Little Mr. Pluto and Today's Japan

Since the start of the nuclear boom in the 1970s, Japan's utilities have relied on temporary workers for maintenance and plant repair jobs, the experts said. They were often paid in cash with little training and no follow-up health screening. This practice has eroded the ability of nuclear plant operators to manage the massive risks workers now face and prompted calls for the Japanese government to take over the Fukushima clean-up effort.

In the mid-1990s Little Mr. Pluto debuted in Japanese TV wearing a green helmet with a pair of antennae and the chemical symbol for plutonium (Pu). Promising to "never be scary or dangerous," Little Pluto extolled the benefits of plutonium, which Japanese nuclear authorities have viewed as a fuel of the future for fast breeder reactor technology.
Today nearly 70 percent of Japanese believe nuclear safety measures are not yet sufficient to allow restarting reactors taken down for routine maintenance, a poll showed on Monday, suggesting Japan may have difficulty keeping plants running and avoiding a power crunch amid the protracted nuclear crisis at Fukushima.

Chilean students get naked in the name of education

In Valparaiso, about 121 km (75 miles) northwest of Santiago, students marched through the streets to demand the government change the public state education system. The banners say: "Free Education now".

From Europe to Midlle East to America people are asking for the same things: Rights, Freedom, Future, Health.

Since the panic of 2008 Britain, US, European Union and Japan spent $5 trillion in quantitative easing to save those "self-styled masters of the universe" from Wall Street. 

Why do we never find money for what people really want?
In the meanwhile, China has allocated a total of 10.3 billion yuan ($ 1.58 billion) this year to reward outstanding college students and provide aid to those with financial difficulties.
Who is wrong?

Rabbit born without ears near Fukushima

(We cannot verify if this video is factual or not)

How Asia Copes with America’s Zombie Consumers

NEW HAVEN – Asia needs a new model consumer. A post-crisis generation of zombie consumers in the United States is likely to hobble growth in global consumption for years to come. And that means that export-led developing Asia now has no choice but to turn inward and rely on its own 3.5 billion consumers.

Of course, this is not the first time that Asia has had to cope with the walking economic dead. Japan’s corporate zombies were at the epicenter of its first lost decade in the 1990’s. Sclerotic companies were put on life-support credit lines by their zaibatsu – like banking partners – delaying their inevitable failure and perpetuating inefficiencies and disincentives that resulted in a post-bubble collapse in Japanese productivity growth.

Similarly, the crisis of 2008-2009 led to zombie-creating bailouts in the West. From Wall Street to AIG to Detroit, the US was quick to rescue corporate giants that would have failed otherwise. Britain and Europe did the same, throwing lifelines to RBS, HBOS-Lloyds, Fortis, Hypo Real Estate, and others. In the West, the excuse was too big to fail. How different is that from Japan’s mindset nearly 20 years ago?

Swiss TV channel censors the Simpsons

The Swiss channel SF has decided to suspend all those episodes of the Simpsons which are set in the Nuclear Power Plant where Homer uses to work without care. The network judged it as offensive because of the recent and dramatic news from Japan. 

Should anyone be allowed to decide what we must think?

Toyota recalls 19,000 cars in Britain. What's happening to the Japanese giant?

Toyota ranks fourth in the world in profit. But Setting aside the oil companies and banks, the Japanese company is number one among manufacturers. The Toyota Production System has been company's biggest success which organizes manufacturing and logistics for the automobile manufacturer, including interaction with suppliers and customer, with intent to proceed at the lowest possible per-unit cost. This System has made what Toyota is.

Unfortunately, the company has been forced to recall almost 9 millions of cars around the world since problems first appeared in 2009.

Well, what’s happened to the Japanese giant?

Ironically, it’s just the System to make troubles. In fact, the other side of rationalisation is compulsory labor.

In 2003 a labor-management council meeting noted that, “the company sees the high incidence of psychological disease as a grave situation.”

In addition to the deterioration of mental health, Toyota has implemented cost-reduction measures.  A new wage system was introduced with wage reductions after the age of fifty-one and many activities have been delocalized. By then, a large amount of workers have been sent overseas as training leaders and replaced with thousands of short-term employees. In summary, there is mainly a strong dissatisfaction between workers which impacts on Toyota’s approach to quality.