Gendai.net (Japanese) reported (partial summary):
Last year, the number of bankruptcy cases went below 13,000 cases for the first time in 13 years. The number shows that corporate bankruptcies are going down. However, it turned out to be fake.
General Manager in Tokyo Shoko Research said, "Actually, companies which were closed down or stopped to do their business temporarily increased explosively. These cases are twice as many as the cases of corporate bankruptcies."
Since the disastrous earthquake in March 11, such cases have increased. Companies which closed down their business by themselves are not counted in the number of bankruptcy. However, this should be the same as bankruptcy. These cases can be counted as "invisible bankruptcy".
(unquote)
Some comments for this news online (rough summary):
- Great job, Democratic Party of Japan! You guys killed everybody except for government employees (who are very hated in Japan recently)
- Recently, big companies started to shift their factories and the number of jobs is getting less and less. In addition, yen is so strong. Thank you, DPJ. You guys contributed to the destruction of Japan (grin)
- DPJ which chose Shirakawa as a head of Bank of Japan is fully responsible.
- Winners are only white ants government employees and politicians (LOL)
- Daily life protection is much more profitable than running small businesses.
- In local areas, nobody goes to local shops to buy products. People buy online.
- There are quite a lot of empty offices in central areas of Tokyo, even in spaces right above subway stations. It seems that people who give up their real estates start to increase, so that many buildings are destroyed.
- I am also self-employed, and I start to lose even spirits to earn money. If I can earn around 300 million yen per year, it will be already enough. I will be just happy if I can live. I don't want to work harder like in the past any more, which is meaningless nowadays.
- Destroy DPJ!
- Soon, banks will recapitalize and financial crisis will take place.
(unquote)
Japanese yen has been pretty strong even after the big earthquake, tsunami and radiation contamination. However, a lot of Japanese people are suspicious and wondering why Japanese currency is so strong because real economic situation is pretty awful.
US economy and EU economy must be much more terrible, probably. However, in a few years (or earlier), a real crisis (economical) may come to Japan and Japanese yen may be much cheaper than now.
Now here in Japan, people cannot find a positive light at all, especially, for young people.
