[Mr.Takeshita] Preparation for Crisis – Can you look at EU’s situation with indifference?

* Written to Japanese readers of Mr.Takeshita’s blog – 14 May, 2012 *

Is this miserable situation in European countries fire on the other side of the river?  Some people say that Japan’s public debt is safe, but I don’t think so. 

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has inflated the debt bubble so that banks have made big profits and promoted disposal of bad loans. BOJ can intentionally have the bubble burst. Some banks which have bought in national loans may go bankrupt after suffering a great loss. On the contrary, however, major banks half of whose stocks are bought up by foreigners can make big profits from futures trading because they can get inside information from the deputy director of BOJ. It might be found afterwards that most of Japanese banks have been taken over by foreign funds.

 The same thing has happened many times in history.  Such confusion in financial system and fiscal austerity will result in mass unemployment and many suicide victims, which is the same situation as in Europe.

If the situation in Middle East should get worse and oil prices should rise, unemployed people with no income will suffer a rise in prices for daily necessities and the agricultural and fishery industries cannot survive, depending on the degree of a rise in oil prices.  This is because modern agriculture and fishery depend on oil.  Considering the Japan’s food self-sufficiency ratio of less than 1%, oil shortage might make this worst-case scenario change into an unthinkable tragedy.

This is why I have often advised you to have your own homes or second homes in the countryside and stockpile food for at least three months or for a half or one year, if possible.  I hope this will not happen.  However, looking at foolish leaders in Japan, all we can do is prepare for a possibility of the worst-case scenario.