Thursday, February 02, 2023

Speculation on the Origin Story and Other Matters regarding Sumo: A Nexus of Religion and Entertainment

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  Origin story notwithstanding, a mythical event is a mythical event, and grappling, with the winner “taking down” the loser, is universal a...
Wednesday, June 06, 2018

Trump Tariffs and the Fallout on the Abe Administration

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1) The G-7 finance ministers' meeting ended in rare acrimony, with the U.S. looking increasingly isolated over the steel and aluminum...
Monday, June 04, 2018

So Aso Gives Up a Year’s Pay...

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Voluntarily giving up all or part of one’s pay for a given duration is a common form for members of organizations to assume moral responsi...
Thursday, May 31, 2018

Memo on the U.S.-China Trade talks and the Japanese Experience

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Q(journalist)&A(me) 1. The Trump model is the U.S.-Japan trade negotiations of the 1980s and early 1990s, what model will work bette...
Monday, April 02, 2018

Womenomics and Stagnant Wages Pushing Japanese Women into the Workforce? Think Again.

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I don’t have the time to do justice to opinion pieces but from what I gather from the headlines, Noah Smith appears to have given up on cr...
Saturday, March 31, 2018

Do You Think the Moritomo Affair Has Driven a Wedge between Abe and Aso? Think Again

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Aso criticized the media for prioritizing Moritomo over TPP, got criticized himself, and the lefty media is playing it up and the righty m...
Tuesday, March 13, 2018

What Will Happen to Aso, Abe as the Result of the Latest Twists in the Morimoto Case?

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Memo, whacked out early evening on March 11 (Sun) in response to query from journalist. I wonder how much of this will hold up. So, thi...
Saturday, January 27, 2018

The Nintendo Photo: When It All Began

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The following is the bare-bones background for an installment column I will be launching on the website of a thinktank in April. O...
Tuesday, November 07, 2017

My Thoughts on a Japan Times Poll Cited by a Journalist

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The thread can be found here: https://twitter.com/Okumura_Jun/status/927694967098679296 I believed that it was highly likely that The...
Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Unedited Crib Notes for 2017/4/17 FCCJ Event on Japan-US Bilateral Economic Dialogue

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Jun Okumura went straight from school to what is now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. After thirty years in its ecosystem, thou...
Thursday, February 09, 2017

On the Eve of the Abe-Trump Summit

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- Key things to watch out for in Abe-Trump meeting Anything out of kilter from the following. Because if there is, that will be the big...
Sunday, April 24, 2016

Abenomics and the Limpness of the Third Arrow

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The fundamental problem with Abenomics is that Mr. Abe does not have a coherent perspective on economic reform to work from, whether from p...
Monday, January 25, 2016

Political Dying Wishes? Not in Japan or (Mostly) in America

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A close friend of mine who read “ The dead people of America really don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president ” and asked if we “Japanese ...