2011 Japan Earthquake Information

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

日本語: 
http://www.google.com/intl/ja/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

Average Hours Actually Worked in Japan and Elsewhere

Hours per year per person in employment (Japan highlighted).

Blueprint of Ichiro Ozawa

"The constitution was not meant to be left untouched, sacred in its original form, through the ages. It sets forth the fundamental rules that enable us to live in happiness and prosperity. The circumstances surrounding Japan change, as do our own needs and desires. It is natural and appropriate that the constitution, too, should change with the times."

Ichiro Ozawa: Blueprint for a New Japan (1994)

Ringi-sei [稟議制] | Ringi System

Ringi-sei, Bottom-up decision making process

"The "ringi" system refers to the process of making bottom-up decisions that is common in Japan, especially in the bureaucracy. Under this system, low-ranking officials (lower-level managers in the private sector) draw up an initial plan, which is then circulated among higher-ranking officials to receive their seals of approval. Although the "ringi" system may seem to be a democratic decision making process that achieves a consensus among those concerned before reaching a final decision, some people claim that it makes it difficult to determine who is actually responsible for a decision and its outcome because nobody seems to assume responsibility."

Essentials for Understanding Japan's Bureaucracy (1997)

Japanese Business Culture and Practices: A Guide to Twenty-First Century Japanese Business

Legalized Loan Sharking Japanese Way

"First-time visitors to Japan may notice "consumer finance" companies occupying prime real estate around nearly every train station. But few visitors realize these lenders inhabit the world's most vibrant legalized loan sharking market, where seven million consumers pay interest rates that can exceed 25% annually, a usurious figure by most standards."

Tim Clark and Carl Kay: Saying Yes to Japan (2005)

The Heritage of a Long Isolation

"Much of the pre-modern Japanese history can be understood as an interplay between the indigenous and the foreign - not as a mechanical interplay, with one rhythmically rising as the other rhythmically falls, but rather as a process whereby a stubbornly native element continues to assert itself despite a flood of borrowing."

LIFE World Library: Japan (by Edward Seidensticker). Original edition 1961, 1970.