New Hero for New Era
Mr. Dick Cheney said that Mr. Obama is one-term president.
If economy is improved, they might not need Mr. Barack Obama any
more.
If economy is not improved, they might not need Mr. Barack Obama any
more, either.
But, if President Mr. Barack Obama is able to pull out all the American troops from Afghanistan, making the Taliban and Iran pro-American, he will be re-elected.
However, he has till guaranteed three years in any case.
SECTION I: The Tokugawa Clan and TOYOTA
Before the start of modernization or Westernization of Japan in late 1860's, Japan was under a samurai regime of the Tokugawa clan.
The Tokugawa clan was originally a minor feudal samurai lord in the late 16th century when their great leader Ieyasu emerged.
Their territory was around Shizuoka to Nagoya, a coastal area facing the Pacific Ocean between Kyoto and Tokyo.
Ieyasu waited for his time wisely following powerful leader Oda Nobunaga, though assassinated before unifying Japan, and then strategist Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Just after 1600, Ieyasu finally destroyed the regime and force of Hideyoshi's successors through battles at Osaka.
Ieyasu established a samurai regime that lasted for 260 years, setting the administrative capital of Japan in Edo, currently called Tokyo.
The organization and systems of the Tokugawa government functioned well even after the closure of the nation in 1639. But, it had one unique feature.
The Tokugawa clan would not change its traditional style and systems of administration since they had been a minor feudal samurai lord in the late 16th century. Even after they unified Japan and started to control the whole nation from Edo, they simply implanted their old domestic administrative systems and style into the new government. For more than 250 years, the successive Tokugawa shoguns (samurai kings) governed Japan using an administrative machine whose architecture and systems were the same as those of the era when they had just occupied a local territory generations ago.
In their world, preceding examples were extremely observed as a token of ancestor worship. Accordingly, they did not change their political style and management machine. They governed Japan as if they had been governing their own house for 250 years.
Interestingly, Toyota Motor Corporation was originally established in the local area where the Tokugawa had grown, thus setting its headquarters in Nagoya but not in Tokyo. Toyota might be still deploying in the U.S. and global markets without changing a management paradigm its founder and past leaders had adhered to.
In short, Toyota had better adopt a new philosophy, since the Tokugawa clan finally lost power when a great wave of Westernization reached Japan.
Though the great country-samurai-type or family-business-type regime of the Tokugawas survived two and half centuries, Toyota executives should go to Bhutan to learn the guiding philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH) Bhutan's former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck originally advocated in 1972.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness
SECTION II: Earthquakes in the Korean Peninsula
In 1980's, the Korean Peninsula observed 157 earthquakes.
In 1990's, the Korean Peninsula observed 259 earthquakes.
In 2000's, the Korean Peninsula observed 436 earthquakes.
In 2009, they measured an earthquake 60 times in the peninsula, which is the largest since 1978 when the Korean Meteorological Agency started observation of earthquakes.
(http://blog.kajika.net/?eid=996032)
Yet in 1976 a great earthquake occurred between North Korea and Beijing, taking on 240,000 lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tangshan_earthquake
Let us pray that no earthquakes will hit Japan, South and North Koreas, and China any more.
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Too much reliance on issuance of national bonds makes wider the gap between the rich and the poor.
It is so, since it is only the rich that can purchase national bonds and receive interest being paid from the national budget financed by tax and the bonds.
Constitution of any country should declare that the the government must not make the rich richer by sacrificing the poor.
Otherwise, constitution in the 21st century must have an article that imposes on the government a mission to make the poor rich.
A man does not belong to a country called the Poor-Dom or the Rich-Dom, he belongs to, say, Japan, Israel, etc.
Mar 2:22 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.
Mar 2:23 And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn.
Mar 2:24 And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?
Mar 2:25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him?