Reborn Tokyo Golden Age

On Christmas Eve, the new cabinet Kiichi Miyazawa summoned the leaders of Neon Finance.

When discussing measures to improve the bubble economy, we can only say that the success is less than half.

Do the neon government’s cabinet and the Ministry of Finance know that the bubble is bursting?

Of course, we know that the vanguard of the bubble bursting was even the Bank of Japan’s Mie Noyasu.

From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, the stock market fell sharply twice in a row, which is a symbol that the bubble is bursting.

However, in the face of the bubble bursting, opinions within the government are divided.

The Ministry of Finance, headed by Haneda, believes that only the stock market has been shattered.

Although Neon's property market has fallen a lot in the past two months, from the perspective of historical data, land prices are still at a high level.

Even the real estate tax, which was originally expected to be enacted in January, was decided by the Ministry of Finance to still be implemented as planned.

As for the cabinet, no, to be precise, it is Miyazawa Kiichi himself.

He believes that the bursting of the neon economic bubble and the stock market are not the focus, but the property market and land are.

No one can predict how Neon's land prices will trend in the future, but Miyazawa Kiichi firmly believes that if land prices fall too fast, it will cause a fatal blow to Neon's credit system.

And if banks' bad debts continue to deteriorate, the property market will usher in a collapse.

Now the turning point in the property market has appeared, so before the situation becomes uncontrollable.

Only by solving the root problems as soon as possible can Neon move from the decline after the bubble burst to the recovery stage in time.

Yes, even Miyazawa Kiichi realized that the property market was in danger and made a series of efforts to this end.

But pessimistically, he still believes that even if the bubble achieves a soft landing, Neon will still enter a period of decline.

What I am doing now is just to shorten the recession period as much as possible and put Neon on the right track of recovery as soon as possible.

That's why we had this meeting on Christmas Eve. There were three resolutions in total, the first two of which were emergency temporary measures.

One is the stock market special financing plan, which is the last resort to ensure that the credit industry system does not collapse.

One is the securities company compensation plan, which is a response to a series of financial scandals from the outside world and serves as an explanation to the public.

In addition, compensation to industrial companies can also play a role in maintaining stability.

What Neon needs most now is stability, not data such as GDP and industrial value added.

The last one, the government-led support for real estate companies, is to solve the potential problem of bad debts of banks.

It is different from the other two resolutions in that it is a long-term measure and the most fundamental way to solve the problem.

A proprietary agency established by the government takes over the land, which can control the amount and price of land listed for trading on the market.

To put it simply, the land is temporarily nationalized, and then gradually released over a few or more years.

In this way, although the prices in the property market are falling, at least they are not falling in a disorderly manner or in an avalanche.

However, the huge amount of funds, tens of trillions of yen and 300 to 400 billion US dollars, cannot be solved by the government alone.

That’s why the major banks in Neon need to work together to take over the land.

However, neither banks nor the financial sector, nor the Ministry of Finance, agree with such a plan.

They believe that although land prices have fallen, real estate companies are still making money.

If the real estate company is profitable, then the bank's loans will not be bad debts.

The bank is safe and sound, so why invest huge sums of money to acquire real estate companies?

Logically speaking, this is no problem, but the premise is that land prices do not collapse.

It can be said that both banks and the Ministry of Finance and other sectors are betting that land prices in Neon will not plummet.

Unfortunately, with this idea in mind, Miyazawa Kiichi's action of investing state funds to save the property market did not come to fruition.

This is Neon's last chance to save itself after the bubble burst.

Now, along with numerous objections, it disappeared in a quiet night.

…

The Miyazawa cabinet, which came to power slowly at the end of 1990, finally made a public response to the Hayama incident and a series of turbulence in the neon economy.

Before this press conference in Tokyo, Miyazawa actually wanted to go his own way and publicly promised to invest national relief funds to save Neon's economy.

However, his plan frightened his personal secretary Nakajima, so under emergency coordination, Nakajima secretly handed several notes to Miyazawa.

This is the so-called "current operational policy" put forward by the Ministry of Finance, which agreed to discuss the establishment of a proprietary agency.

But the investment of national funds was not mentioned. In other words, it was shelved and the problem was left to the future.

Due to the strong opposition from surrounding people, Miyazawa himself was a little shaken at the last moment.

So when facing reporters, he only presented the first two resolutions, the so-called "operational plan."

As for the idea of ​​establishing a proprietary agency, it was reduced to just one sentence in the end.

"If necessary, we will not hesitate to invest state funds in relief."

Relief for what? Should he save the stock market or the property market? Miyazawa never said it.

Because a series of compensation measures were announced, as well as determination to rescue the stock market.

The Nikkei index, which has been hovering around 15,000 yen, finally began to slowly rise back to around 18,000 yen.

However, what the Ministry of Finance did next caused controversy again.

There were double standards in the compensation previously promised to industrial companies by securities companies.

