On April 30 this year, the cabinet of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama voted to submit to the Diet postal reform legislation intended as a "course correction" for the postal privatization plan adopted in 2005. Because the basic idea behind the reform bill is for the government to play a bigger role than that envisioned in the original privatization plan, most of the criticism thus far has centered on concerns that the rest of the finance industry will be put at an unfair disadvantage. The time after the 1989 economic bubble collapse, which occurred gradually rather than catastrophically, is known as the "lost two decades" in Japan. Although the fundamental ideological issue may be private versus national control of the finance industry, I think that the proposed "correction" raises important questions pertaining to the recovery from the "lost two decades". I propose the return from privated Japan Post Group to government-contorolled Janan Post.
