Bank Guarantee In Lieu Of Sample: Fill & Download for Free

It sounds like the ACS exam.It is traditionally covered at the end of the second semester in lieu of a homemade final exam.Here’s 2 things people don’t know that they should. It won’t help you but it may help others.The only focused preparation for this exam comes as 1 book which covers both semesters of review. It explains solutions to selected problems.The questions you see come from a much larger (huge) bank of questions and this is only representative of a small sample, so while helpful, mastering this book and every question in it does not guarantee you 100% unless its somehow the exam is identical to the practice exam in the book (no one would allow that).The thing I hear most (every time almost) is that was nothing like what I studied for…It’s a standardized exam. It has to have a large random base of questions with a proportion of easy, moderate, hard, a few impossible questions (never expect a perfect score on a standardized exam…hope, but don’t expect).Most people feel they wasted their efforts (i hear this in private). I think it does help. It may not resemble the material as closely but the principles are identical.This is just what to expect on the ACS exam: from personal experience and from my students who take it. It will be something unlike what you prepared for.Study hard is the point! with a focus on fundamentals.

Anything you can do to help the environment. People look at these fires as something that they can or can’t help with due to their current financial situation, but neglect to look at anything else in their lives that is impacting the environment and helped lead to the extreme devastation these fires have caused.I recently saw a news report about how the financial aid is not reaching any of the people who need it right now and asking people to instead donate clothes, household items, food etc.. to help those who are in crisis. Another about how many of these firefighters so bravely risking their lives are volunteers and struggling with old, broken equipment and long waits to replace it.I truely believe that these fires (whilst have many influencing factors) were Mother Nature fighting back against her destructors. Australians consume ridiculous amounts of bottled water that is taken from our natural sources, yet we continually live in drought. Australians fail to find out whether the way they vote is negatively impacting the environment. The vast majority selfishly go about their lives and make choices with zero regard to what they are affecting long or short term when it comes to the environment and our beautiful country. We destruct massive areas that are home to koalas and other native animals in the name of construction. Drive native birds and bats out of our suburbs and complain about our neighbours who embrace them. We let big business drain our limited resources in the name of profit, let governments get away with making ridiculous selfish decisions on our behalf. Those donating money to bush fire appeals have no real idea where it is going and could be doing a lot more to help the problem. Throwing money at it doesn’t make help the future or make the real issue go away.There is a multitude of ways you can help. I’ve copied and pasted a Facebook post below this answer that someone I know has shared about environmental impact. Also I don’t understand a lot of this side of things but my cousin recently moved all her superannuation into more ethical companies and has written about it on Facebook to inform others. I myself have stopped drinking bottled water and using plastic straws, started having cold showers and trying my best to conserve more water and speak to those around me about what they can do. We don’t have money to donate, but even if we did we know that there is a bigger problem going on and these smaller daily decisions have far more impact than we’d like to think.Money is just money and bushfires will always happen in Australia. Perhaps if we treated our beautiful country a little more kindly and with the respect it deserves, it would in turn return the favour....For people feeling motivated to adopt sustainable changes longer term, here’s a great post created by some medical parents who are advocating a 52 week challenge we as individuals can do to help make a difference against anthropogenic climate change. It’s so worthwhile scrolling down through all 52! Please feel free to copy and share! There is much power, as well as comfort in action.This week we start the 52 Change Challenge. We propose to 52 ideas for change this year in the effort to improve sustainability and reduce carbon footprint. Feel free to add your own!1. Familiarise yourself