Rising Rice Prices
Ichiro Suzuki Retail rice prices are rising in Japan. Through the final week of March, they are reportedly 108% higher on average than...
5 hours ago4 min read
Changing of the Guards
Ichiro Suzuki After a quarter century of printing money almost ceaselessly, the Bank of Japan has reversed its direction under Governor...
Mar 223 min read
China’s Foreign Exchange Reserves
Ichiro Suzuki Several years ago already, China ceded the status as the largest holder of US Treasury securities. Japan regained the top...
Mar 134 min read
Nissan’s Reckoning
Ichiro Suzuki In his 1986 book “The Reckoning”, David Halberstam wrote a parallel history and study of the U.S. and Japanese automobile...
Mar 14 min read
Hollowing-out in China
Ichiro Suzuki Chinese companies are aggressively expanding outside of the mainland, it’s been reported. Amid persisting sluggishness of...
Feb 245 min read
Crisis at Fuji Media
Ichiro Suzuki Fuji Media Holdings has been caught in an uproar since the beginning of 2025. A number of large advertisers have pulled...
Feb 125 min read
South Korea Overtakes Japan
Ichiro Suzuki Its official. South Korea, or the Republic of Korea (ROK), has overtaken Japan in per capita GDP in 2024, at $36,132 vs...
Feb 104 min read
Is Global South Rising?
Ichiro Suzuki Global South is closing in on the North after decades of the latter’s dominance in the global economy and politics, it’s...
Jan 216 min read
Cost of Modern Monetary Theory
Ichiro Suzuki The Japanese government keeps piling up debt, as it has been well known for a long time. In the aftermath of a spectacular...
Jan 124 min read
Digital Deficits and Mercantilists
Ichiro Suzuki The next President of the United States shouts about imposing tariffs on all the goods coming into the U.S. Tariff rates...
Jan 115 min read
The Oriental Witches
Ichiro Suzuki In the summer of 1961, Japanese women’s volleyball national team toured Europe and won stunning 24 consecutive matches. The...
Dec 18, 20244 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 20, 20244 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, 20244 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...
Nov 1, 20244 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 23, 20245 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 10, 20244 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...
Oct 4, 20244 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 23, 20244 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 22, 20244 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,...
Sep 3, 20244 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 21, 20244 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 13, 20243 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...
Aug 2, 20244 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 22, 20244 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 10, 20245 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...
Jul 5, 20244 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 23, 20244 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 11, 20244 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...
Jun 2, 20244 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 21, 20244 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 21, 20243 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...
May 1, 20245 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 23, 20245 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...
Apr 16, 20244 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 31, 20244 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 20, 20245 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 11, 20245 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...
Mar 2, 20244 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 21, 20244 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 13, 20244 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...
Feb 1, 20245 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 25, 20244 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 12, 20244 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...
Jan 10, 20245 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...
Dec 13, 20234 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 28, 20235 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 22, 20234 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...
Nov 4, 20233 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 21, 20234 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 10, 20235 min read