Word: japanism
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...that they felt anxious about their daily lives-the highest angst level recorded since the poll began nearly 40 years ago? Perhaps because they're looking beyond the next club opening or quarterly report, toward a national future that is anything but certain. Despite the country's economic recovery, Japan is still pinned beneath $6.9 trillion in public debt, and that's 1.5 times the nation's GDP, the worst ratio in the industrialized world. A widening gap between rich and poor is threatening to shatter Japan's view of itself as a predominantly middle-class country. The boom...
...Meanwhile, in his first four months in office, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has seemed out of touch with the national mood. While Japanese say they're most worried about stagnant wages, a fragile pension system and growing social disparities, Abe has chosen to prioritize plans to revise Japan's pacifist constitution. While parents fret about declining academic standards, Abe's response has been to pass a reform bill that will attempt to make children more patriotic, and may bring back physical punishment to schools. "I'm not sure that constitutional revision should be the No. 1 issue," says Sadakazu Tanigaki...
...that Abe's young and inexperienced team lacks influence within its own party. With the LDP and its ruling coalition partner the New Komeito Party in danger of losing control of the upper house of the Diet in July elections, the Oriental Economist Report, a newsletter, recently wondered if Japan was already "on the verge of the 'post...
...reality, Abe is unlikely to fall so quickly. The LDP holds an unassailable majority in the Diet's lower house, and approval ratings for the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) are even worse than the Prime Minister's. Abe's supporters also argue that he remains relatively popular by the lackluster historical standards of most Japanese leaders, and that he hasn't received enough credit for repairing Japan's often fractious relations with its Asian neighbors. Shoichi Nakagawa, the LDP's powerful policy chief, asserts that the Abe Cabinet takes everyday issues just as seriously as it does...
...mystery that is bedeviling economists and politicians alike. Japan's economy has grown for 60 consecutive months, the longest period of growth in the postwar era. So why are ordinary Japanese consumers like Maki Nobata behaving as if the country were still deep in recession? "I'm trying to cut back on spending," says the 36-year-old Tokyo accountant, who received a meager raise of less than $75 a month nearly two years ago and hasn't had another one since. Adding to her worries, Nobata doubts the pension system will be in place by the time she retires...