with your local recycling rules2. Join your local Zero Waste facebook group3. Soft plastic recycling (we recommend REDcycle who guarantee an Australia-only circular production)4. Switch to recycled toilet paper/paper towels... or reusable cloth wipes! ("Who Gives A Crap" has a $10 referral discount)5. Change your default search browser to Ecosia (each search funds tree planting)6. Only buy coffee if you have your own cup7. Don’t buy bottled water8. Take home recycling to recycle at home9. Refuse free stuff/samples (and tell them why)10. Switch brands of a regular product to a more sustainable one - maybe palm oil free, plastic free, grey water safe11. Increase your meat and/or dairy free days by 1 per week12. Don’t put your fruit or veg in single use plastic (take your own or just place loose in basket/trolley)13. Get a No Junk Mail or Addressed Mail Only sign for your letterbox14. Cancel your paper phonebook delivery15. Change to low energy light bulbs around the house16. Start a compost/worm farm at home or a work, or drop off your compostables to other homes via the ShareWaste app17. Change banks/mortgage/super to an ethical option eg bank Australia, Bendigo (marketforces is a great website to assist)18. Install solar panels (aim for longest potential life if possible - there is still no good resuable/recycling option for panels at the end of their lives therefore creating a waste issue)19. Change to cloth something (nappies, wipes, paper towel)20. Install water tank21. Convert to use grey water in your house22. Wash in cold water (clothes, hands, dishes)23. Turn your water heater down24. Change to a low flow shower head25. Choose more green space over paved in your house/land with a preference for native, drought resistant, bee friendly plants.26. Get chickens or native bees27. Champion changes in your work space28. Research recycling of uncommon items and take it to a place that will make use of it (you will be surprised of the things that can be recycled) eg terracycle29. Give only presents that are needed or give experiences.30. Request donations in lieu of presents for your own birthday (or something positive for the environment)31. Change to local butcher/farmers market for seasonal produce - BYO container even better!32. Consider where, how and why you eat meat or dairy.33. Shop ethically for fashion purchases - reconsider the purchase in the first place, look for it secondhand if possible, wear clothes longer (ie avoid the fast fashion cycle)34. Contribute to buy/sell/pay it forward market place35. Try reusable options for your period (cloth pads, modibodi and menstrual cups)36. Ask your pharmacist if you can change your medications to ones in bottles not foil packages (less packaging) or similar37. Buy second hand first38. Change to a compostable toothbrush (bamboo, cornstarch) and/or try tubeless toothpaste (eg denttabs)39. Avoid buying Christmas crackers (or make your own)40. Avoid plastic filled party bags41. Use reusable plates/cups/cutlery or very least biodegradable/compostable options (not plastic)42. Hire decorations43. Avoid balloons44. Walk or ride a bike instead of driving a car short distances whenever you can45. Take your own containers to take away restaurants instead of using their plastic packaging46. Avoid buying food wrapped in plastic. Shop at a bulk food shop or opt for foods in minimal packaging/BYO bag.47. Reduce your energy usage - switch off lights and computers when not in use and set your airconditioning a few degrees warmer in summer. Aim for 25-27 degrees in summer and 18-20 degrees in Winter. (Every 1 degree cooler in summer adds about 10% to your energy bill).48. Things you can start recycling (that you didn’t know you could!) - put up a collection at work/school/daycare (Terracycle depots, Flora & Fauna, IKEA, local plastic recycling)a. Bread ragsb. Return and earn (state specific)c. Bottle capsd. Textas/marker pens etce. Toothbrushesf. Beer bottle topsg. Socksh. Brasi. Batteriesj. Nespresso podsk. Light bulbs49. Look in to reputable and local carbon offset charities.50. Share an educational post on sustainability at least once a month on social media.51. Write to big business for sustainable change in your favourite products.52. Write to your local council, state MP or federal MP.Take on one, two, three or fifty-two of these ideas - we thank you for taking any part you can.The evidence for anthropogenic climate change is solid and never has it been more painfully in our face than the past few months. We believe in action. Let's focus on what we can do. We emphasize that we believe in the need for the political and business landscape to shift to carbon emission reduction, but let's get the ball rolling!

