Nov 204 min read
Does Tourism Save the Japanese Economy?
Ichiro Suzuki Tourists are back. After having been held back for a couple of years by COVID, tourists are traveling around the world once...
Nov 144 min read
U.S. Equity’ Dominance
Ichiro Suzuki J.P. Morgan Asset Management recently compiled a report on changes in global equity markets weights by region, dating back...
Nov 14 min read
Japan’s General Election
Ichiro Suzuki On October 27 Japan’s voters gave a blow to the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito in the...
Oct 235 min read
Xi Jinping’s Vision
Ichiro Suzuki China’s stimulus package temporarily boosted optimism toward the end of September. But enthusiasm has cooled down as soon...
Oct 104 min read
China’s Rebound
Ichiro Suzuki On September 24, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced a policy package to help boost the ailing Chinese economy that...
Oct 44 min read
Germany in Trouble
Ichiro Suzuki Former European Central Bank President and Prime Minister of Italy Mario Draghi has issued a report calling for structural...
Sep 234 min read
The Age of Tariffs
Ichiro Suzuki The European Union is raising is tariffs on Chinese-made battery electric vehicles (BEVs) up to 38%, in response to...
Sep 224 min read
Uber in Japan
Ichiro Suzuki In April, 2024, ride share services have kicked off in Japan at long last, more than ten years after Uber and Lyft cars...
Sep 34 min read
Seven-Eleven
Ichiro Suzuki On August 19, management of Japan’s Seven & i Holdings, which runs Seven-Eleven convenience store chain around the world,...
Aug 214 min read
A Summer of Discontent
Ichiro Suzuki In early August, Japan’s stock market had suffered an epic decline, in part due to jitters in the U.S. A 12.5% fall on...
Aug 133 min read
Loose Culture and Tight Culture
Ichiro Suzuki A week before the opening day of the Paris Olympics, the Japan Gymnastics Association (JGA) announced that Ms. Shoko...
Aug 24 min read
Olympics Organization Committee Chairman
Ichiro Suzuki The Olympic Games have returned to Paris after 100 years. The Games are under way, having been brilliantly executed by the...
Jul 224 min read
Big Bad ‘Gaishi’ (Foreign Capital)
Ichiro Suzuki “Is there anything we want to buy from the U.S.?”, it was once said in Japan way back in the late 1980s. (This remark...
Jul 105 min read
How Has China Come to This Path?
Ichiro Suzuki* The Chinese economy is in trouble. This has already been well known for a few years, since the COVID-19 crisis. Three...
Jul 54 min read
The University of Tokyo’s Tuition
Ichiro Suzuki* The University of Tokyo has recently announced its plan to raise its tuition to undergraduate students by approximately...
Jun 234 min read
Corporate Japan’s Anti-Intellectualism
Ichiro Suzuki As it has already been known since the days ‘Japanese management’ stormed the corporate world and business school...
Jun 114 min read
Emerging Markets’ Potential
Ichiro Suzuki Emerging markets are grossly undervalued compared to the U.S. equity markets, says Bank of America. EMs have not been this...
Jun 24 min read
CEO's Tenure
Ichiro Suzuki Morgan Stanley Chairman James Gorman has announced that he is leaving the post of chairman at the end of the year. He...
May 214 min read
Is the Japanese Yen Following the British Pound’s Footsteps?
Ichiro Suzuki The Japanese yen remains under pressure. In the morning of April 29th in the U.S., the yen touched 160 to the dollar, and...
May 213 min read
The Art of Making Things
Ichiro Suzuki “Monodukuri” or making things is a popular Japanese buzzword, to which a sense of respect is often attached. It lauds...
May 15 min read
The Rise of Chinese EVs
Ichiro Suzuki It doesn’t seem likely that Chinese EVs are going to dominate the car market in the U.S., Europe or the rest of the...
Apr 235 min read
China Buys Gold
Ichiro Suzuki Gold price is rising. Since the middle of February, it rose 20% in the next two months, hitting $2,400 in mid April. An...
Apr 164 min read
Japanese Banks
Ichiro Suzuki On February 22, Japan’s Nikkei Index rose to a fresh all time high at last, rewriting the mark that stood since the end of...
Mar 314 min read
The Bank of Japan’s First Interest Rate Hike in 17 Years
Ichiro Suzuki On March 19, the Bank of Japan has raised its interest rate paid to commercial banks’ deposits with the central bank for...
Mar 205 min read
The Next Conundrum?
Ichiro Suzuki The economy appears to be dying a slow death. It must be too much to say this on the Chinese economy. This statement,...
