Word: mitsui
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Sokubei Mitsui had a head as round, as bald and as bright as a full moon. "With remarkable moral fortitude," says a chronicle, "he decided to abandon all rank and class and enter a commercial career.'' Sokubei put it more bluntly. "The Mitsuis," he said, "must get money." Some time before 1650 he put away his two samurai swords and-like many a British aristocrat of the same period-became a brewer. Soon Mitsui sake was selling fast throughout Yedo's thirsty red-light district...
...second Mitsui enterprise was a pawnshop. Later, a money-changing office grew into the great banking system which financed and controlled the Mitsui merchandising, manufacturing and shipping empire. In 1937 the private wealth of the eleven Mitsui family heads was estimated at 1,635,000,000 yen ($450 million...
Japanese strike methods are sometimes unique. A favorite form of "strike" is to occupy the plant, continue work, and make the management lose face by increasing production. Strikers at a Mitsui-owned coal mine barred all management personnel from the pits and stepped daily output up from 250 tons to 620. Workers at Ashio copper mines operated during a "strike," increased production, and doubled their own wages...
Trusts Busted. The greatest of the zaibatsu, of course, is the 300-year-old feudal house of Mitsui. The U.S. has found that Mitsui has a financial finger in some 173 companies making everything from paper to airplanes. Mitsui was hard hit by bombs, losing 50% of its flour-milling capacity, 30% of its light-metals capacity, 40% of its chemicals and the bulk of its trading fleet...
...seed had been planted. It could not be overlooked by such Big Business spokesmen as Munitions Minister Teijiro Toyoda, a Mitsui man. The Potsdam declaration invited him and his friends to take a practical look at what would be left of their properties if the homeland was invaded...