(Tokyo Bay)One Step or 56 Steps Short
A Japanese female singer walked the Grand Canyon, following well managed trails with some Americans as televised by NHK tonight in Japan.
As she reached a camp site set on an uphill slope, she checked a pedometer which showed 55499. She, so tired, simply said, "Oh, it is so much! Look, 55,499 steps!"
But, she did not look like realizing that it was one step short of 55,500 or 56 steps short of 55,555.
One's life might be often as such, namely one step short or 56 steps short of 55,555 after ascending 600 or 700 meters taking several hours.
Anyway, the Japanese female singer looked happy, convincing herself that she discovered true American land, though the Colorado River basin cannot be a symbol of America. She should go and walk down the Mississippi from Chicago to New Orleans through Dallas, in my humble view, taking 5,555,555 steps.
SECTION I: Japanese Financial Challenge
At the end of 2009, the total amount of the debts of the Japanese Government reached 592 trillion yen or $6.37 trillion.
There are now many discussions about this issue in Japan, even over the Internet.
Ratios of Outstanding Government Bonds over GDP as of 2009
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JAPAN.........189.6%
USA....;...;..... 87.4
UK.....;...;..... 75.3
Germany.........78.2
France.........86.4
Italy.........122.9
Canada.........77.7
(Source: OECD Economic Outlook 85)
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However, Japan has a huge surplus in the balance of international payments, since Japanese businesses are strong in international-market competition:
Balance of Current Account in 2008
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JAPAN.........(+ 156.6 billion dollars
USA....;...;..... (- 706.1
UK.....;...;..... ( -45.6
Germany......... (+ 243.6
France......... (- 52.9
Italy......... (- 78.0
Canada......... (+ 27.3
China......... (+ 426.1
India......... (- 9.4
(Source: http://www.stat.go.jp/data/sekai/10.htm#h10-01)
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The easiest way to address the Japanese financial deficits is asking more financial contribution from Japanese businesses.
Public financial contribution by businesses in the form of a sum of tax and social security fees is as follows:
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Japan......7.6%
Germany....9.1%
Italy.....11.7%
France....14.0%
(http://www.wako.ac.jp/souken/touzai06/tz0614.pdf)
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A level of corporate tax in Japan is relatively high, but their contribution to social security fees is deplorably low.
If Japanese businesses pay as much as they do in France to the Government, the Japanese Government can collect 32 trillion yen or $344 billion more per year from this revenue source.
Yet, to cope with challenges from foreign businesses in the international market, Japanese businesses are requesting the government to lower corporate tax.
One thing sure is that the Japanese Government alone cannot solve this huge-deficit issue, though domestic parties have 95% of these debt claims and foreigners have just 5% in stark contrast with Greece and the U.S. Japanese businesses must join the government in this effort.
Another way is to adopt EEE-Economics proposing separation of taxation and governmental expenditures. The Japanese Government have to simply buy back outstanding bonds with yen bills exchanged with government bills through the Bank of Japan. The value of yen might fall to 120 yen per dollar, but Japanese businesses will of course survive with more profits from export.
This huge deficit of the Japanese Government can be turned to a huge advantage of Japanese businesses.
SECTION II: Qing (Ching) and Japan
The Ching dynasty (1616-1912) was not established by Han Chinese but by Manchu.
Yet Manchu did not destroy Chinese traditions. Chinese letters and literature were preserved by the Sinicized Manchu government.
But, the literacy rate in Ching is estimated to be about 3 to 4%, partly based on estimated sales of writing brushes.
In the same period, Japan was governed by the Tokugawa samurai clan, specifically between 1603 and 1867. The literacy rate in the last samurai era of Japan is estimated to be about 40% to 51% for men and about 15% to 21% for women.
China has been always a class society where almost no framers could read and write till the 20th century, while Japan has been a more flexible society where 90% of the people could read and write in 1900.
The big difference between the two countries is, from a Japan's viewpoint, that Chinese could not invent kana-alphabets which in Japan have helped children learn reading and writing more easily before using Kanji (Chinese) letters.
Another big difference between the two is that Ching and other classic Chinese dynasties had no paradigms such as sovereign power, territories, national borders, and even clear racial distinction unlike Japan surrounded by seas.
Their main paradigm is the distinction between cultivated China and surrounding wild worlds, though only handful Chinese elites monopolized culture, wealth, and power, suppressing a great majority of farmers. They even despised craftsmen.
In this background, the Ching dynasty fell in the early 20th century, leaving great chaos especially in Manchuria where Russians and Japanese confronted each other, while Manchu and Chinese left in this northeast region of the Chinese continent were mainly poor farmers who had almost no idea about what a nation is.
Then, the very controversial, artificial country Manchukuo was built in this mother land of the Ching dynasty in 1932 by the Empire of Japan as an independent nation outwardly, though Han Chinese also seems to have had no grounds for claiming the region as their own.
(However, today, Manchu people are almost absorbed by Han Chinese in the three northeast provinces of China, better or worse.)
Anyway, whether Manchukuo was included in the geographical concept of China or not had an important effect on the Pearl Harbor Attack in 1941.
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Now the Japanese Government is so striving to stop the spread of foot-and-mouth disease among livestock, mainly in West Japan.
A decade ago, six million cows and other animals reportedly underwent slaughter disposition in England.
Now, 200,000 cows and pigs are expected to go through the same fate in Japan.
This ominous incident could influence the Hatoyama Cabinet.
However, remember the swine influenza has been well suppressed globally and especially so effectively in Japan, while the regime change was going on in Japan.
"Hato" means a pigeon or a dove in Japanese. Prime Minister Mr. Yukio Hatoyama should be more prepared for security incidents, since the military super-power America cannot be necessarily the only bad guy in the world, even in his paradigm of the East China Sea of fraternity.
Anyway, it is now at 00:09 of Thursday in Japan Standard Time; Thursday is superseded by Friday which is superseded by Saturday, and only Sunday is enough for a thrill, if not in the Grand Canyon, checking every step.
(http://www.saturn-soft.net/Music/Music1/MIDI/Folk/Bashana.mid
Source: http://www.saturn-soft.net/Music/Music1/MIDI/Folk/Menu.htm
A traditional "Jewish" or Israeli song is not offesnive at all. But, so different from Arabic melodies it is. )
Luk 5:18 And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him.
Luk 5:19 And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.
Luk 5:20 And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.