Mar 115 min read
Toyota’s Future
Ichiro Suzuki The global car industry is on a new trend since late 2023. Battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs), or EVs as casually...
Mar 24 min read
Corporate Japan’s Old Guards
Ichiro Suzuki In early February, heads of corporations based in the Kansai area (Osaka, Kyoto and the vicinity) gathered for a conference...
Feb 214 min read
Would China Export a Real Estate Bust?
Ichiro Suzuki The world’s second largest economy is grappling with unraveling of its real estate market. It has escaped a spectacular...
Feb 134 min read
The Miss Japan Who doesn’t Look Like Us
Ichiro Suzuki In January the Miss Japan selection committee crowned a 26-year old Karolina Shiino as the 2024 Grand Prix to represent the...
Feb 15 min read
The Nikkei Index Beyond 38,915
Ichiro Suzuki The Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Nikkei index has been on a rising trend since the last decade. The index closed January at...
Jan 254 min read
NISA
Ichiro Suzuki The NISA or the Nippon Individual Savings Account is a tax-free investment scheme created by the Japanese government in...
Jan 124 min read
The Way We Were
Ichiro Suzuki Moody’s has recently cut China’s outlook to ‘negative’. The move is often considered as a harbinger to a downgrade unless...
Jan 105 min read
The World’s Largest Corporations
By Ichiro Suzuki Well over the last 100 years, the list of the world’s largest corporations has shown who’s hot and who’s not from one...
Dec 13, 20234 min read
Foreign Capital’s Invasion
Ichiro Suzuki China’s President Xi Jinping recently attended the G-20 meetings. In San Francisco, Mr. Xi dined with American business...
Nov 28, 20235 min read
Conundrum in Reverse
Ichiro Suzuki Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan shook his head in early summer of 2003, looking at a steady fall in...
Nov 22, 20234 min read
The Prime Minister’s Salary
Ichiro Suzuki Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has recently drafted a bill that raises salaries for public workers employed by...
Nov 4, 20233 min read
Costs of Fudging Statistics
Ichiro Suzuki China’s economic statistics can’t be taken at face value. This has been well understood among economists and investors...
Oct 21, 20234 min read
Emerging Markets a Decade and a Half After the Frenzy
Ichiro Suzuki Absolutely nothing has been delivered since emerging markets reached their apex at the end of October 2007. Sixteen years...
Oct 10, 20235 min read
Who Wants to Buy the Yen?
Ichiro Suzuki The Japanese yen is once again flirting at 150 to the U.S. dollar, a year after a massive solo intervention in the...
Oct 4, 20233 min read
Johnny & Associates
Ichiro Suzuki Talent agency founded by American-born Johnny Kitagawa has been going through upheavals since early summer. With its...
Sep 22, 20233 min read
Safety Mania
Ichiro Suzuki The Japanese government has recently announced that dedicated lanes for driverless cars be laid out in the existing...
Sep 12, 20234 min read
Water from Fukushima
Ichiro Suzuki On August 24, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) started discharging treated water, which has been stored in tanks,...
Aug 31, 20233 min read
A Tale of Two Post-Bubble Capital Flows
Ichiro Suzuki China’s renminbi is under pressure recently. Beijing is reportedly making great efforts to stem the currency’s decline...
Aug 21, 20234 min read
Chile’s 9/11
Ichiro Suzuki This September 11 marks the 50th anniversary of a military coup in Chile that overthrew a democratically elected...
Aug 12, 20234 min read
Japanification of China
Ichiro Suzuki By the summer of 2023, it has become almost public knowledge that China’s economy is in trouble, mired in a ‘balance sheet...
Aug 12, 20233 min read
Balance Sheet Recession
Ichiro Suzuki Nomura Research Institute economist Richard Koo is forever proud of having coined a word ‘balance sheet recession’ to...
Jul 7, 20234 min read
Capital Flight from Japan?
Ichiro Suzuki The Japanese yen is under pressure again halfway through 2023. The yen is falling almost unilaterally. Its precipitous...
Jul 2, 20234 min read
Hinomaru Projects
Ichiro Suzuki The Japanese flag is casually called Hinomaru. As is almost always the case with a national flag, it symbolizes the...
Jun 18, 20234 min read
2023 G7 Summit in Hiroshima
Ichiro Suzuki In May, leaders of the developed world gathered in Hiroshima, Japan for their annual G7 Summit. Hosting a summit should...
Jun 8, 20234 min read
A Tale of Two Stock Market Indices
Ichiro Suzuki On May 16, Japan’s Nikkei Index closed above the 30,000 barrier for the first time in 18 months, and has been trading...