I wrote this a long time ago but if you want DETAIL here ya go. Its quite a long read. I was in Tokyo during that whole period. In fact I’M STILL HERE!!1986 – 1991The new prosperity was unprecedented: to a people used to deprivation, poverty and sacrifice, it seemed miraculous. From 1959, the economy expanded by an average rate of 9.2% annually for fifteen years, and in the following fifteen years by an average 4.2%. By the 1980s, Japan was clocking up enormous trade surpluses globally, yet managed to protect its own markets from outside competition by a combination of a fiendishly complicated multi-layered distribution system, high import tariffs, interlocking keiretsu business relations and mutual stock holdings which tied companies together and excluded outsiders, together with bid-rigging and other collusive practices. Other features of this mercantilist system were a high rate of savings among the general population, easy credit available to industry at very low interest rates, cosy relationships between politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen, and, not least, the payment of large, sometimes obscenely large, bribes to politicians for favours. The Japanese used more robots for manufacturing than any other industrialised nation, had adopted the Quality Control (Q.C.) system and perfected the ‘just in time’ method of delivering parts for assembly. Japanese employees also worked significantly longer hours per week than their Western counterparts.Japan as number oneBy the 1980s, the country had become an economic superpower. Eight of the ten largest banks in the world were Japanese. The Tōkyō Stock Exchange was roughly the same size as the NYSE. In 1987, Japan accounted for one third of the $150 billion U.S. trade deficit. As General Motors, Ford and Chrysler laid off thousands of workers and closed ageing plants, container ships disgorged shiny new Honda, Nissan and Toyotas onto docks along America’s West Coast. The Japanese domestic economy was 80% the size of that in the United States, despite half the population base, about one-fortieth the land size, and virtually no natural resources. By 1990, every single week, a billion dollars flowed from the United States to Japan. Ezra Vogel’s bestseller ‘Japan as Number One’ was published around this time. Foreigners studied books purporting to show the samurai way of doing business, to the amusement of many in Japan. A poll of 129 by Tōyō Keizai, an economics magazine, predicted that Japan would outstrip the United States in output of goods and services by the year 2010. When President Bush Sr. visited Japan, he appeared to be pleading for mercy for the ailing American car industry. Prime Minister Miyazawa responded by saying that Japan would show “compassion”. As Bush vomited and collapsed at a Tōkyō state banquet, video cameras showed the diminutive Miyazawa trying to push the U.S. president upright. It seemed an apt metaphor for the two countries’ relationship during this period.Year by year, Japan’s trade surplus with the rest of the world continued to increase by phenomenal amounts. With the exception of Middle East oil producers, every trading partner incurred a large trade deficit. By 1990, Ōsaka City and the Kansai had an economy that ranked seventh in the world. By the following year, Tōkyō officials were boasting that their city’s GDP was also closing in on that of the U.K.Mitsui & Co., a Japanese trading company with total revenues of $81.8 billion in 1986, displaced Royal Dutch Shell group as the biggest non-American corporation in the world. In 1989, the Nikkei Stock Index measured nearly 39,000 points. Tōkyō was headquarters to 94 of the 500 biggest non-American companies. Japan had more billionaires than the United States, though much of their wealth was based on the artificially high price of land. From the middle of the 1980’s, Japan had become the largest creditor nation in the world.The Tsutsumi brothersThe world’s richest individual at this time was Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, one of two multi-billionaire brothers. By the late bubble period, the gruff and fiery Toshiaki owned 25 golf courses, 50 Prince Hotels – one of the world’s biggest hotel chains – and ski villages, leisure complexes, a professional baseball team and the Seibu Railway network, Japan’s largest landowner. At that time, his business empire was estimated to be worth $400 billion U.S. The elder, more cultured brother Seiji, poet and patron of the arts, owned the Saison Group, one of Japan’s most dynamic conglomerates, the 100-strong Intercontinental Hotel chain, museums of art, boutiques, avant-garde theatres, and a nationwide chain of chic and glamorous Seibu department stores. The brothers represented the pinnacle of a largely invisible pre-eminent elite, have strong imperial connections, and wealth so vast that they were estimated to own one sixth of the landmass of Japan.Peak of the BubbleThe average Japanese had the highest income in the industrialised world by the end of 1987 – $23,022 a year. By 1990, senior managers were earning the equivalent of around U.S $60,000, plus twice yearly bonuses of between one and a half and three months additional salary.At the height of the bubble economy, a million gallons of Beaujolais Nouveau would be flown