Word: koizumis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...weeks ahead of a crucial election, Junichiro Koizumi stands on a stage in Tokyo's bustling Ginza shopping district before a crowd of 3,500. Despite the afternoon's oven-like 35C heat, Japan's Prime Minister wears the white gloves favored by old-time politicians on the stump. But it's his only nod to tradition: nothing about his speech is typical of a Japanese politician seeking votes. "I will carry out reforms that no other parties have dared to touch," Koizumi shouts, the wind whipping his famous locks, helicopters with TV crews whirring overhead. "We will march onward...
...Pain? Until fairly recently, a politician talking about hard times ahead in an election speech could just as well hang up his gloves. But this is Japan 2001?and this is Koizumi, who has turned bad news into political capital. He swept into power in April by telling Japanese voters what they already knew but rarely heard from their leaders: that their country was an economic mess. Yes, he pledged to clean it up?by getting rid of bad bank loans, privatizing government-run behemoths like the postal service and killing useless public-works projects. But he also warned that...
...Japan has pinned its hopes on Koizumi. He'll need all the support he can muster. His proposals for reform range from updating securities laws to overhauling the judicial system. He wants to eradicate bad bank debts in under three years and create 5 million jobs in five years. Some economists accuse him being vague on specifics but credit him for having the right ideas. His fiercest opposition comes from within his own party. LDP bureaucrats fear losing access to government funds from which they've long doled out political patronage. Koizumi needs a big election victory to quiet...
...final stages of a fatal disease and someone comes along with a potential cure," says Bill Wilder, head of the Japanese arm of Fidelity Investments. "You don't know if it'll work or if it won't, but you've got no choice." Some worry Koizumi is trying too much, too soon. "He's promised structural reforms, along with clearing up bank loans and cutting government debt?all at once," says Richard Jerram, chief economist at ING Barings in Tokyo. "But as companies restructure, more people lose jobs and tax revenue goes down, increasing government debt. Unemployed people also...
...Still, Koizumi's critics and supporters both agree on one thing: to lurch out of its coma, Japan needs to tackle its irretrievable bank loans. Estimates vary wildly on just how much is at stake: of $3.8 trillion in total loans, banks may have to kiss goodbye to anything from $250 billion to $1.2 trillion. "To wipe out the debt," Koizumi said recently, "we must be firm...