep our current life stable, we should be looking for it in the job advertisement on the Internet or in the newspapers.

Please don't be influenced by someone near us(otherwise, you will be hurt!), just listen to or sometimes pretend to listen to what other people mean. However, some advise should be listened to. We remember they don't always think of us or they don't always try to be helpful to us. They just talk about what they want to talk(they just break time!). We should keep in mind that finally"do it yourself". Don't take too much time to talk about ourselves to someone, take time for us to prepare for another chance in the future.

Money is important but it doesn't choose our life. Moreover other people don't choose our life at least here in Japan and in some developed and democratic countries where the law protects our freedom to choose our career. Our life chooses our money. 　

'Frosh' means 'Fresh'

While reading my favorite blog, I was sure I found the wrong spelling in it.

'Frosh' should spell "Fresh".

But I looked up the online dictionary, it has that word: 'frosh' means 'a freshman in a college.' My dictionary doesn't have it. Why not a freshman is 'frosh'? These sound very different. I am not so serious though, just I am wondering why.

It's an American English word. I realize that there's really a lot in the world that I don't know.