Three guesses and the first two don’t count
Posted by ampontan on Thursday, August 19, 2010
UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO economics Prof. Ihori Toshihiro writes in the 18 August edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun:
There are more public employees at the sub-national level than at the national level. Some of those employees, such as drivers for state-operated transport and janitorial and sanitation workers, have higher salaries than their counterparts in the private sector. Reducing the personnel costs of sub-national public employees would result in savings estimated to range from five to 10 trillion yen.
The largest support group for the Democratic Party is Jichiro, the All Japan Prefectural and Municipal Workers Union, and for them, this is a sanctuary. How will the government proceed?
Their choices:
1. Bring public sector salaries in line with private sector salaries. Some estimates have the public sector earning 40% more than the private sector in Japan.
2. Raise taxes—including the consumption tax, income taxes on higher earners, and the inheritance tax—during a deflationary period and pretend that using it in “the right places” will create growth.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku Yoshito, the de facto head of the Kan administration, is also the leader of a Diet group affiliated with Jichiro.
Which do you think the DPJ government will choose?
Based on the impact that choices made by people with a similar political philosophy have had on the American economy, how much worse will economic conditions in Japan then become?
21st Century Schizoid Man said
2.
21st Century Schizoid Man said
and, becomes a sort of greece. (some say japanese government securities are mostly held by japanese so japan is different from greece. I did not get a point.)
mac said
I suppose 3 does not exist?
3. raising the private sector 40% to match the public sector earnings
I don’t know, the whole employment scene in Japan boggles my mind.
On one hand, there seems to be huge over-employment, e.g. 4 guys with stick waving drivers and pedestrians past 1 guy digging a hole in the road, and huge public over-spending, e.g. all those concrete fortresses lining every kilometer of every coastline, paddy field or mountain stream.
On the other hand, there seems to be a huge number of empty shop, bars, restaurants and old buildings.
So what is your bigger picture Bill … cut their wages, unemploy them all and leave them to the tough love ravishings of global capitalism? There would seem to be only so many 4 seater coffee shops any society can absorb.
I can see an old fashioned logic to higher pay for the traditional wage earning male. In a way, one is not paying one man, one was supporting a family unit that worked together to make one man’s work possible.
Is the greater crime not that of Koizumi’s American import, breaking the ‘jobs for life’ social contract and bring in short-term, insecure and low-paid agency work where workers can be abused at a distance via third parties?
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#3 means that, assuming the businesses that implement it don’t go bankrupt because their operating expenses are too high, the public will pay for that, too. Companies won’t eat that expense, nor should they.
It’s almost as if some people think money grows on trees.
Cutting their wages does not leave them to the ravages of global capitalism. Followed to its logical conclusion, it would mean a tax reduction that would mean more people have more money available for their own use, permitting growth in the real economy.
There is some compelling reason that everyone has to pay more for a government janitor than a janitorial services company janitor?
There is some compelling reason that everyone has to pay for a public sector employee for whom there is no need?
There is no compelling reason to expect people to take responsibility for their own lives?
Why not just quit screwing around with the justifications, confiscate the money at gunpoint, and distribute it equally?
After all, that worked out so well before, didn’t it?
- A.
Roual Deetlefs said
Ampontan
So Japan has its “kripvreters” too ?
It’s a derisory Afrikaans term for state employees.
It had its origins in the Anglo-Boer War. Maybe even before that.
You pronounce it “crib” + “free” + “terrs” = cribfreeterrs (more or less)
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RD: Some think that taking control of the political process from the national bureaucracy, known as Kasumigaseki from the Tokyo district where many of their offices are located, is the biggest issue in Japanese politics today. In addition to that link to the Your Party platform that I gave you yesterday, try hitting the posts under the Kasumigaseki tag for more. (And there are even more that predate those before I started using tags.)
- A.
Thomas J. Webb said
3. Don’t raise taxes but print more money to pay for it.
The only politically possible thing to do is what European countries have been forced to do – keep the ridiculous pay, but eliminate the positions. Basically, when state employees retire, don’t replace them. It’s a slow fix, though.
What’s the closest thing Japan has to a party that’s fiscally conservative and socially liberal?
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TJW: Thanks for the note.
That combination, without people who are fiscally liberal and socially weird, is hard to find in one party. Your Party might come close, but they don’t put their views about social or cultural issues at the forefront.
Also, defining “social liberal” in a Japanese political sense is not easy to do. Gay marriage and abortion are not flashpoints here. The closest issue to that seems to be whether to allow women to keep their maiden names after marriage.
The DPJ wants to set up a human rights commission of the sort they have in Canada, which is very dangerous (under one proposal it would have the right to enter premises for search and seizure without court permission). The justice minister, who just lost her election, is in favor of it, but Mr. Kan kept her on.
In contrast, there seem to be more cultural conservatives, i.e., traditional Japanese values (which are not necessarily socially conservative). The new Spirit of Japan Party has some very good ideas on how to operate government, but also could be more culturally conservative than is comfortable for some.
The “rising tide” wing of the LDP, Koizumians, is led by Nakagawa Hidenao, but he has passed his sell-by date (and has a scandal in his past). I read one of his books, but he doesn’t have much to say about social issues. He likes to use examples from both Japanese history and contemporary life to make his points, but his examples are good ones, and besides, that’s just good politics.
He is also in favor of mass immigration (10 million people in 50 years), but his explanation is unconvincing. I wonder what he’s really thinking.
- A.
Roual Deetlefs said
Ampontan.
I did read your links. And my thanks to you for that. Those “kripvreters”/kasumigaseki seem well nigh inviolate in their exercise of power.
If I was PM of Japan I’d do the following :
1) Get hold of the most senior “kripvreter” (this is the singular by the way) I can find and tell him to prepare a report on the following.
a) Number of employees in government.
b) Size of Japan’s working population.
c) Total government revenues for the latest fiscal year.
d) Total government employee expenditures for the latest fiscal year.
e) Projected growth in these expenditures for the next ten years.
f) Projected tax revenue for the next ten years.
2) I’d tell that “kripvreter” that this report must be read in the Diet as well as at a news conference.
More like as not your kisha reporters won’t ask the difficult questions.
But sooner or later this will hit the blogosphere and be mauled by the commentariat.Somehow from the feedback this blog generates, one can assume that the blogosphere and commentariat can be quite powereful in Asia.
That way all the “kripvreters” will have a face attached to them.
And maybe some political party will use this image and run on an anti-”kripvreter” ticket, win an election, and then actually do something.
Will it happen ?
I doubt it.
But I can hope can I ?
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The blogosphere is not as powerful in Japan as it is in the US. I’m not sure why. This will sound odd, but I think it might be because information is really scattered and decentralized. There is no really good aggregator website, and one reason for that is that the print media does not want to put a lot of its content on-line.
It’s a shame, because there’s a lot of good stuff in weekly and monthly magazines.
- A.