On the last day of the end of 1990, "Japan Business" suddenly revealed the compensation list led by the Ministry of Finance.

Without exception, all registered companies are super-first-class companies such as Toyota, Nissan, NTT, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Sumitomo Electric.

In other words, the 120 billion yen compensation is only for large companies, and small businesses are not included in the list at all.

Such a blatant double standard practice has not only denounced small businesses collectively, but also criticized the Ministry of Finance.

However, in the face of criticism from the outside world, the Ministry of Finance simply pretended to be dead and did not reply at all.

Such an arrogant and irresponsible approach further aggravates the public's distrust of it.

…

On January 1st, time enters 91 years.

This day is not only the New Year, but also the day when property tax is officially implemented.

The end of the year festival is supposed to be a time to celebrate the New Year, but the sky in Tokyo is covered with a layer of haze.

People in big cities, especially those who have more than one property to their name, are paying attention to the trend of housing prices after the New Year.

After finally surviving the New Year holiday, on January 4th, the doors of all major agencies were crowded with people.

Everyone is here to sell their houses. Without the millions of yen in taxes every year, all the annual income of ordinary families would be in vain.

This is just the choice of the people, and those real estate companies have also begun to sell off collectively.

The land parcels that first started to see a sharp decline were basically located in the central, port, and Chiyoda wards.

Because this is a prime location in Tokyo, most institutions buy land here for speculation.

Even in normal times, the frequency of land transactions in these areas is far higher than that in other areas.

Therefore, on January 4th alone, land prices in core areas fell by 6%.

But is this all? The market is blindly following, and the market is also panicked.

When the property market is flooded with land listings, a plunge is almost certain.

It fell by 13% in January, and the recovery in the property market that the public expected did not come.

It fell by 18% in February, and the recovery in the property market that the public expected has still not come.

20% in March and 29% in April

In just a few months, Neon’s land prices have returned to levels near 1987.

It seems that land prices are still higher than they were before 1985.

However, in the three to four years from 1987 to 1990, all the asset gains brought by the doubling or tripling of the land were in vain.

More importantly, many families, real estate companies, and institutions took over land during the craziest period from 1988 to 1990.

Now that land prices are back to where they were in 1987, the loans they carry are more than twice the value of the land.

…

May, Akasaka, Toranomon Building.

As the most prosperous place in Minato City, Toranomon Building is also a landmark building here.

However, just like the prosperity of Minato City, the rooftop of Toranomon Building is also extremely lively today.

"Squeak~" The iron door on the rooftop, which was rarely opened, once again welcomed a guest.

Matsui, who was in a gloomy mood, was stunned by the scene in front of him as soon as he stepped onto the rooftop.

"Hey, I'm late and I have to queue up."

A middle-aged man with his suit torn open and his tie thrown away was looking at the new visitor on the rooftop nonchalantly with a cigarette in his hand.

"Eh?" Matsui glanced at the rooftop. He still hadn't realized why there were so many people on the usually inaccessible rooftop.

"Hey, what about you?" The middle-aged man's voice came from afar again.

"Me?" Matsui pointed to himself uncertainly.

"Come here." The middle-aged man waved to him with a hand holding a cigarette.

Matsui felt strange and didn't want to pay attention to him at first, but after thinking about it carefully, it seemed that none of it mattered.

Smiling inwardly, Matsui walked over seemingly calmly.

"Which company is it from?" The middle-aged man stepped on the edge of the rooftop with one foot and rested his arms on his knees, casually chatting up his family like old friends.

"Hidewa Real Estate" For some reason, Matsui's originally nervous mood relaxed unconsciously when facing this middle-aged man.

"Xiuhe," the middle-aged man sighed inexplicably.

"You guys have suffered a big loss this time. I heard that several pieces of land in the port area were just acquired in the middle of last year?"

"Hai" Matsui replied and couldn't help but sigh.

In the middle of last year, land prices were at their highest.

Who would have thought that in just one year, the popular land would be snapped up by everyone.

Not only has the price dropped by more than half, but no one is interested.

"Your president, where is that guy on the mountain?" The middle-aged man seemed to know Xiuhe very well, and he naturally asked about the president of the real estate company on the mountain.

Matsui suddenly fell silent when he heard the other party mentioning his president.

His eyes unconsciously moved away from the middle-aged man, and instead looked at the streets of the port area a few hundred meters below him.

"It turns out he has already gone down." The middle-aged man nodded sadly.

"This guy even asked me to be one step ahead of him for such a thing. It's really too much."

The aggrieved middle-aged man threw the short cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it with his feet.

"Senior, you..." Matsui hadn't finished speaking yet.

Suddenly, another man in a suit not far away shouted loudly, and then jumped down without looking back.

Matsui stared blankly at the place where the man disappeared just now, feeling a little at a loss.

Although the figure was no longer there, the shouts seemed to still echo in the air, beating Matsui's chest one after another.