[War] Japan: "Headaches"

[Ian]

"Headaches"
Prime Minister Shunichi Sato
Japan
March 11 2014

------------------------------

Sato squeezed the bridge of his nose and leaned his head back letting out a pant of exaustion and then drank the full glass of water down in a gulp. It only provided temporary relief from the sticky cottony feeling in his mouth and did nothing at all for the pounding behind his eyes. He was no longer a young man it seemed, and a night of drinking, even with other old men, had it's price. 

He smiled ruefully as he sat in his darkened office in the Kantei and waited for his appointment. Minister Hashimoto his new Minister of Finance. His old one, had been one of those following the DPJ's success in last summer's election to learn just how vulnerable their cabinet posts really were. Hashimoto, was Sato's man, a professor of ecconomics at Tokyo University before he had been tapped by Sato to run in the Upper House elections. He had won of course, and in the afterglow of the party's victory, no one had minded when he had been raised to the Cabinet. Fewer still minded now having proven himself a voice of reason and an able politician. 

The door to Sato's office opened and Hashimoto smiled seeing the Prime Minister sitting pained behind his desk.

"Looked like I missed a fun evening," he said as he closed the door softly behind him and made his way to the Prime Minister's desk and sat down. 

Sato kept from nodding but smiled. "Fun evening, yes, morning, no fun at all."

Hashimoto smiled sympathetically. "Should we postpone?" he offered.

Sato shook his head and then regretted it and flinched with pain. "Ow... no, we'll carry on."

Hashimoto nodded. "Very good," he said and got his notes from his attache case.

"I have looked at our situation Sato-kun, with reguards to the population issue, and I think none of the programs we have in place our reasonable in a cost-benefit sense."

"None?" Sato asked.

"Yes," replied Hashimoto. 

"Why?" 

"We are trying to buy our way out of what is essentially a social issue, day care, child-incetives and so forth will only push those who are thinking of having children to do so sooner, but those women who are dedicated to their careers will not change their minds for a little bit of money."

"Are you sure?" Sato asked.

"We need to stop thinking of working Japanese women as we normally think of women of our generation, and think of them like men, if your wife did not stay at home, would you have stopped your career to raise your children?"

Sato frowned. "No, of course not."

"Neither will they," Hashimoto explained.

Sato chewed that over. Akemi, his only daughter was very much one of those women and he knew it was true.

"What do you suggest we do then?" asked Sato.

"We prepare to be a less populous nation, or we embrace immigration."

Sato smiled. Perhaps Hashimoto was not as astute a politican as he thought. "Neither is going to work, not politically."

Hashimoto nodded. "I know, but they our choices. Either that, or stall as other governments have done."

Sato frowned and revised his assesment of Hashimoto again, that had been right out of the DPJ platform, no more stalling and offering real solutions.

"What do you have in mind?"

"Depends on which way you want us to go, Mr. Prime Minister."

"We both know we could never sell immigration," Sato replied.

"Preparing for the worst then," Hashimoto said. "Well firstly we need to review how the government spends it's money, and streamline accordingly, we don't need to worry so much about the job losses, there are plenty of civil service jobs that will be unfilled with people retiring, but we must manage things respectfully, remove jobs the occupants retire, we do not want to simply throw civil servants on to the street."

"There would be riots if we tried."

"Yes, and I think if we do attempt this, it needs to be internal, a board of senior civil servants who review the civil service and report to the Cabinet."

"That will make the cuts less deep," Sato observed. What was that quote he had heard from the British, oh yes: reorganizing the civil service is like dragging a knife through a bowl of marbles. He imagined Japan's entrenched bureaucracy would simply side step most of the deep cuts and the little cabal they chose would support those in the service who they were close to. But it was better than nothing he supposed.

"Alright," he said. "What else?"

"We need to improve Japan's overall ecconomic health, which means, running balanced budgets and reducing our debt loads."

Sato flinched and not because of his hang-over. The last budget was finally back to 2008 numbers and only 100 billion dollars over what they'd earned. Deficit was practically a way of life for Japan's government and the debt, the debt was massive.

"What sort of timeline?"

"Ten years, and keep in mind as our population retires, we will have less revenue."

Sato sat back. "Alright, what else?"

"We need to look at our future workforce and what direction it will take, do we want to allow immigrants into the country to do jobs there are no longer Japanese workers to do, do we put our efforts into helping companies automate those jobs, do we help companies move jobs overseas to China or a restored North Korea?"

Sato knew it was nessisary. He had been thinking along the same lines when he had gotten involved in North Korea. He had just not voiced those thoughts out of fear that saying it would somehow make it more true. 

"I know," he confessed. "What else?"

"We need to pursue free trade agreements with greater effort, especially in the countries rising from third-world status, who's middle class will soon want the products we produce."

Sato nodded. "There is a great deal more isn't there?"

"Yes," Hashimoto said.

He layed out a dizzying array of plans, projections, charts and other things which all more or less amounted to tightening Japan's belt, expanding her trade partnerships and securing her place ecconomically and diplomatically in Asia before the worst of the ecconomic effects of the falling population hit.

"So what do we do in the short term?" he asked.

Hashimoto smiled. He knew Sato meant, what do we do now, to show the voters we're doing something.

"If you're looking for a political solution, put forward the Population Minister's plan to offer tax breaks to seniors who look after children," he said. "But I'd have a look at our immigration polices; offer amnesty to those already in the country and perhaps loosen restrictions on those who want to come in and work for a short period of time. But make sure they are paying taxes."

Sato frowned. "I'll speak to the concerned ministers," he said.

Hashimoto nodded. "Let me know what you decide and we can work on these other things as well."

The Finance Minister rose up and walked out of the office quietly leaving Sato to his thoughts. It was about an hour before Sato moved again and picked up the phone. "Yurika, please get the Minister of Justice on the phone, I'd like to discuss immigration with him."

Actions:

1. Approve a 50,000 Yen (aprox $500usd) per child tax credit for seniors who provide daycare in their community.
2. Begin an internal review of the civil service with the goal of reducing the civil service's size in step with reduction of population and retirement of existing civil servants, make it very, very clear, we're not talking layoffs, we're looking at phasing out positions as people are retrained or retired out of them.
3. Begin discussing amnesty for existing illegal immigrants in Japan with the Cabinet and the Caucus, and float the idea of a guest worker program to the same.
4. Arrange a leak from 'sources close to the Ministry of Justice' that suggests that there may be a review of immigration policy and a fesibility study on a guest worker program.













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