Spotlight on the States: (a Japanese writer's view of poverty and health care in the US)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

Mika Tsutsumi is a spirited journalist and writer whose work turns a spotlight on the widespread hardships and poverty caused by official policies and the behavior of businesses in the United States.

Her best-selling book "Rupo Hinkon Taikoku Amerika" ("America, the Poverty Superpower") exposed to Japanese readers the shocking reality of the lives led by millions in the U.S. — including tens of thousands who go bankrupt every year due to medical expenses and legions of students mired deeply in debt because of loans they have had to take out at high interest rates to pay for their tuition.

In that book, which won the Nihon Essayist Club Award in 2008, Tsutsumi also analyzed and described how excessive reliance on market forces across U.S. society has also created a "poverty business" that further exploits disadvantaged people and drives them down to the bottom of the social ladder.

That book and its sequel, "Rupo Hinkon Taikoku Amerika II" ("America, the Poverty Superpower II"), which was published in January 2010, have together already sold 450,000 copies — a blockbuster number likely explained in large part by the fact that some 3 million people in Japan are unemployed as the country's near-two-decade economic stagnation continues. In addition, in the wake of the Japanese government's U.S.-style "reforms," millions more live in fear of experiencing similar poverty to that facing so many American citizens. The reforms begun during the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was in office from 2001 to 2006, aim to restructure Japan's public sector based on market principles.

Read the rest at

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100404x1.html
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It's interesting that her views of the U.S. situation match those of the more left-leaning DUers quite well, even though Japan is not a particularly left-leaning society.

[Lost-in-FL]

1. Sounds like a great read...

but I know it won't be sold here in the US.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. The Japan Times is one of Tokyo's Engilsh-language papers for the foreign community

and, like the Daily Yomiuri or the Asahi Evening News, it is available overseas only through a VERY expensive subscription.

That's why I read it online. :-)

[RainDog]

3. thanks for posting this one

it's always interesting to see different perspectives.

...and to see how economic policies impact different cultures.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. No, but her purpose appears to be to warn the Japanese against following

the same "free market" path. (Having seen Japan over a period of 33 years, I'm convinced that the "structural reforms" it implemented in the late 1980s were partly responsible for the economic troubles that began in 1991.)

[Demeter]

6. Reality Crosses National Boundaries

Which is why this Japanese analyst agrees with DUers. Delusion is less likely to be sustained or reinforced abroad on our domestic issues.

[raccoon]

7. I was hoping to read one or both of those books--but it looks like they haven't been translated yet.

Uh-oh.

Maybe she'd hire you to translate them, LL? :-) Seriously, I would like to read her stuff. Maybe there are excerpts somewhere on the Internet...