(Odaiba [meaning the mound for gun batteris], Tokyo)Financial Sector Takes 40% of US Total Earnings
In the blog of Mr. Hiroshi Kumagai, a retired politician who assumed office as Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan in 1994, I found an interesting article.
He introduced an opinion of a Japanese businessman in his 30’s whom Mr. Kumagai regards as a nationalist.
According to Mr. Kumagai’s observation, Japanese living in foreign countries often come to become patriotic and intensify their pride in nationality.
The young Japanese businessman extended some interesting views on the U.S. economy Mr. Kumagai seems to profoundly agree on:
- The policy of workers in the US financial sector is “profits for themselves and risks for clients.”
- This policy has inevitably derived from the principle (based on mistrust in a business circle) the US financial industry has long adopted: “The highest priority must be put on short-range profits.”
- The lax finance practices nourished by the Anglo-Saxon culture has led to worship of money or faith in power of money in handling any matters in the US society.
- As even top managers of US financial institutes can be promptly fired if a quarter result of his performance is poor, the present moral hazard in the US financial sector is deeply rooted and widely prevailing as a matter of the nature of US corporations.
- The big boom around Mr. Barack Obama, while the racial prejudice still persists in the US society, is a proof of how badly desperate poor European Americans are now feeling.
( http://www.kumagai.ne.jp/column/entry.php?entry_pkey=906 )
It is very understandable that the power of money can be all the more powerful in a society full of different races.
If you live in a society where many people from different cultures and traditions are surrounding you, you may simply find the most effective common language is money.
And, when you see poor neighbors, if their colors of the skin and habits of living are so different from yours, you may not have big sympathy with them.
And now, poor European Americans have been long watching the US President who is European American but not has much sympathy even for poor European Americans, while the President does not seem to be very good at reading and writing.
Then, it may be natural that poor European Americans feel like avenging themselves against one of the richest and the luckiest fellow of the same race, namely the US President Mr. George W. Bush, by voting for an African American Presidential candidate, namely Mr. Barack Obama who is good at reading, writing, and speaking.
If Mr. Obama has a strong tie behind the scene with Wall Street or the US financial sector, those voters must think that it is still better to elect him as President; it is because Mr. Obama has an inherent weak point, being of a minority, and that tender spot makes him look like sharing some unhappiness with those voters.
Indeed, poor European Americans must be thinking that choosing an African American can be the most hard-hitting revenge on rich European Americans, including President Mr. George W. Bush.
Nonetheless, I suppose that this tactics by poor European Americans is disputable.
It is a racial card that they have taken up. But, the issue is the nature of the Anglo-Saxon culture. What they need is probably an Anglo-Saxon hero who can correct it by persuading other Anglo-Saxons.
Mr. Barack Obama would claim that it is not an Anglo-Saxon issue but an American issue.
Yet, I suppose that a possible Anglo-Saxon hero would regard it as an Anglo-Saxon issue rather than an American issue.
Finally, if no such an Anglo-Saxon hero emerges forever and Mr. Barack Obama cannot address the case from a standpoint of regarding it as an American issue, the U.S. will follow suit of the Roman Empire in a more accelerated manner.
(The Roman Empire lost the power of maintaining uni-polar domination. But, interestingly, some historians who cannot understand how much other tribes got stronger tend to think that the Empire made wisely a choice for promoting the multi polarized world.
However, the stern fact is that the Empire did not ruin itself on purpose, but they simply failed because their relative power against other tribes got weaker.
Indeed, Japan, China, Russia, India, Islamic oil producing states, and Brazil combined together have made the power of U.S. relatively and critically weaker.)
At the end of the blog article, Mr. Kumagai wrote that his young friend told him that "business earnings of the US financial sector account for 40% of all the business earnings in the U.S., while workers in the financial sector account for only 5% of the total US employees, which means that the US economy is losing a certain fundamental."
So, I have checked some data to confirm it in the site of The Bank of Mitsubishi-Tokyo UFJ, Ltd. as presented below.
(Click to enlarge.)http://www.bk.mufg.jp/report/ecomon2008/monthly_us20080613.pdf
(As it looks so sweeter than wine, tomorrow I may visit the Edogawa River at the bank famous for a series of movies featuring a stranger out of nowhere called "Tora," though you may stay at home since Tokyo is now heavily guarded due to the coming G8 Summit…
http://www.mh-friends.com/shop/index.cgi?No=52849)
Luk 16:8 And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
Luk 16:9 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.