#2-1 Turning Japanese [July 30th, 2011]

The Economist Study Group 2011 summer-autumm launched

#2-1   Turning Japanese [July 30th, 2011]
Aug 7th 2011 10:00-12:00 Sendagaya GoodMorning Cafe

Ono, Iino, Ogawa, Goda, Shimada, Ido, Tomozawa 

Articles we discussed

[Britain][Manufacturing] A tale of two industries

[Business][Schumpeter] The trouble with outsourcing

[Business][French newspaper] The revolution at Le Monde

[Finance & Economics] [Economic Focus] Beefed-up burgernomics

[Leaders][Debt and politics in America and Europe] Turning Japanese

This week we started second season of the study group and surprisingly 4 new members came to join with us. Iino invited 3 of them and Ogawa invited 1 of 4. They are smart and have passions to contribute to our discussion. New members are necessary for our group to be continuing. We very appreciate it.

    We discussed 4 articles and commented 1 article. The cover picture of this week was sensational particularly for Japanese people. American President Obama and German Prime Minister Merkel both wear kimonos that have their flag-like patterns. The title of a cover article is ”Turning Japanese”. This illustration implies that both Europe and America turn to be like Japan, which suggest both fall into the absence of leadership. I feel ashamed because they probably think it is a “fact” of the world that leadership doesn’t exist in Japan and readers also know about it. Moreover, this article does not focus on Japan itself. Japan is like a lure to discuss their greater matters of concern such as US debt ceiling and EU debt issues. We should bear in mind that world sees us .

    Let’s follow our discussion briefly. The first two articles are about corporate strategies mainly on an aerospace industry. Britain’s article compares two Britain-located manufacturing company Ralls Royce (an example of succeed) and Bombardier (failure). The keywords are “service revenue”, “globalization and standardization” and “diversion”. We mainly discussed characteristics of the two industries. Second article Iino chose is “the trouble with outsourcing”. Unique example on the article is Boeing 787 Dreamliner. We mainly discussed “core values” of aircrafts industry. The core values we think of at first are technologies of engines and wings but Iino said they are not. He said “integration know-how” is the core value in this industry. That was an interesting point of the discussion.

    On third article about French newspaper, we also discussed core values of media industry. Goda chose the article and he proposed to discuss the role of journalism mentioning a current issue of Fuji TV. We focused how to prevent journalistic impartiality from influence of capitals and unions. Current TV companies have not only news sections but also entertainment sections. We should discuss the issue separately. Goda said the core value of journalism is to make good articles without any influence.

    Last article is about the famous BicMac Index. Ono presented the summary in English for the first time. This was challenging but necessary to improve our English skill. We mainly discussed why BicMac? Various reasons can be imagined but we focused two. The first is that BicMac is a consumer good that we can find globally. The second is that it is a food that is made by local harvests.

    We gathered at Good Morning Café in Sendagaya. We were 8 (large group) but seats were available fortunately. We have used the café four times already. Location and atmosphere are nice so I like there but BGM was loud so a little difficult to hear their voices. If members will gather more than 5 like today, we should find more comfortable space.