年別アーカイブ：2020年

Recently I had a conversation with a friend who is specialized in economic research and asked questions regarding Japan’s current financial status: Is Japan at serious risk having overwhelmingly higher national debt to GDP compared to other developed nations? Which is preferable to Japan, having a weak yen or strong yen? Is the argument around the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) these days unreasonable?   Is inequality indeed worsening in developed countries? By looking at the numbers he presented, I was once again shocked. The following are major countries’ external net assets data: According to the table summarizes major countries’ external net ...

We tend to see ourselves as the main character and everybody else as side characters. When we accomplish something we tend to think, “I did it,” but for mistakes, we tend to turn defensive and assert ourselves being not responsible or wrong. This is what’s happening with the coronavirus, too. There is an essay written by Shusaku Endo titled, “I am a supporting actor in your life.” It goes like this: In a play, there are supporting actors. Obviously, they are there to support the lead actor. They play roles pivotal to the story line together with the lead, but ...

The famous architect Tadao Ando, known for works such as the Church of the Light, has a unique background of becoming an architect by working part-time at an architect studio and learning by himself. He didn’t undertake any specialized education in architecture. He started his career as a professional boxer. However, he reminisces that after meeting Fighting Harada (a famous former pro-boxer in Japan) and observing how he trained himself, he felt overwhelmed and immediately decided to quit his boxing career (Tadao Ando, “Architect Tadao Ando”, p.39). Tadao Ando(source:flickr: Tadao Ando) H(e then fell in love with the art of ...

There’s something interesting about humans in that when it comes to what we love, we don’t mind going through hardships. My child has just turned five recently, but he is completely hooked on the computer I gave him. He is avidly reading guidebooks and learning programming. He is literally panting with exertion, his head covered in sweat while he stares at computer. He doesn’t even want to spare time for sleep. I often talk about “live in want to”. If we live doing what we want to, we can maximize our potential. On the other hand, if we are bound ...

Do you know the story The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono? It’s a story about a shepherd who plants 100 acorns every single day on a barren, devastated area of land. In the end, his solitary effort brings beautiful forests in the area. I studied French at the language school Athénée Français under its Synthétique course. Recently, I visited the school website and found that they offer a trial, short course, the curriculum of which includes reading “The Man Who Planted Trees.” When I was a student there, we had to memorize stories from homework and recite them ...

Suddenly the health and safety of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has become a hot topic. North Korea has shot numerous missiles and been engaged in the development of nuclear weaponry. A country that has been one of the main characters of the “Trump show,” has been somewhat quiet these days, but suddenly a strange death rumor arose and created some noise (we don’t know if it’s true yet). For Japan, the relationship with Korea is clearly important politically. It is often argued that Japan is unique in that the Imperial House of Japan is the oldest continuing monarchical ...

I feel like due to the coronavirus there are an increasing number of false (unconvincing) ideas and opinions out there these days. When practicing strategic thinking and logical thinking, the first step is to grasp facts and logic. If you are confronting the facts your opinion and statements become real and convincing. To grasp the facts, you must look into them in detail by breaking them down into elements. René Descartes said, “Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.” Those who do not exercise the ability to divide things into parts are ...

As part of “after-corona society” argument, let’s think from a pathological point of view. A while ago, a book titled Guns, Germs, and Steel became popular worldwide. As is discussed in the book, germs have had a huge impact on human history: Because diseases have been the biggest killers of people, they have also been decisive shapers of history. Until World War II, more victims of war died of war-borne microbes than of battle wounds. All those military histories glorifying great generals oversimplify the ego-deflating truth: the winners of past wars were not always the armies with the best generals ...

The world will not be the same post-corona. Many industries will have to rebuild themselves while taking the risk of infection into consideration. Even after this initial crisis is over, there will be a second and third corona wave, so “going back to normal after the COVID incident” is going to be nothing but an illusion. For example, the way we work. Are we going back to work in that dense, island-style office layout? Now that telework has proven functional, going back to that will increase health risks but not productivity (of course there will be some balance between traditional ...

Around this time last year, it was a topic in the news that apparel companies were leaving ZOZOTOWN. In exactly the same manner, Disney has announced that it will exit Netflix to start its own Disney+ service, adding on to the impression that more and more companies are becoming platform-independent. Although a slightly belated topic, I will address this in this post. The US Toys“R”us filed bankruptcy in September 2017. The direct reason for its collapse was that they couldn’t compete against Amazon in the online toy market. Toys“R”us initially signed an exclusive agreement with Amazon to sell their products ...