to Narita Airport and quickly rushed to restaurants throughout Tōkyō so that, because of the nine hour time difference between Europe and Japan, it could be consumed before even the French had tasted the new wine. People happily paid $40 a bottle for this dubious privilege. After the decades-long infatuation with all things American, the bubble period saw a new inquisitiveness with respect to European fashion, food, art, music and culture in general. The bank accounts of Armani, Sonia Rykiel and Chanel swelled as Japanese snapped up their ware. Brown plastic Louis Vuitton handbags were almost de rigueur accessories for many years. It would be no exaggeration to say that, during the 1980s, almost every Japanese young woman carried one of these bags.French restaurants could charge small fortunes for meals, simply because Gallic food was considered the epitome of sophisticated cuisine in trend-chasing Tōkyō. If you could persuade Japanese people that something was exclusive, sophisticated and fashionable, they were likely to pay exorbitant amounts for the privilege of sampling it. The best seats for concerts conducted by Herbert Von Karajan, for example, cost $574 each. When Miles Davis played at the opening of the Blue Note jazz club, punters paid $328 apiece.Consumer confidence had never been higher, and this was reflected in changing tastes for expensive items, including imported cars. Tōkyō’s notoriously overpriced department stores made brisk sales throughout the 1980’s, in spite of the several hundred percent mark-up they charged. By 1991, Tōkyō had become by far the most expensive city in the world. 24 carat gold-flake filled soap became popular with women in their 40’s, though ten times more expensive than ordinary soap. Sales of male toiletries grew 30% annually. Pricey customised products sold well too: best-sellers included custom-made golf clubs, and personalised perfumes or wine, which had a minimum order of 200 bottles. Women’s tights, containing tiny capsules that emitted lavender, rose and other scents when heated by body warmth, sold in the millions.Japan became the world’s leading purchaser of diamonds during this period, and indeed it still is. The chief of the jewellery section of the swank Mitsukoshi Department store said, “Several years ago you could buy a house for 50 to 60 million yen ($400,000 to $600,000). Now it costs up to 500 million yen. It tends to dull people’s sense of money. Nowadays customers come in asking to see diamonds of about 100 million yen”.The bag manOne day during the bubble period, while travelling on the Yamanote Line, a middle aged man carrying a brown paper bag sat down beside me. He took out large wads of 10,000 yen notes from the bag and began to count them so, out of curiosity, I began to silently count along with him. By the time I had to get off the train, he had reached 900,000 yen and was still counting. The man was carrying at least $8,000 in cash, and thought nothing of counting it in full view of other passengers!Prices in Ginza’s famed hostess clubs reached outrageous levels. One ex-patron of such clubs told me that he was once charged $246 for the ice for his whiskey. The charge for alcohol and the privilege of having a series of pretty young hostesses flirt and flatter for a few hours often ran into the hundreds of thousands of yen, usually paid on a very liberal company expense account. Prices at exclusive restaurants such as Kitchō, where prime ministers entertain their guests, or Fukudaya, where customers can dine in a wooden building 800 years old, were $578 per person for the basic course. They probably still are.Costs compared to other countriesA survey conducted in 1988 revealed that rent in Tōkyō was double the levels in New York and Hamburg of that period. Another survey estimated that purchasing power of most Japanese remained at two thirds of their German and United States’ counterparts, and that quality of life was only 55% of Americans’. Infrastructure still suffered from decades of comparative neglect. In 1990, less than half of Japan’s households were connected to mains sewers (this mostly in the countryside). The family budget had to cope with light, heating, water expenses and postal charges twice as high as those in New York. Because of a multi-layered distribution system, even products manufactured in Japan cost more at home than abroad. Rice cost up to four times more, thanks in large part to a ban on imports and to generous subsidies that the LDP paid to farmers. California oranges costing 40 cents per pound in the U.S. could be priced at $4 dollars in a Japanese supermarket. And then there were the infamous muskmelons costing $40 to $50 each in high-class department stores.ArtBeginning around 1987, the international art market saw the sudden arrival of Japanese collectors and investors, a new breed of multimillionaires who had made huge profits from land and stock transactions. Many treated artworks as assets to be used as collateral for business deals, or else resold at a quick profit. Others bought art for the status it gave. The owner of a gallery in Tōkyō explained, “If you owned a big chunk of Tōkyō’s high class Akasaka district, you were a nobody, but if you bought an expensive painting at auction, you could become one of the most famous