Word: sakakibara
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...town of Yufuin, citizens are hedging their futures by resorting to barter trade. Taxi rides, sake and even hospital bills can be paid for with a local scrip called the yufu. What backs it? Locals do odd jobs in return for yufu. "Our wealth is slipping away," moans Eisuke Sakakibara, a former Vice Minister in the once all-powerful Ministry of Finance...
...other cheaper countries and unemployment is at a post-war high of 5.6%. A survey by Koizumi's office finds that 65% of the population are feeling insecure and fearful of the future - higher than at any point since 1958. "Our wealth," says former Vice Minister of Finance Eisuke Sakakibara, now director of an economic think tank and professor at Keio University, "is slipping away...
...black face paint?the so-called "gal" look. Now it's remade clothes, faded jeans and low-heeled pumps. Why the change? "I dressed gal style because it was popular. But everyone just got sick of it and besides, this new look is much more kawaii," says salesgirl Chie Sakakibara, 22. Hiroaki Morita, head of Teens' Network Ship, a consulting firm for companies targeting teens, believes the switch in tastes may also be a response to Japan's lingering economic malaise. The girls still wanna have fun, but they just don't want to blow a lot of cash doing...
...very simple," says Eisuke Sakakibara, a former Ministry of Finance vice minister for international affairs. "Japan delayed the structural reforms that were needed." It's not as if Japan did nothing. Sectors long shielded from competition, like financial services, have been opened to foreign investment. Foreign firms that now run car companies Nissan and Mitsubishi are closing factories and revamping inefficient supply systems. And the Sonys and DoCoMos of Japan have flourished in part because they separated themselves from the old cartels and figured out how to combine technological know-how with marketing savvy...