Akahata comments on government's extraordinary scheme to prop up stock market

On the government plan to establish a private fund to purchase stocks to help buoy the slumping stock market, Akahata of April 2 commented as follows:

Most government economic policies are focused on boosting the stock market, which mirrors the real economy. Such measures will not help overcome Japan's deep recession. The new scheme, which is being considered by the government is intended to use tax money to help make up banks' losses and is quite extraordinary.

Since the April 2000 inauguration of the Mori cabinet, the stock market has continued to fall. In an emergency economic measure launched on March 9, 2001, the coalition government proposed the establishment of a private fund to purchase cross-held shares from ailing institutions.

At the inaugural meeting on March 15 of the LDP-government task force, the finance minister said that the government should take not only temporary measures to sustain fallen stock prices, but buy stocks held by the banks and other institutions.

Also, the new fund, proposed to be organized by commercial banks, private institutions, and the Bank of Japan, is initiated not to directly deal with buying up the fallen stocks. The government will guarantee the fund. Isn't this a new trick to make up for major banks' losses on the stock market, while imposing an additional burden on the people?

To assist the household economy is the most effective way to stop stock prices from falling and turn them upward. In its March 23 emergency economic proposal, the Japanese communist Party called for measures to directly support personal consumption, which accounts for 60 % of the national economy.

The three urgent steps the JCP proposes are: decrease the consumption tax rate to three percent; stop a series of adverse revisions of the social welfare system; and solve the problem of jobless. (end)