people in Japan”. Yasuda, a Japanese insurance company, spent $40 million for the Van Gogh painting “Sunflowers”, more than triple the previous record paid at an auction. By 1989, Japanese art purchases accounted for 43% of global sales, setting new auction records for paintings by Chagall, Van Gogh, de Kooning, Matisse, Klee, and Renoir. Tens of thousands of artworks were acquired over a three-year period.In 1990, a Japanese businessman, the late Ryōei Sato, stunned the art world by paying more than $160 million for a Van Gogh and a Renoir. When asked about criticism that his profligacy would push up prices for other masterpieces, he said, “It depends on the time frame you are talking about, when cheap and expensive are discussed. I don’t think these prices are expensive”. When asked what he would do with a Rodin sculpture that he bought in the same week, he said, “It was only 650 million yen. That’s for my yard”.HawaiiIn 1987, more than a million Japanese businessmen and tourists visited the islands of Hawaii. It became the “in” thing to purchase a second house on the islands. Japanese bought golf courses, farms, hotels, and seemed to have a bid on every major office building in Honolulu. A leading realtor estimated that purchases of residences in 1987 had exceeded $250 million and, “are now reaching price levels which are beyond the means of even the wealthiest local residents”. The TV program ‘Newsstation’ broadcast an interview with a Hawaiian woman who complained on camera, “this Japanese man just came up to me and said ‘I want to buy your house’. He offered one million dollars”. The woman refused and told him to go away. The following day, he returned and offered to pay two million dollars cash if she would move out within a short period. Indignantly she demanded, “Just who do these people think they are anyway?”At the height of the bubble, a program titled Deta Mono Shobu was aired once a month. The object of this program was to search North American and European countries for properties that might be of interest to rich Japanese. In a typical program, a helicopter carrying a Japanese TV crew landed at a 15th century French castle. After greeting the owners, the cameras transmitted images from the chateau live, via satellite, to Japan. The owner was asked how much he wanted for the property, and to write the figure on a card which he sheepishly displayed to the camera. In this case a mere $U.S 1.9 million, which prompted cries of yasui (cheap) from the excited studio audience. Soon, potential buyers for the chateau phoned in to make inquiries. Amazingly, the program was produced with the co-operation of the Japanese government, which was attempting to show that it was making efforts to reduce Japan’s prodigious trade surpluses. During yet another broadcast, viewers were astonished to learn that a 175 acre chateau in France cost only three times more than the average central Tōkyō apartment. Yasui.The ocean of liquidityAfter the 1985 Plaza Accord currency realignment, the Bank of Japan reduced the discount rate to an all time low, resulting in an abundance of capital, often referred to as the “ocean of liquidity”. Stock prices soared. Heavy industries began to be valued on the basis of the vast tracts of realty they possessed. Landowners were able to borrow astronomical sums of money by mortgaging, and could then build factories overseas, or go shopping for ‘cheap’ foreign properties. The value of land in urban Tōkyō had increased throughout the 1960’s and 70’s, rising steeply in the mid and late 1980’s. There was a 75% average increase in the price of land during 1987 alone – in certain areas it rose by 100%. The land of the Imperial Palace was valued at more than all of the real estate in California. By 1990, a single square metre of land in Sanbanchō, a small residential area of central Tōkyō, cost up to $98,400, by far the most expensive residential land in the world. The madness had almost reached its peak.The combination of a surge in Japanese exports to all parts of the globe, a deliberate strategy of encouraging land prices to rise, combined with low property taxes and the concentration of all organs of government and headquarters of major companies within Tōkyō meant that, by fiscal 1987, the market value of land in Japan was 4.1 times greater than the total land area of the United States, a country twenty five times larger.JiyageyaBanks lent lavishly to landowners in the belief that prices would always rise. Speculation in both land and stocks was pervasive, and with this speculation and the prospects of easy money came the jiyageya, half-businessmen, half-gangsters, who bought up adjacent small plots of land, then built apartments, which were sold at gigantic profit or lent to the rich at exorbitant rents. Even legitimate businessmen were not loath to use yakuza gangsters in their zeal to clear out homeowners or tenants who hindered the route to profiteering.The Jimbōchō area is famous for bookstores. It was home to families that had lived there for generations, until the jiyageya began to force them out. Tactics included threats, incessant phone calls, daily visits to the owners of the desired piece of real estate, music played at high volume throughout the night, and sometimes arson or crashing trucks through