National Tide 1980.

In late September 1988, Japan's economic development reached its highest peak in history and society was unprecedentedly prosperous.

This is not only reflected in the stock market and the property market hitting new historical highs, but also in the people in the market being obsessed with money and extravagance, pursuing the ultimate luxury in the carnival of material things, working hard to make money and spend money desperately.

This is also reflected in the opening of Tokyo Dome and the successful hosting of Tyson's boxing match.

The Seikan Tunnel and the Nagase Bridge, two infrastructure projects that required huge investments and took several years to build, have finally been completed and opened.

It can be said that now people throughout Japan are full of confidence and purses, and are all immersed in laughter and joy.

So even though Ning Weimin had been away from Tokyo, Japan for less than three months, when he came back, he was still surprised and fresh about the many new changes in all aspects of Japanese society.

First, it is the consumption environment.

Yes, the consensus reached by Japanese society in this era is - instantism.

To put it simply, it means to enjoy life while you can.

In order to make money, businesses in various industries in Japan are also so unscrupulous that they constantly encourage this kind of hedonism.

No matter whether it is a domestic or foreign festival, they all rely heavily on Valentine's Day. In addition, various membership days, anniversaries and other activities are launched to attract young people to consume.

Under the deception of merchants, couples have to give each other gifts on every holiday or anniversary, and in order to compete with each other, luxury goods such as Rolex and LV are also common.

Usually the first thing Japanese unmarried friends ask when they meet is "What gift did your boyfriend or girlfriend give you?"

As a result, not only have young people entering society been successfully brainwashed and have become unwavering fans of "consumption frenzy", but even boys and girls who are still in school are deeply influenced by this social atmosphere and have become prey to merchants who are addicted to material desires.

Nowadays in Tokyo, Japan, office workers have begun to use Nissan Maxima as their means of transportation.

This car quickly won the favor of Japanese consumers with its luxurious configuration and powerful performance that were comparable to those of Mercedes-Benz and BMW, and became a popular model in the Japanese market at that time.

It has become a common phenomenon for young boys and girls in school to buy Gucci, Chanel and LV products, whether with pocket money from their parents or with money earned from part-time jobs or compensated dating.

But this is still not the full extent of Japan's social consumption potential.

Because even at this time, even the middle-aged and elderly Japanese people who have always advocated thriftiness have become the main force of overseas consumption.

When Ning Weimin returned to Japan, a new word became a word that was often seen in Japanese newspapers - the Obasan Brigade.

This term means that when the holidays come, a bunch of middle-aged women with curly hair and wearing flip-flops fly abroad to buy luxury bags and perfumes.

They would cut in line and make noise as if no one was around, ignore the no-smoking signs, and touch the museum's collections at will.

To this end, the Vatican has issued a silence order specifically targeting the Japanese.

Cultural scenic spots in Belgium and Italy have begun to restrict entry of Japanese.

Times Square in the United States began to have Japanese signs prohibiting Japanese people from making loud noises and littering.

The Daily Mail even published a special article to satirize this phenomenon, with the title "Low-quality Japanese tourists"

As the reputation of the "Obasan Brigade" quickly spread overseas, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Japanese media could no longer sit still.

In order to save Japan's national reputation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs not only asked the media to issue an appeal, but also put civilized behavior reminders on airplanes specifically for these middle-aged women traveling abroad.

But unfortunately, the effect is not great.

The feedback Ning Weimin received from Yamato Kanko was that travel agencies were both eager for and troubled by these old ladies.

When this group of people go abroad, they are really willing to buy a lot and have extremely strong purchasing power.

But they also caused a lot of trouble. The tour group was looked down upon almost everywhere, and it took a lot of effort to clean up their messes.

After learning about these situations, Ning Weimin became a little confused, considering that the sales of his trolley suitcases had recently surged due to the purchases by these old ladies.

He didn't know whether the three brands of travel suitcases he represented would have a negative impact on their reputation because of the purchases by these old ladies.

Secondly, the increase in purchasing power has not only made the Japanese people fall in love with consumption, but Japanese companies have so much money that they have no idea where to spend it.

So Japanese companies are further exacerbating the global buying spree they have already set off.

It can be said that the investment targets of Japanese companies are no longer limited to tourism real estate in Guam and Hawaii.

Japan's major financial groups have begun to truly move beyond Asia and purchase large quantities of real estate and businesses abroad.

Moreover, the end of World War II was not too far away at that time. Many senior Japanese political and business leaders had experienced World War II and understood the tragic situation of Japan at that time. They all had a sense of revenge against the United States, and the rapid development of Japan's economy also gave them some courage.

For example, the then Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita proudly declared in public that Japan had achieved freedom in beef and oranges.

At the same time, they also mocked the US troops stationed in Japan, saying that prices in Japan are too high and that the US troops stationed in Japan cannot go out on the streets and can only infect each other with AIDS on the ship.

This is clearly a mockery of the U.S. military’s inability to even pay…their salaries.

For Japan, which has always been servile to its American father, this is a sign of rebellion.

