April 29, 2012

The Jobless Generation

/TIME, April 16, 2012, Page 22-27/

Introduction

   This topic is crucial to my generations. Why is the labor market for young people loosing its balance, and why even best students feel hard to survive?

Briefing

   Jobless young generation is a common issue all over the world, whether they live in advanced economy or emerging economy. The International Labor Organization reported that 2 out of 5 people aged 15 to 24 are globally unemployed, though the proportion of such a population is different in regions and nations. The situation of labor market is desperate for the young, even for the well-educated young.

   Why is the mismatch of the entry labor supply and demand expanding? The root of the problem is the global economic stagnation after the financial crisis in 2008, but the direct reason is inflexible labor market. The protection of full-time laborer is remarkable in every country, which suppress the company’s demand for young labor force. Moreover, the supplier of entry workers include a problem. Higher educational institution, say university, tends to misguide its student to courses that is mismatched with the needs of economy. 

   These structural inefficiency needs to be fixed immediately. A large number of young people are wasting their time under unemployment, some of them are talented and highly educated. Without any improvement, the situation will get worse than wasting time. Most of the young unemployed are frustrated, loosing their way, and potential to be violent. In addition, loosing the job experiences and skills in the early stage of their career may deprive their chance to get employed in the rest of the life.

Opinion

   In my opinion as a graduate student, unbalanced labor market for young people is mainly caused by lack of adaptation of advanced education to the changing world. The conventional economy, in Japan’s case, have never expected the university to make its student ready for the entry to the job. But no longer now. Higher educational institutes might need to change themselves to meet the demand for experienced and productive 1st year businessman.   

April 14, 2012

The Future of Oil

/TIME, April 9, 2012, Page 22-29/

Introduction

   Japan is consuming oil for generating electricity at the highest rate ever before, because of suspending almost all nuclear power plants after last year’s nuclear disaster. Meanwhile, the oil price is marking the highest level in the modern history. Those facts mean that Japan has to analyse the world’s oil economics and politics, and decide whether to stay the same energy policy, or change it to find the alternatives. 

Briefing

   The oil price has been historically unstable for several reasons. About 40 years ago, the oil supply was dominated by meddle eastern countries, and the price fluctuated along their diplomatic policies. But recently, the oil price is affected by quite different factors.

   Geopolitical factors is very influential. Middle eastern countries and Russia contain the plentiful oil stocks, and they used to adjust their supply just as the oil price changes until the world economic crisis. But now, they can no longer afford to work in such a way, and they are selling at the full throttle.

   The world economy has changed entirely in a few decade. China has arose as the world’s largest oil consumer and pushed up the total oil demand. On the other hand, there are new oil fields found in Canada, Brazil, and the U.S. by the development of drilling technology. However, these oils take much costs to pump up the ground and contain a high risk of an accident. 

   At this moment, oil is very expensive, because of political insecurity in the middle east and of China’s increasing consumption. This situation is boosting the investment into the oil industry in new suppliers like Brazil, which might break the tight balance of oil economy and cause its collapse. 

Opinion

   As this article says, the oil market has a nature of instability. This means Japan has to shift to other energy sources as soon as possible in order to cope with the risk of the dependence on oil. Then, following question is whether to re-introduce nuclear power or reject it. But the discussion about this problem is stuck. I wonder how long we have to take the risk of using oil.   

March 24, 2012

Border Control

/TIME, March 5, 2012, Page 44-48/

Introduction

   This article picked up the immigrant problem inside Schengen area, where european citizens can travel and work across the bouder line. Western and wealthy countries’ people claim that rising immigrant population causes unemployment, crime, and cultural identity loss in their society, and some people turned into far-right extreme activist, trying to reject any immigrant. 

   I chose this topic because this recent issue facing Europe is also the potential 

problem for Japan, which is aging rapidly in terms of labor force, economic scale, and international influence. 

Briefing

   Why labor liberalization caused western regions’ discontent and nationalism?

Most of the victim of the liberalization is blue collar people in western countries, exposed to competition with less-waged and abundant labors from eastern European countries and North-African Muslim areas. Those who suffers from jobless and multicultural situation have composed nationalist party and affected county’s policy. 

