[War] Japan: "Pennies From Heaven"

[Ian Martell]

(sorry about the back log here, had a couple posts on the go when things got 
busy for me and I wanted to set them in the time I'd intended for them)

“Pennies From Heaven”
Prime Minister Shunichi Sato
Japan
October 25th 2006

If there was ever a time for a discovery like this, it was now. Sato’s 
usually placid exterior cracked with a broad grin as he read the Board of 
Audit report 2.4 trillion yen in unspent money… that was more than 20 
billion in US dollars, in short a whole lot of cash to be lost in the couch 
cushions of the government.

“How did this happen?” Sato asked regaining his composure and taking off his 
reading glasses to look at Mura who stood dutifully by his desk as he was 
now accustomed to doing after feeling responsible for the recent losses in 
the polls and not being permitted to resign.

“I asked the Ministers responsible and they said they’d look into it, but it 
looks like it just got lost in the shuffle.”

“Lost in the shuffle?” Sato asked arching an eyebrow. “That is not going to 
look good Keiichi-kun,” he said.

“True, but on the other hand it’s 20 billion dollars (writing USD to save on 
constant conversions) you get to spend that the previous government,” Mura 
coughed. “Misplaced.”

Sato nodded, though it wasn’t all free to be spent, some of it like the 8.3 
billion in unspent pension contribution interest needed to be reinvested in 
the program it came from.

“Did you talk to Minister Takahashi about this?” Sato asked speaking of his 
Finance Minister.

“Yes, I took the liberty of consulting him, he is very interested in seeing 
this money back out in the marketplace,” Mura reported.

“Well that make’s two of us,” Sato didn’t pretend to be a brilliant 
economist, his area of specialty was the law, but he did know that economy 
was wealth in action, the money helped nobody sitting in a forgotten 
account. “Did the Minister have any ideas on how we should do that?”

Mura nodded. “He’ll need a couple of days to go over things but the general 
idea he had was to definitely re-invest the pension money right away, 
preferably in top Japanese companies. As for the rest, he thinks that if 
we’re not seeing a lot of loans to farmers for new machinery, then we should 
roll that program in with other agricultural assistance programs and pool 
the money, so that we’re not sitting on a pool of money not being used while 
other programs are struggling.”

Sato nodded, it made sense to him.

“And the power revenues?” he asked.

“Same process in principle, we look at the programs the money is supposed to 
go to, figure out if the reason we have a surplus is not lack of opportunity 
but rather red tape interfering with the money getting out to the people who 
need it, if it is we fix the problem, if it’s not, and we really don’t need 
that much money for that program we either roll that program together with a 
similar one and pool the cash, or we transfer the money to another type of 
program all together.”

“Such as?” Sato asked.

“Well I’d say our pension plan needs it the most,” Mura said. “From both a 
governing perspective and a political one.”

Sato nodded. Mura was right, the Japanese national pension plan, like most 
pension plans, was likely to be wiped out in the near future by an aging 
population who wanted back what they put into it, and while the excess money 
wouldn’t be a cure, it would help, and Sato’s government would be seen to at 
least not forgotten the problem.

“I agree,” Sato said. “So, how do we play this?” he asked, PR had been the 
big issue in the Prime Minister’s Office after the ill timed announcement of 
cuts to the public service and the resulting camp of protesters outside the 
Kantei.

Mura thought about it for a moment then nodding said. “We owe a lot of 
people for their votes on the Amendment and the other thing,” he said. “I 
think we need to share this with them.”

Sato nodded. “Okay I am listening,” he said.

“Well, I think we let you get to announce our planned re-investment of the 
pension revenues, but we’ll have Nukaga and Takebe on stage with you when 
you do it, that’ll help smooth things with their faction. As for the rest, 
the Minister of Agriculture will announce any new money freed up in his 
area, same for Minister of Industry with the power revenues, and then when 
we get down to funnelling the excess money into the pension plan, we give 
that announcement to Ishikawa and Minister Takahashi.”

Ishikawa had been a good soldier for the LDP-NKP coalition government since 
the job cuts, the voice for the Cabinet and the member of that body 
responsible for the civil service he was hammered daily with tough questions 
about the plan but still kept with the party line. “Let him have the first 
announcement,” Sato said. “He’s earned it. I’ll stand with Takebe and 
Nukaga.”

Mura nodded.

“I’ll make the calls,” he said and left Sato to read over the briefing paper 
for a minute before his next meeting began.

Actions:

1>	Announce that the 980 billion yen in unused pension interest discovered 
the board of Audit will be re-invested domestically for the benefit of the 
plan and Japanese buisness.
2>	Review the programs that the other accounts are attached to and see if 
there isn’t a way to fix them so the money is either a) getting out faster 
to the right people, b) the program is rolled into another one that could 
use the extra money c) the program is scrapped and the money alloted to it 
is funneled into the pension fund.
3>	Help the coalition out by letting the Ministers get to bring the good 
news to the people.

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