The
Abe Government made decisions in the cabinet meeting June 15 on the Basic
Policy on Economic and Financial Management, which is of the sixth round of release
since his second cabinet was organized. The meeting approved the Strategy for Future
Investment, too. We must watch carefully a chorus of commercial media that claim
financial reconstruction efforts will soon reduce budgets for public services.
JAPANESE
SOCIETY WILL BE POROUS AS SUPPLY SIDE IS REINFORCED
In
the current Basic Policy on Economic and Financial Management the target year set
for Fiscal 2020 is postponed to 2025: a year when primary balance (PB) in the
financial performance of the state and local governments will record a surplus.
A prerequisite is presented in the form of an economic growth rate, which sets a
nominal rate as 3% and a real rate as 2%. The target has only been achieved
once for these years since 2012. The government must withdraw a fantasy figure
to cheat people.
Survival
is in Danger
Crisis
in people’s economic life deepens; due to aggravation of labor laws, a rapid
increase of irregular workers and policies which favor high-income individuals
and Big Business. The number of child births falls down year after year, which
recorded as low as 940 thousand in 2017.
In
parallel with shrinkage of domestic market, globalized and trans-nationalized super-big
monopolies extended production activities overseas – this fact has been decreasing
internal employment. Responsibility of politics lies in here; to stop this tendency
and to show a prospect for the future to make people get relieved. In short, that
is intensified redistribution of wealth to boost consumptions.
The
June’s plan specifies the scheduled surge of consumption tax rate in October,
2019. And the government says it will take measures to cope with a possible
decline in the demand side.
The
consumption tax surge should be cancelled.
The
government, however, stated to reinforces the supply side, which is completely contradictory.
It urges to employ female and elderly workers as well as foreign workers. The
government attempts to increase low wage workers and let them compete each
other.
Let’s
look at a description of Revolution in Productivity in the policy. It comes
from the Strategy for Future Investment. This strategy is a version of another
one in the past, the Strategy on Reconstruction of Japan. IT and robot
technologies are appraised without any criticisms. This strategy inherits from the
Fifth-round Basic Plan on Science and Technology, which was approved by the
cabinet meeting in January, 2016.
The
plan, which is full of IT terminologies, is integrated to the succeeding strategies.
The most current version of strategy says ‘a digital revolution is a world trend’,
emphasizing changes fierily in all fields, including people’s life, industries,
administrative structures, local communities and human resources.
Society
5.0
According
to the Fifth Basic Plan, an ultra-smart society, Society 5.0, comes;
‘a
society that could offer necessary things and services to a person who needs
them when he/she needs and in an amount he/she needs, this is a society that
could respond to various social needs in a careful way, a society in which all
people could enjoy high quality services and live actively and comfortably.’
In
fact, however, we live in a society in which workforce is squeezed on a global
scale and middle class people collapse.
In
the meeting where the strategy was agreed, Mr. Kanemaru Yasufumi, a member of
the Council on Future Investment, told:
‘Common
sense of the 20th century is thoughtless in the 21st
century. The legal system must not hinder creativity and potential to cope with
changes that Japanese people have by nature.’ He meant further deregulation in
the labor policy in his comment.
Let’s
pay attention to one more point. It is a target figure for
medium-and-small-sized businesses which the strategy offers. The government encourages
these companies to possess more business entities abroad.
July
3, 2018
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