As a result, the United States became Japan's first target for investment.

The most representative news at this time is that Toyota directly invested 22 billion US dollars to build a factory in the United States.

Sony also began secret contacts with Columbia Pictures in the United States, preparing to enter the film production industry.

In addition, the Japanese have also purchased considerable quantities of collectibles such as antiques and paintings overseas.

Among the large number of items purchased by the Japanese, the most famous and eye-catching one is of course the famous Van Gogh painting "Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers" that we have repeatedly mentioned before.

This painting was actually bought at a London auction in 1987 by Yasuo Goto, chairman of Japan's Yasuda Corporation, for a whopping billion yen.

The price is 22.5 million pounds, or 39.7 million US dollars.

It is said that when Goto Yasuo raised the placard to bid for the painting on the spot, in just four minutes, the price went from the reserve price of 1 billion to a sky-high price of 5.9 billion, setting a record for the highest price for an oil painting in the world.

This is enough to show the financial strength and ambition of Yasuda Company.

But this happened last year after all. Why do we still talk about this painting today in 1988?

After this painting was taken, it had a huge impact on Japan. It was this painting that caused the "sunflower fever" across Japan.

You should know that after the Yasuda Insurance Company purchased the painting and sent it back to Japan, it was not hidden away, but exhibited in various parts of Japan for people across the country to see.

In this way, this guy not only successfully inspired the national self-confidence and pride of the Japanese people through this method, but also made his Yasuda Insurance a model of wealth and power, which made the Japanese people have a great affection and trust in Yasuda Insurance.

It also directly promoted the growth of Yasuda's insurance business, which was Goto Yasuo's original purpose.

Needless to say, it is great to see that buying famous paintings can bring such great reputation.

Even graduates from prestigious Japanese universities have begun to consider Yasuda Insurance as a preferred employer, so how can other Japanese companies sit still?

As a result, major financial groups have stepped up and started to follow suit. As a result, Japanese art can be seen at major art auctions around the world this year, and the prices of famous Western European paintings have skyrocketed.

Soon, Japanese retail giant Mitsukoshi Department Store bought Picasso's famous work "Acrobats and Young Harlequin" at Sotheby's in London, and Nishiura Department Store purchased Monet's famous work "Water Lilies" for 1.3 billion yen.

In addition, financial tycoon Takahashi Osaka also spent more than 10 million US dollars to buy 11 works by German modern art master Kiefer, and real estate tycoon Tsurumaki spent more than 5 million US dollars to buy Cézanne's "Reflections in Water"...

Even Japan's major national art museums were unwilling to lag behind and launched an unprecedented "big change", purchasing a large number of Western art works in Europe and the United States.

Among them, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo alone spent 600 million yen to buy "Girl with a Hairband" by American pop artist Lichtenstein.

It can be said that all of this can be traced back to the Van Gogh painting purchased by Yasuda Insurance.

Needless to say, under such market conditions, the domestic art market in Japan also went through a boom.

For example, the more than 80 paintings that Ning Weimin bought from Mihara Masahiro for over 100 million yen have more than quadrupled in price.

The 100 million yen he originally invested in bribes at a price higher than the market price has now become nearly 300 million yen.

If we count the paintings he placed at the Dangu Restaurant branches in Kyoto and Osaka to defraud insurance, the loss would definitely be more than 300 million yen.

It can be said that this is the most cost-effective deal he has ever made in order to win the prize.

So much so that Mihara Masahiro now wants to buy it back and took the initiative to find Ning Weimin to ask him if he is willing to sell it.

So it just so happened that Ning Weimin sold the whole thing back for 250 million yen.

The benefit of this transaction was not only the doubling of funds, but also the fact that I did a favor for Masahiro Mihara.

Although Teresa Teng no longer cares about the Japan Record Awards, Keiko Matsumoto still dreams of being nominated.

Moreover, the music album that Ning Weimin planned for Keiko Matsumoto was already on sale in Japan in the first half of the year.

At present, the sales of the Japanese version of "Venus in the Caravan" "Landscape of Venus" that they bought from France are quite strong. It is almost catching up with the performance of "Water Flower of Love", which was the best-performing song of Keiko Matsumoto at that time. There is no doubt that it will surpass it.

In addition to this song, the same album also includes a cover of the French classic song "La Vie en Rose" and "Applause" which Ning Weimin bought through Teresa Teng and the songwriter in Taiwan. The responses to the covers were all good.

Therefore, as long as he has the help of Mihara Masahiro, Ning Weimin feels that at least he will not miss out on one of the gold prizes at this year's record awards.

You can make money and make up for your wife's regret. Why not do it?

As for the last part, we have to talk about Japanese politics.

Because in the current economic trend of rampant bubbles, even Japanese politicians are not immune, and all major political trends at this stage are centered on the economy.

The biggest impact on the lives of Japanese people at present is the introduction of consumption tax.

Before this, Japan had always implemented a tax system based on direct taxes, while indirect taxes were selectively levied on specific goods and services with a limited scope of collection.

