New Paradox for Japanese Women

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Short comments on The New Paradox for Japanese Women: Greater Choice, Greater Inequality by Toshiaki Tachibanaki as translated by Mary Foster from 女女格差

Mostly creating this post to show one of the typical graphs from the book:

Labor Force Participation

However, I'll note that overall I was kind of disappointed in the sociological extensions of his economics-based analysis. The book has already been returned to the library, but the memorable example that comes to mind was assumptions of parity that didn't consider such obvious possibilities as gender bias in remarriage patterns. In particular, I remember his stretching for a sociological explanation when the more likely and obvious explanation was that some of the older men were remarrying younger women... It was an interesting and thought-provoking volume, but he should have had an actual sociologist look it over for such obvious flaws. (However, it is also possible that some of the apparent flaws were actually do to the translation. That wouldn't be much of an excuse since the author is fluent in English...)

Secrets of Home Delivery Pizza

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「宅配ピザのひみつ」の秘密 by おだぎ みを, 佐藤 守, and 吉原 徹 or (in English) the Secret of Secrets of Home Delivery Pizza by Mio Odagi, Mamoru Sato, and Tooru Yoshiwara

The mystery of this book is the scarcity, so the main reason I am writing this review is in the hope that someone who knows the secret will find the webpage and add a comment to reveal the hidden truth. If you don't want to share the secret in public, then say so in your comment and when I moderate the comment, I will act appropriately. In other words, it won't be published to the Web unless you say it's okay. (Again, apologies for the policy of comment moderation, but I will NOT support the spammers by helping them broadcast their garbage.)

Here is the background of the mystery. This book is Volume 13 of the widely distributed Gakken series, which in a literal translation would means something like 'Gain good understanding by studying comics' (学研まんがでよくわかるシリーズ). The distribution mechanism is unusual. As near as I can tell, you cannot buy these books anywhere, but they are distributed to many public libraries throughout Japan. It appears the libraries can't buy they either, but all of the costs are covered by the sponsor of each volume, which is a prominent company in the industry that the book is describing. For example, Volume 1 in this new series is called Secrets of Hamburgers (ハンバーガーのひみつ) and was sponsored by McDonalds Japan. Gakken has published various series of books over the years, but this seems to be the most successful, with around 90 volumes so far, and presumably more to come.

Now for the details of the mystery. In general, many branches of a library system will each receive a copy or even two. For example, Koto Ward currently has six copies of Volume 11 (which was published around the same time), three copies of Volume 1 (which was published a few years earlier), ten copies of Volume 68 (which was published in 2012), but zero copies of this Volume 13. There may be some loss through wear and tear, but the books are well made and seem to last quite well, but Volume 13 is amazingly scarce. After some fairly heavy research, I was able to discover that there seem to be only four circulating copies left in Tokyo, none at all in the neighboring prefectures, and a few more copies scattered around Japan. Hard to estimate from the data I have, but I'd be surprised if more than 50 copies were ever distributed, and quite probably it was more like 20 copies.

The publisher refused to say anything about what happened, but simply said the book was not available, even when I offered to buy a copy. The author never replied to a query about the book, though she has done a number of other volumes in the series. My next idea is to contact the corporate sponsor of this book, Pizza-La, which is still one of the largest and most successful pizza delivery companies in Japan. However, at this point I have to predict they won't be talking about it. (Just sent the query to Pizza-La, but not holding my breath.)

Once I finally obtained one of the circulating copies of the book (though there are rumors of a scanned PDF version), I read it carefully searching for some explanation of the mystery. The plot is actually more intricate than the average for books in this series (though typically unrealistic), but the story of the company itself is unusually interesting. The founder of the company, Asano-san, appears to have gotten the idea of starting a pizza delivery company from watching the 1982 movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial many years ago, possibly when he was living in Hawaii as a young tour guide. I don't remember the details of the movie, but I'm guessing they must have ordered a pizza, and perhaps that was even related to the 'phone home' part of the movie. It was probably after seeing the movie that Asano-san was badly burned when his first restaurant burned down, but he survived, and after some more adventures he started his pizza delivery company. More evidence of my limited Japanese capability, but I'm not even sure when he moved back to Japan... All in all, I would rate it as one of the better books in the series because the different plot threads ought to hold the childrens' interest and the company founder has an interesting real-life story to tell. In terms of academic content (the secrets part of it), I'd rate it below average, but I doubt that would bother the target audience. If the book were sold on a regular basis, I'd expect it to sell well above the average (rather than being the rarest book in the entire series).

