Japan Press Weekly

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2008 October 15 - 21 [ECONOMY]

JCP Shii comments on financial crisis caused by casino capitalism

Commenting on the economic downturn in the current world financial crisis triggered by the U.S. financial meltdown, Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo said, “Politics has a role to play in avoiding shifting the burden of failure of ‘casino capitalism’ onto working families and small businesses.”

Speaking at a news conference on October 14 in Sapporo City, Shii said that the full liberalization and deregulation of the money market that has taken place under U.S.-style capitalism has encouraged excessive financial speculation and caused dishonesty and hypocrisy as in sub-prime loans.

“The need now is for the world to break away from the excessive liberalization of money markets. The Japanese government should stop following the U.S. liberalization policy,” Shii said.

He said that it is the responsibility of the government to prevent the fallout associated with the debacle of casino capitalism from costing jobs and adversely affecting small- and midsized businesses and shift its economic policy from one of serving the interests of large corporations to one of supporting the household economy and ordinary people’s living standards.

Criticizing Toyota Motor Corporation for planning to stop the employment of fixed-term and temporary workers even though the company expects a surplus of more than one trillion yen, Shii said, “It is the responsibility of the government to dissuade the world’s largest automaker from starting another cost-cutting restructuring scheme.”

Shii also denounced three mega financial groups -Mizuho, Mitsubishi UFJ, and Sumitomo- of reducing their new loans by 2.7 trillion yen. He said these financial groups are increasingly reluctant to lend money to small- and medium-sized businesses while strengthening their forcible debt collection practices.

“When these mega-banks underwent a credit crisis, they were rescued with tax money. Their yearly earnings combined are expected to exceed two trillion yen. While making such huge profits, they have reduced loans available to small businesses by 2.7 trillion yen. The government should urge them to lend money to small businesses and stop forcible debt collection practices.”