On July 8, 2022, while delivering a speech for his party’s congressmen on the streets of Nara, Mr. Abe was assassinated by former Self-Defense Forces member Tetsuya Yamashita with a homemade pistol.
According to Yamashita Tetsuya's later confession, the motive for killing Mr. Abe was because his mother was deceived into bankruptcy by the religious organization "Unification Church", and Abe often supported the "Unification Church", so he planned and implemented this incident. . Most public opinion on the
Internet believes that Toru Yamashita assassinated Abe because of personal grudges. This assassination that shocked the world was a purely accidental lone wolf incident.
An accidental event changed the course of the world situation. Mr. Abe is so innocent and unfortunate. Everything is due to luck.
But, is this really the case? Was Abe's death an accident, or was it inevitable?
To truly understand the truth of the matter, you need to lean down and examine every corner with a magnifying glass.
First of all, it is the story about the murderer Tetsuya Yamashita.
Tetsuya Yamashita, 41 years old, was born into a wealthy middle-class Japanese family. He had excellent grades as a teenager and was a member of the school basketball team.
studied in a key county high school in his youth, with excellent grades. He was a member of the school basketball team, but because of his height, he became a substitute.
studied at the Faculty of Engineering of a prestigious private university, and was later admitted to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force . After
retired from the army, taught himself to become certified as a residential construction transaction manager and financial planner II.
once did sales and won the sales championship.
independently learned how to make firearms, made them purely by hand, and successfully implemented the assassination plan. His performance on the scene was quite calm.
Taken together, such talents are the foundation of successful people.
However, the reality is cruel. After retiring from the army, as a labor dispatch worker in Japan, he could only do odd jobs here and there.
The so-called labor dispatch personnel are temporary workers in Japan, who mainly sell their labor to make money.
Previously, through hard work, he could gain recognition from his employer and become a contract worker.
After Abe came to power, abolished the law that forced dispatch workers to become regular workers. He was destined to work odd jobs all his life.
Tetsuya Yamashita is still unmarried and lives alone in a 13-square-meter group rented house. He looks like a loser at the bottom of society.
The reason why he made the decision to assassinate Ampere was partly because he had a desire for revenge because his mother was deceived, but the more decisive reason was because he had always been oppressed at the bottom of society and had completely lost hope for the future.
Just imagine, if Tetsuya Yamashita had a happy family and a stable job, would he still act so impulsively and put himself in a dead end?
So why is it that a Japanese who is in his prime, has good talents, and works hard cannot live a decent life through his hard work? Let's turn the time back to 2012...
In 2012, as the successor of the former Prime Minister's maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi and his great-uncle Eisaku Sato, he faced the situation since the signing of the "Plaza Agreement" , the increasingly declining Japanese economy and the sluggish Japanese society, Abe, as the 90th Prime Minister of Japan, shot the "three arrows" with great ambition, determined to revive the former glory of the "Land of the Rising Sun".
The first arrow: monetary policy, quantitative easing.
The second arrow: fiscal policy, corporate tax cuts.
The third arrow: structural reform, female employment.
At the same time, a group of like-minded people were recruited into decision-making bodies, such as Haruhiko Kuroda, the governor of the Bank of Japan, who is still in office today.
In other words, these three arrows were shot for ten years!
Specific measures include:
Bold monetary policy: For example, devaluing the yen and the Bank of Japan printing money like crazy
Flexible fiscal policy: For example, the 10.3 trillion yen economic stimulus plan in 2013
Growth strategy to stimulate private investment: For example, the effective corporate tax dropped by 2.4% and the consumption tax increased by 3%
This operation was as fierce as a tiger. Ten years later in 2022, looking back at these three arrows, I can only regret to say that they were purely lonely.
In 2012, Japan's GDP was 6.27 trillion US dollars.
In 2021, Japan's GDP will be US$4.94 trillion.
In the ten years after Ampere came to power, Japan's GDP growth was -1.33 trillion US dollars.
corresponds to:
In 2012, China's GDP was 8.46 trillion US dollars.
In 2021, China's GDP will be 17.73 trillion US dollars.
China's ten-year GDP growth is 9.27 trillion US dollars.
Looking at the past ten years alone, China's growth alone is equal to twice Japan's GDP.
In 2012, Japan's per capita GDP was 49,145 US dollars.
In 2021, Japan’s per capita GDP is US$39,285.
According to predictions by many institutions, South Korea's per capita GDP will surpass Japan within five years.
I think back then, Korea was a colony of Japan. I watched my former servants surpass me. No wonder it was popular among Japanese people to lie down.
In 2012, Japan’s total national debt was 997 trillion yen.
In 2021, Japan’s total national debt will be 1,218 trillion yen.