The only possible hint I can see to the mystery is on page 58, where there is a growth chart of the number of stores, suggesting that the Japanese market for home delivery pizza had become effectively saturated a few years before this book was published, and the total number of shops had actually started to decline. This data looks worse than the sales figures that appear on page 49, but maybe Pizza-La got into a major financial crunch at the time the book was ready for publishing and was unable to pay for a planned print run that was surely intended to be much larger than 20 copies.

For the so-called record, let me include a brief summary review of the entire series of books. At this time I've read over 60 volumes of the series, mostly in the last two years. The unifying theme is that all of these companies have been unusually successful in their respective industries. In most cases it seems that these companies were positioned for rapid growth right after the war, though there are many variations, and there aren't any clear unifying patterns to their successes. Also, there is a lot of variation induced by the different artists and authors, and also by the various companies that sponsored the individual volumes, presumably through their marketing departments. For example, I would say that Otsuka Pharmaceuticals has an unusually aggressive marketing department... In spite of the wide variations, the books have been quite educational and I hope they have given me a lot of the background information that every Japanese elementary school child takes for granted (since it appears that fifth graders are the main target audience for the series). Almost all of the books have been quite enjoyable, too, though some of the story lines were pretty ridiculous, even allowing for the children's strong imaginations. Probably worth noting that the series does a good job of covering topics of special interest to children. Food-related topics are probably the leader, with about 25 books (so far) features such themes, including the Volume 13 of this review.

Bailout Nation

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Reactions to Bailout Nation by Barry Ritholtz

Quite an interesting book and worth a recommendation just because it didn't have any obvious political slant. After finishing it, my opinion would be that there are some holes in his reasoning and even in his data, but it has a lot of good background information and I didn't feel like he wasn't grinding any axes.

Let me start with some of the data points. One category I liked was the references he provided, ranging over a wide range of topics. On pages 17 and 18 he mentioned Stephen Mihm and Bruner and Carr on older background topics. The book by Tim Metz mentioned on page 54 sounded quite interesting. Page 61 cited Paul Krugman and Philippe Jorion. On page 72 he mentions Roger Lowenstein's interesting-sounding book. I've read some of these authors and he motivated me to want to read many of the new ones. My conclusion here is that he has looked at a lot of data.

However, another kind of data point involved places where I disagree with his interpretations of his data, or even his reasoning. Kind of a triple-play from pages 131 to 135. For example, he cites Disraeli's aphorism that "What we learn from history is that we do not learn from history." However, the point he had just made was exactly the opposite, that the bankers should have learned from the bailout of LTCM that they should expect to be bailed out.

Next he describes Reagan as "the intellectual father of the modern radical deregulatory movement." He actually repeated that claim on page 237. I just can't buy Reagan as "the intellectual father" of anything. Perhaps an "ideological father", "emotional symbol", "charismatic leader" or even "religious driver", but NOT "intellectual". Actually I think he makes my point most clearly by the key words that appear later on page 237: "unwavering belief", "distaste", and "advocacy". Nothing intellectual in there. Reagan knew what he wanted to believe, and he really cared about his beliefs, but Reagan's main reality was today's teleprompter. (To contrast with Dubya's relationship with reality, Reagan didn't know but really cared, whereas Dubya didn't know and didn't care.)

Back to page 135, where he almost contradicts himself. He says that Clinton believed in both government and markets, and then says that Dubya went farther, whereas his actual argument is that Dubya believed ONLY in markets and basically hated government. This is not "a huge step farther", but actually heading off in a completely different direction.

On page 149 I disagreed with the assertion that the consequences of government are especially troublesome. It's a matter of size and force, not the simple reduction to "government" that matters here. If the consequences of the American national government tend to be large, it's just the correlation with that governments size and strength.

