Word: yamaguchi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...image and then optimize profitability with leather goods. In Gucci's case, leather goods make up more than 50% of profits, the majority of those from handbags. Financially, the strategy is working. "They are performing extremely well, despite the slowdown of the general consumer market," says luxury analyst Yasuhiro Yamaguchi of UBS in London. "Coach, Tiffany and Burberry are all saying they've started to see slowdown, but Gucci is resisting the cyclical downturn and delivering double-digit growth...
...suicide of one minister under a cloud of corruption (Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka), the resignation of another (Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma) for a foolish remark on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, and worst of all, the pension crisis. "The LDP has begun to melt down," gloats Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, a high-ranking DPJ member. A recent survey by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper pegged Abe's approval rating at an anemic 32%, and it's likely that the LDP and its ruling coalition partner, the New Komeito Party, will drop enough seats to lose control of the Upper House. The coalition...
...that Abe's domestic agenda was lacking. While he spoke of boosting Japan's role abroad and revising the country's pacifist constitution, the public was focused on bread-and-butter economic issues. "When Abe talks about the constitution, people think, 'What about my salary?'" says the DPJ's Yamaguchi. Abe seems incapable of reading the public-Koizumi excelled at that-and can't shake impressions that the economy bores him. "When anyone within 50 meters of him starts talking about foreign policy, his eyes sparkle-he cares," says Jesper Koll, president of Tantallon Research Japan. "But anything else, that...
...result is an underworld version of the rich/poor divide that plagues the rest of the country. Top echelons of major organizations like Yamaguchi-gumi-which controls roughly half the estimated 80,000 gangsters in Japan-are thriving due to booming economies in Tokyo and Osaka. They can make billions from gambling, loan-sharking, drugs and the protection racket. Meanwhile, smaller gangs in moribund regional cities like Nagasaki-which are more dependent on government spending to fuel local growth-are being squeezed. Increasingly desperate, they are turning up the heat on local officials to extort more money from a shrinking pool...
...loyalty between employer and employee, the growing clout of Tokyo at the expense of outlying areas-these are trends most Japanese are experiencing. But just as the salaryman is far from an endangered species, the gangs aren't likely to disappear. Yukio Yamanouchi, an Osaka-based lawyer who represents Yamaguchi-gumi, says the yakuza "provide the services that Japanese society requires." As long as there's a market, the yakuza will exist. It's just good business...