Those who do not appreciate the increased employment and decreased bankruptcy

(TAKAHASHI Yoichi, PPPC Chairman)

The first and second arrows of the Abenomics are just normal economic policy in the global standard. It was easily predicted that they would cause the employment to increase and bankruptcy to decrease, especially after the irresponsible macroeconomic policy under the DPJ administration.

Number of Workers (ten thousand)

The number of bankruptcy had been dropping under the DPJ government, but its speed has been accelerated since Abe gained the power (see the slant).

Number of Bankruptcy

It was so childish that DPJ opposed to the increased employment and decreased bankruptcy, and there was no economic debate in the December 14 election. Although many argue that the landslide victory of LDP may be attributed to unpreparedness of the opposition parties, there is a wide gap of understanding of the macroeconomic policy between the Abe Cabinet and DPJ. DPJ must study more about the macroeconomic policy.

In the meantime, because the mass media don’t know the macroeconomic policy, neither, they don’t know why LDP defeated DPJ all the three times in the 2012 Lower House, 2013 Upper House and the general election this time. One cannot easily be defeated in elections as long as they managed the economy well.

Yet, LDP was on the verge this time since it conducted the tax-hike from this year. If the Cabinet was deciding a second tax-hike from next October, LDP would have lost the nationwide local election next year. If that was the case, the Abe Cabinet would have collapsed and soon be abandoned by the Ministry of Finance.

Critiques who don’t know the economy regard the currently decreasing bankruptcy not as a result of the Abenomics but preservation of zombie companies. Because such critiques don’t understand the macroeconomic policy, they tend to look at the third arrow alone. However, it takes 5 years or so to see the influence of the third arrow visibly, so all we can do at this moment is to release as many alternatives as possible. And the percentage of which such alternatives go successful is 3 out of 100 or 1000.

It is nothing wrong to talk about importance of the third arrow, but it becomes harmful when they speak of the decreased bankruptcy as preservation of zombie companies. I call such critiques “sadistic liquidation debater”. This type of debater can often be found in the management consultants, who are harmless as long as they speak management of individual company. However, they turn to be harmful when they start talking about the macro or industrial base. They are ignorant and indifferent to the macro-economy, and always assume a full employment. That’s why they don’t understand that the deflation is causing the unemployment and bankruptcy to increase but they attribute the unemployment and bankruptcy to laziness or individual responsibility of the workers. They consider the reduced bankruptcy as preservation of zombie companies, and often regard the increased employment as spoiling of the workers.