However, as Japan's economic growth slowed down after the oil crisis, the tax system based mainly on direct taxes began to show its drawbacks. At the same time, affected by factors such as increased social security spending, Japan's fiscal revenue and expenditure deteriorated.

As Japan's fiscal deficit continued to expand, the government had to start issuing large amounts of government bonds.

It was precisely in order to get rid of the financial difficulties that some Japanese politicians proposed the idea of ​​consumption tax, which is essentially a value-added tax.

However, this kind of thing of collecting more money is never a good idea. Since the 1970s, Japanese politicians who hold this view have been attacked from all sides and scolded.

Whether it was Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira in the 1970s or Yasuhiro Nakamasuone in the early to mid-1980s, whenever they proposed a consumption tax bill, they were met with total resistance from the public, the opposition parties, and even within the ruling party.

But by the late 1980s, things were indeed different.

As Japanese society is currently flooded with money and credit expansion has reached its limit, the stock and property markets have brought infinite hope to Japan. Everyone has begun to believe that there is no ceiling for Japan's stock and property markets, and that Japan will only get better in the future.

Therefore, whether it is the public or the political and business circles, the aversion to the increase in tax burden has been greatly reduced, and no one is resisting the introduction of consumption tax anymore.

After all, it is too easy to make money nowadays. Most people have so much money that they don’t know how to spend it. Even the owner of a vegetable store is busy singing and dancing every night.

In addition, this time, Takeshita Noboru also made some adjustments to the tax policy. He adopted a mixed strategy of levying consumption tax and lowering income tax. Instead of simply increasing the burden on the people as he did in the past, he ultimately successfully promoted the legislation of consumption tax.

It has been basically finalized that the Consumption Tax Law will come into effect from next year, and Japan's consumption tax will officially enter the historical stage with a tax rate of 3%.

This may be the only positive impetus that Japan's bubble economy has brought to the country's finances.

Otherwise, the Japanese government would not have been able to complete the consumption tax legislation. For this day alone, Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita was not inactive.

But then again, even Takeshita Noboru, who pushed for this matter, could not remain honest in Japan's money-laden environment. As early as 1988, he was implicated in two major economic bribery cases.

The first incident was the Recruitment Incident that broke out in July 1988. Japanese media reported that Recruitment bribed politicians by giving them unlisted shares of Recruit Cosmos at low prices, and the politicians then sold them at high prices on the market. The Liberal Democratic Party leaders involved in this incident included almost all the party leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party, including Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru.

The second incident is the more famous Recruit incident of the same nature. Using almost the same method, Recruit's chairman Hiromasa Ezoe used his company's low-priced stocks to bribe major politicians in important positions in the Liberal Democratic Party and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Chairman Tsuneshi Mado. The most dramatic thing is that some politicians resigned because of the incident, and those successors who claimed to be innocent were also found to have accepted bribes within a few days of taking office and stepped down in disgrace.

It is events like this that have almost brought the LDP's credibility to a freezing point, and the Japanese people have begun to refuse to believe the ruling party's words anymore.

Even Ning Weimin was dumbfounded by such a political situation. Now he had to turn on the TV every day and buy a bunch of newspapers to watch the show.

To be honest, he knew that the Three People's Party in the old society was rotten and almost all the important officials were corrupt and took bribes, but he never expected that the Japanese government in the 1980s would be so rotten.

But if you think about it carefully, it is actually reasonable. Isn't the most suitable soil for corruption when the economy is booming? Otherwise, if you are poor, you can't be corrupt even if you want to.

Perhaps it is the unprecedented prosperity of Japan's economy that has created such a group of corrupt politicians.

Of course, to be honest, even though the Japanese government of this era was so bad, it still had some good points.

Another incident during this period is sufficient to illustrate this point.

In October 1988, the Gifu District Court in the central Japanese city sentenced the thugs who tore down the national flag of the Republic, giving the Republic a relatively satisfactory explanation.

This incident happened on June 1988, 6. At that time, when the Gifu Prefectural Government was holding a signing ceremony to establish friendly prefecture-province relations between the prefecture and the Republic's JX Province, 21 local right-wing elements drove a propaganda vehicle to the front of the prefectural government building to cause trouble. Several thugs actually tore down the five-star red flag hanging on a 15-meter-high flagpole in public.

After the incident, at the request of the Chinese side, the Japanese government and relevant authorities promptly arrested and punished the perpetrators in accordance with the law.

时隔数月后，岐阜地方法院最终对4名被告分别判处1年零3个月、10个月、8个月和6个月的徒刑。

From this incident, we can see that at least the sincerity of the Japanese government in this era is still acceptable in terms of Sino-Japanese friendship.

In this era, Japan is not just lip service to the idea of ​​opposing war and respecting peace, but has a clear understanding of it.

Therefore, in such an environment, Japan's right-wing elements do not have much room to survive and cannot cause any trouble for the time being.

This may be the only thing Ning Weimin approves of the Japanese government of this era. (End of this chapter)