After ten years of efforts by Japan, Japan’s GPD debt ratio has gloriously increased from 226% to 263%.
By the way, the country that is currently bankrupt - Sri Lanka , has a GPD debt ratio of 60%.
It’s just that the debts it owes are foreign, and most of Japan’s debts are paid by the Japanese.
Who told the Japanese to be honest and do their duty? Even if they leave debts to their descendants, they can just muddle along for now.
In 2012, the Bank of Japan’s debt was 158 trillion yen.
In 2021, the Bank of Japan’s debt is 732 trillion yen.
As mentioned before, Abe's loyal believer, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, also gloriously central bank debt exceeds Japan's entire year's GDP.
With such magnitude of quantitative easing, and considering the recent sharp depreciation of the yen, is there anything surprising?
In 2012, 76.82 yen was exchanged for 1 US dollar.
The latest exchange rate is, 140 yen for 1 US dollar.
Over the past ten years, the yen has been nearly halved, which is not necessarily a good thing for Japan. Compared with the sharp appreciation of the yen under the "Plaza Accord", the depreciation of the yen can promote exports.
In 2012, Japan's total exports were 63.7 trillion yen.
In 2019, Japan’s total exports were 76.9 trillion yen.
htmlIn 2007, there was an increase of 13.2 trillion yen, which is equivalent to an average annual increase of about 1.9 trillion yen.There is indeed a slight increase in exports, which is based on the sharp depreciation of the yen.
Between 1988 and 2012, Japan's exports increased by 29.8 trillion yen, but this was based on the sharp appreciation of the yen.
Before Mr. Abe came to power, Japan’s actual export growth seemed more convincing.
Since exports have increased, the trade surplus should have increased. Unfortunately, during Mr. Abe’s administration, Japan had a small surplus and a large deficit.
It can be said that the cause of the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2012 resulted in a large deficit. However, after ten years of recovery, the deficit is still there, which is unjustifiable.
Why is Japan always a tottering country that cannot be supported?
In the final analysis, it is because Abe appears to be spending a lot of money, drastically reducing corporate taxes and increasing consumption taxes, and he has a radical image of being enterprising.
In fact, deep down, it is still the conservative thinking left by three generations of officials. They cling to the one-third of an acre of land passed down from their ancestors, and there is no room for the growth of new industries.
In the distribution of unicorn companies around the world in 2021, let alone China and the United States, which are far ahead. Take South Korea, which faces each other across the sea, as an example. Its number of unicorns is nearly twice that of Japan.
You must know that South Korea's population is only 50 million, while Japan's population is 130 million, more than twice that of South Korea.
Let’s take a look at the top ten companies in Japan. Do they all look familiar? Because these companies were all on the list when Abe first came to power.
Think about the top ten companies in China. They basically stay the same every year but change drastically in ten years.
Different from the vibrant Chinese economy, Japan's economy has been stagnant in the past ten years.
Three arrows have been shot for ten years, and the biggest achievement is the skyrocketing of the Japanese stock market.
In 2012, Nikkei index was 8809.99 points.
In 2019, the Nikkei Index was 20756.58 points.
With Japan's GDP shrinking, the rise of the stock market represents Japan's bourgeoisie , which has taken away most of the cake. It is conceivable that the working class, Japan's wage earners, are naturally becoming increasingly poor.
I have been to Japan personally, and my initial impression of Japan was very good. The small houses in the countryside, the fresh air, the young people running on the fields; the orderly streets in the city, the endless flow of people, also Seems full of energy.
But the most impressive thing was a bus driver. The only person in the car at that time was me. He doesn't understand English, and I don't understand , Japanese, , but he keeps talking to me, even if I don't understand. From his mutterings, I saw the depression, loneliness and inappropriateness of the Japanese.
Tetsuya Yamashita is the same type of person as this driver. He works hard but has no interest in life. He is depressed and depressed for a long time, which eventually turns into hatred, leading to this tragedy.
After Abe came to power, he protected the interests of big companies, which led to the growing gap between the rich and the poor in Japan, and the life of ordinary people became more and more miserable. Toru Yamashita is just the tip of the iceberg. What is surging under the ice is a large number of frustrated people. middle-aged people.
The tradition of superiority, the spirit of Bushido , there are countless cases of assassinating politicians in Japanese history, and more and more working people have no way out.
In this sense, Abe's death may not be an accident, but an inevitable trace left on the historical trajectory.
The root cause is that Abe made two strategic mistakes.
First, economically, learn from the United States and engage in excessive quantitative easing. Second, diplomatically, learn from the United Kingdom and engage in offshore balancing.
In the development of the country, strategic mistakes have been made, and the results are subversive. If Japan cannot wake up, it is destined to become a third-rate country.
The reason for this is a long story, and I will explain it next time.
