New economic policy shows failure of Koizumi's 'reform' plan -- Akahata
editorial, August 22, 2001 (excerpts)

Japan's stock price continues marking a new low even below the lowest
level after the "bubble economy," with no perspective when it will hit the
bottom.

This indicates how serious Japan's economic depression is and how big
the hardships that Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro is imposing on the
people through his "structural reform" plans.

The Liberal Democratic Party and other government parties are now trying
to hammer out measures to boost the economy in a manner that are not
incompatible with the cabinet's "structural reform" plan. But how can that
happen?

Koizumi's "structural reform" means compelling hundreds of thousands of
small- and medium-sized companies to go bankrupt, more than one million
workers to be dismissed, and the nation's people to pay more medical and
other social services-related charges.

It is the "Koizumi plan" that is responsible for Japan's economic
distress. Any "stimulative policy" will be in vain unless it rejects the
"reform" plan.

The government parties are calling on the Bank of Japan to increase the
money supply as much as possible.

However, such a measure will neither increase public demand nor
revitalize the economy as long as low demand stagnates the flow of funds.
Also, it will give a free hand to the BOJ to buy national bonds and lead to
the loss of international confidence in Japan's finance, heading to a
sudden fall of their market prices, and the complete failure of Japan's
economy.

The LDP is reportedly studying a case in which small- and medium-sized
companies in "sound management" will be excluded from targets of the
disposal of bad loans.

This is a self-confession of the LDP that the government is going to
abandon such companies under a bad loans disposal policy. There is no
alternative but to end the government policy in order to protect these
companies and their workers.

The confusion in the LDP-government shows that Koizumi's "reform plans"
will fail one after another because of his ignorance of the real aspects of
Japan's economy.

The government parties' policy hardly calls for directly encouraging
household spending, which accounts for 60% of Japan's GDP. This is why
their policy can never help overcome the economic recession.

The need now is to vitalize Japan's economy by using taxpayers' money to
support the people's daily lives. The Japanese Communist Party calls for a
cut in the consumption tax rate, better social services, and steps to
increase employment. (end)