   But these people is not mainstream. However, the anti-immigrant trend is gradually spreading to major politicians, because they cannot ignore the opinion of considerably large number of suffering class, facing the next election. 

   The writer of this article and some researcher cited in the article, they stand against the disintegration, unlike increasing nationalist. From the economical point of view, going back to previous Europe cause huge loss as much as 25% to 40% in cross-border trade. Such an estimate is crucial for western countries’ industry which is still dependent on inter-regional trade. For immediate solution, western politicians need to remove people’s discontent without disintegration. 

Opinion

   Now problem is how. According to the article, those nationalist are more afraid of losing their cultural unity rather than losing their job. Such an emotional conflict is very tough to neutralize by policy, because it is not a matter of money.　At least now, solution is not clear. But, this example suggests that globalization is not necessarily good for everyone. 

April 7, 2012

The Beast With A Billion Eyes

/TIME, April 2, 2012, Page 42-47/

Introduction

   In Japan, the average time consumed to watch a TV is rapidly declining especially among younger generation. This trend is not only domestic but also worldwide, happening everywhere the TV is a major source of information and entertainment. But people do not loose their interests in multimedia. Instead, they are finding a alternative media provider: YouTube. 

Briefing

   YouTube has started as a video shearing website in early 2005, and now it is the world-largest broadcaster and the most successful advertising agency. Its success is supported by the enormous scale of its contents: 60 hours video is uploaded for every minute, and its web trafic: more than 4 billion pages are viewed per day. 

   But such a scale is its enemy at the same time. No matter how it contains rich video contents, they are useless if they are distributed without order. Unlike webpages, videos are very difficult to classify for YouTube owner: Google, because computers are able to store the videos but not to get any images and ideas from them to sort them out. 

   There is another structural problem in YouTube when it is compared with the TV. When you turn on your TV, it will automatically provide you with news and entertainments. But in the case of YouTube, you need to find something you might get interested in. Google is trying to broadcast a relevant videos effectively for every individuals with their own interests, by introducing an idea of ‘channel,’ which is a certain group that every users can compose of any videos on YouTube, for example March 11th earthquake news channel. 

Opinion

   This article points out that the idea of channel is pushing YouTube to a TV-like media and concerns about a competition with the conventional advertising business model. As a consumer, I think that YouTube is superior to TV in meeting our interests precisely, but I cannot give up the rich entertainment made by profesional. Power balance in advertisement industry should be adjusted as far as viewers enjoy the features of both of these media. 

March 31, 2012

An Unquiet People

/TIME, March 19, 2012, Page 40-42/

Introduction

   This article is remarkable especially for Japanese. It reveals the rising civil society in Japan, the diversity of opinions related to nuclear power, and a domestic conflict between pro-nuke and anti-nuke groups. Conflict itself has been unconsciously avoided because of our traditional value that put emphasis on harmony and consensus. But this topic suggests that is not any more. 

Briefing

   An Earthquake and Tsunami 1 year ago, and a following nuclear disaster has changed ordinary people into civil activists. They used to be a house wife, a businessman, or a scholar before, but now they fight over the nuclear power plant, government’s ability in emergency, and massive debris caused by the disaster. 

   Major opinion regarding nukes is that it should be reduced or phased out, but not everyone is against nuclear power. Some activists, like Kyoto University assistant professor, Mr. Koide, makes up a campaign against nukes, but some activists in Fukushima insist that health risk is overestimated and such a misunderstandings are destroying rural economy. 

   Japan has to decide whether to maintain nuclear power or not, however, economical conflicts will not make it easily. Shifting to fossil fuel is not realistic solution because that costs too much. Another problem is how many rural community subsidized for neighbor nuclear plant can survive without nuclear industry. 

Opinion

    I cannot tell you which is a better way, because there are too many stakeholders in this problem, and it is not clear about how much benefit or risk we will gain by the decision, it may be even impossible to calculate. I think we are facing a huge problem beyond our government’s control, and this is the very reason why each individuals should discuss the problem and demonstrate our own opinions to the government. In other words, we need to use the civil activity to build up a new decision making system based on people’s opinion.