walls and shop windows. Jiyageya also paid hundreds of millions of yen to induce tenants to sell out, for time was of the essence – the quicker an area could be “redeveloped”, the quicker a huge profit could be made.In 1990, in the aforementioned Sanbanchō area, two tenants refused to budge from their home in a prefab apartment on the top of a three storey concrete building. The area of land was just 53 square meters. The standard formula used to calculate compensation led to a payment offer of $435,000 to move out of a tiny ramshackle rooftop dwelling that could only be approached by ladder… and the tenants refused!Occasionally, there was stalwart resistance; in most cases residents succumbed, seduced by huge sums of cash, intimidated by pressure and the inordinate fear of the yakuza that pervades Japan. In these circumstances, the appearance of the centre of Tōkyō changed rapidly. During the 1980’s and early 90’s, in any direction, construction cranes could be seen silhouetting the skyline.Prestigious buildings such as opera houses – for a people who knew little about opera – museums and art galleries were constructed in all of Japan’s cities and large towns. Throughout Japan, these attempted to exceed the finest in the West, though rarely with any deep understanding of the culture being emulated.LandDuring the bubble, inhabitants of large Japanese cities could be divided into two categories; those who were in senior management positions, worked in lucrative areas of the economy or else owned their own business and, above all, owned land, and those unfortunates, the majority, who could never afford to become householders. Almost as wretched as the latter were those who had bought a house on the outskirts of the city and were forced to commute for three or more hours a day. Landowners, who had usually inherited from parents, could take longer holidays, had more spending money, and could think about purchasing a second house. Work colleagues on equivalent salaries would be in sharply contrasting situations if one had inherited land and the other had not.Two-generation mortgagesJapanese who had saved diligently in hopes of becoming house owners saw their dream destroyed by the relentless rise in land prices. In 1989, the cost of a thin walled 60-square metre apartment was a stunning $498,000. 95% of the purchase price was for the land. Since the early 1970’s Japanese office workers have been allowed to take on a mortgage debt up to 12.9 times their annual income. European and American mortgages are rarely more than three times yearly salary. Between 1970 and 1984, incomes rose four fold, but mortgage debts increased 15 fold.In many instances, the designer-clothes-clad Mercedes Benz owners were individuals who had abandoned hope of ever being able to purchase their own property, and so bought clothes and imported cars as compensation. Even those who did manage to purchase a house could often not pay off the mortgage within their lifetimes, and so mortgage payments are paid off over two generations.The MatterhornDuring the bubble period, the government allowed a mass psychology to gain control of the market, an occurrence that was doubly dangerous because the Japanese tend to take actions as a group. Hitherto wise businessmen began to make aggressive and speculative purchases with a view to making quick profits, based upon a conviction that the price of land and the value of stocks would continue to rise indefinitely. Anyone who had the means and did not partake was thought extremely foolish. As long as the value of the stock market continued to rise, more money could be borrowed to purchase even more stocks, creating a multiplier effect. When the stock market lost 60% of its value in just 6 months, and then land prices plummeted, corporations and shareholders were left holding essentially empty assets.If one image can summarize the entire 1980 to 2000 period it would be a graph illustrating the value of commercial land during that time. Imagine an elongated Matterhorn, its slopes rising steadily during the early 1980s, then steeply in the late 80s, until a pronounced peak in early 1991. After this, a steep dive followed by a slow steady decline to the foothills of early 1980s prices. In 1989, the Nikkei Stock Index reached an all time high of 38,957. Contrast that with March 2009, post-Wall St crash, when the Nikkei briefly bottomed out at 7,055.The crashThough the Japanese stock market was grossly overvalued during the late 1980s, it was mainly the feeding frenzy of land speculation that caused massive bank debts when the bubble burst. The value of any piece of realty can only be what people are willing to pay for it. No matter how wealthy a nation has become, prices can only be leveraged up for so long. Businesses and wealthy individuals sometimes bought real estate without necessary collateral, on the assumption that it could be sold to some sucker at a higher price. Eventually, the hot potato could no longer be passed on. What remained were relatively worthless assets and the bill. Real estate values were allowed to underpin so much of the Japanese economy that any sharp fall created a vicious downward spiral that eventually forced further reductions in land prices. It was the sheer scale of this mass folly, together with