On page 168 I was interested to notice how one of my banks (in Japan) lost so much money with a belated investment in Merrill Lynch. Heck, I might as well name names and say it's Mizuho Bank, which is actually a post-forced-merger name. (Then again, based on my experiences, ALL of the Japanese banks can only be measured on the scale from "bad" to "terrible", and Mizuho (probably Fuji when I opened my account) is just somewhat towards the worse end of the scale. Near as I can recall, ALL of my Japanese banks have been forcibly reorganized and renamed over the years.)

Chapter 14 is called "2008: Suicide by Democracy", and I felt this argument is ridiculous. The problem is NOT democracy but the kleptocracy or plutocracy that is running things. My philosophic position here is that most businesspeople are fine and upstanding, but the game is crooked, which is quite compatible with his message. However, he is suggesting it is a democratic problem, whereas I am convinced the source is that the crooked game is created by bad laws written by the most cheaply bribed professional politicians, and they are working for a tiny group of the greediest and least ethical businessmen who see bribery as a great investment. He does touch on the theme in the book, but actually quite lightly. On page 249 he even divides the problems between "bad philosophy" and "mob rule", but I strongly disagree. Greed is not a real philosophy, and the democratic "mob" is not paying the bribes. 

On page 178 he says there wasn't any pattern to the bailouts, but I think that he is ignoring some of the political factors. My own hypothesis is that much of the reason that Lehman wasn't bailed out was partisan political factors.

On pages 179 and 180 I have to confess I was quite amused by his jokes and cited jokes about Dubya's withdrawal from the financial problems. The joke on page 216 about Citi was also funny.

On page 232 he listed and ranked the culprits, but I disagree with his inclusion of "Borrowers and home buyers". His argument was based on the irresponsibility of such borrowers, but at least twice in the book he notes that they lacked even basic financial skills. The situation as he represented it was that skilled expert salespeople were trying to persuade them to take out these mortgages, and I can't blame suckers just because they are suckers for some new scam. Even if the suckers objected that they could not afford the mortgages, the scam artists were experts in telling them why they could afford them, mostly with the idea of selling at a higher price or just walking away.

Though he mentioned philosophy, I think he never makes his clear. To me, the philosophic problem is the worship of cancerous growth. Therefore my solution would be the amoeba growth model. I think that large companies should be divided just on principle. It actually should be an objective of government to encourage more freedom, where freedom involves meaningful and unconstrained choice among several alternatives, not the single non-choice of the monster that is too big to fail.

A final conclusion? A thought provoking read, and it had a lot of good history here. However, I think his philosophy is weak or shallow and you have to treat it as data with some opinions, and not a solid set of reasoned conclusions.

Accidental Office Lady

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Errata for The Accidental Office Lady by Laura Kriska

Good book about her first years with Honda, though judging by her reported frustrations, I wonder how long she lasted with the company. Not sure if the title was really justified, since she didn't really do much OL-type work.

Quite a bit of insight into the cultural differences between Japanese and Americans, with the usual focus on the facade (建前 (tatemae in Romaji)) versus the reality (本音 (honne)). My own take on that topic is that most Japanese are content to keep them apart, and they don't even regard it as false or misleading because everyone is supposed to do it and everyone is supposed to know that everyone else is doing it. In contrast, most Americans regard the separation as a kind of stress that should be reduced by bringing the two into alignment, even when it jeopardizes the social harmony (和 (wa)). She didn't mention that term explicitly, though she did write quite a bit about building and maintaining good relationships, especially among groups of coworkers.

However, editor that I am, I was struck by a few mistakes:

Page 87: "Even though no one in the office would discuss her difficult behavior, I found some in the knowledge I wasn't the only one suffering." There's a missing word after "some", probably "solace" or "consolation".

Page 198: The Fuji Highland Resort must be Fujikyu Highland.

Page 229: "...I wouldn't need to be involved in the preparation but that they need me to help accompany..." The second "need" should be "needed" or possibly "would need".

Page 266: The Romaji form of the famous sumo wrestler's name is "Chiyonofuji", and the misspelling really stuck in my eye.