government procrastination and unwillingness to make tough decisions in the aftermath, which caused Japan’s subsequent recession to be so severe and prolonged.Capital investmentThe post-bubble recession was made far worse by a massive capital-spending binge that continued well into the 90’s. Companies took advantage of the surging stock market to raise cheap, equity-linked debt and invest almost 20% of GDP. The principal reason for this was that the financial system and tax regime encouraged it. The result was that corporations squandered fortunes on automation and labour saving devices, built factories that ran far below capacity, and office blocks that contributed nothing to productivity. Huge projects planned in the 1980’s went ahead in the early 90’s because aborting them would have been exceedingly difficult; rather like the momentum of a giant oil tanker causing it to need fifteen miles of ocean to come to a halt. This capital outlay also continued because many could not believe that the dream was over.ArtWhen the bubble burst, banks were forced to expropriate Western masterpieces, bought at highly inflated prices, in lieu of unrepaid loans. Tens of thousands of paintings, including works by Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, Braque and Renoir, worth at least $3 billion on today’s market, were sequestered and stored in underground vaults.GolfDuring the 1980s, golf courses offered an opportunity for rich Japanese to display their wealth. As Japanese land prices were astronomical, averaging about $82 million per small 18-hole course, many clubs were built by borrowing money from future members. Prospective candidates were required to deposit between $49,200 and $820,000. Despite this, demand far outstripped supply: golf memberships were bought and sold like stocks, sometimes for outrageous sums of money. Prospective members’ deposits were used, not only to create the course, but also to invest in real estate and stocks.The economic nosedive left some course developments incomplete, the club in receivership. When investors demanded a return of their deposits, the corporations owning the clubs were unable to pay. Some members had invested using borrowed money which they couldn’t repay, or used their savings, or even mortgaged their homes. During the 1990s it was estimated that $78 billion of refunds eventually came due, as increasing numbers of golf clubs went bankrupt.The Jusen debacleBecause of the mass psychology of the bubble period, Japanese banks were persuaded to make loans to projects that in their hearts they knew were dangerous. Unwilling to have these risky loans on their books, with the aid of the government, the banks set up wholly or partially owned subsidiary finance companies called jusen, gave them unlimited credit, and then fobbed off any unsafe loans. This violated every principle of consolidated accountancy, but the banks’ books looked good and shareholders remained satisfied. As parent and subsidiary corporations kept different sets of records, the real financial situation remained unclear until years later, when the debt crisis became frighteningly severe.Besides jusen affiliated with banks, there were also many independent ‘non-banks’, which lacked resources to cushion themselves in times of adversity. Many of the nōkyō agricultural credit cooperatives lent massively to jusen without any collateral, in the belief that they would never fail, since they were “subsidiaries” of the Finance Ministry. During the late 1980s, jusen were said to be relending 60% to 70% of the loans they received to speculators, to enable them to buy up real estate. When land prices went into a tailspin, the jusen began to fail, threatening to bring down the entire Japanese banking industry. The debacle cost the Japanese taxpayer US $5.68 trillion to help dispose of losses inherited in the process of liquidating seven failed jusen.Construction companies had also extended huge loan guarantees to jusen on behalf of subsidiaries and property developers. With the collapse of numerous development schemes, 70% of such loan guarantees went sour, leading to a total debt of more than $410 billion for the industry as a whole. These delinquent debts threatened to have a devastating effect on Japan’s economy, affecting 10% of Japan’s workforce.In the 1990’s, many of the Japanese government’s repeated attempts to resuscitate the economy, principally via massive investment in public works projects, which to the casual observer appeared inept and inordinately wasteful, were operations aimed at securing the rural vote that kept the LDP in power decade after decade. It was no coincidence that banks and construction companies were major donors to the LDP, and that nōkyō were a vital element in LDP electoral success. Decade-long recession or not, first priority goes to protection of rural fiefdoms.And so, as the bubble collapsed in 1991, Japan entered a protracted 12 year recession, its so-called ‘lost decade’. At one point its banking system was very close to collapse. The unique circumstances that inspired ‘Japan as Number One’ have vanished. Post-March 2011 and Fukushima, the Bubble Era seems a distant mirage but, for that brief period, Japan’s economy seemed unstoppable. It was a lot of fun to have lived here while it lasted.