Japanese Pension Scandal Linked To Series Of Knife Attacks

Washington Post:

TOKYO, Nov. 19 -- Bureaucrats here have infuriated the Japanese public by losing millions of government pension records. This week someone with a knife and a willingness to kill appears to be trying to hunt some of those bureaucrats down.

Riddled with stab wounds, the bodies of Takehiko Yamaguchi, 66, and his wife, Michiko, 61, were found Tuesday morning in their home in a suburb of Tokyo. Takehiko Yamaguchi was head of the Health Ministry's pension division when the national pension system underwent a major record-keeping overhaul in 1985.

On Tuesday evening, Yasuko Yoshihara, 72, wife of former pension bureaucrat Kenji Yoshihara, 76, was stabbed in the chest by a man who came to her home in Tokyo claiming that he worked for parcel delivery service, police said.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[RobinSeattle]

The Japanese retirement age for your regular company worker is 55 (yes, you read that correctly), which makes those pension payments all the more critical. I suspect that the perpetrator is being stonewalled on payments rightfully due him by his local bureaucracy and it might even could have lead to his getting divorced. Thus his role and dignity in society stripped, he is seeking revenge.

And this could continue for a while. Japanese police do a lot of things well and I have a lot of fond regards for those I have dealt with personally (as an interpreter mainly), but investigation methodology isn't something they are that adept at and their forensics knowledge and implementation is poor. Plus they are rather lackadaisical when it comes to dealing with sex crimes (so are the courts there).

So if this guy is careful and doesn't turn himself in, he will have a pretty free hand to do what he wants for a good while. It will be interesting to see how this story develops.

[jimmyjones22]

Did I say 1960s?

Try 1920s.

[jimmyjones22]

Things are pretty bad here in japan. Japanese people can only take so much. Not only are times hard, but people who have paid into government controled pensions (equivelent to social security in america) have recently realized that the government employees that recieved their cash have been pocketing it. This means that in the government system that it records these people as being delinguent, which means they will recieve no bennefits.

But that's not all. Corperatiosn in japan pay virtually no taxes, and recent legislation has moved a heavy tax burden on the people - nearly double. Most of this money goes for japans military which will never be used due to a clause in the japanese constitution that ironiically prevents japan from building a military.

And the big business influence in the political process is sickening. Labor regulation has been thrown out the window as companies hire "part time" employees that work full time and overtime without extra pay, and, using loopholes in legislation that they lobbied for, they do not provide any bennifits for the workers and they work for much less money. over 90% of jobs fall into this category here.

The thing is, japanese people don't get angry like westerners do, they usually suffer in silence and blame themselves. However, as more pressure is put on them, i'm sure we'll see many more incidents like this. if things don't start looking up, we'll see social upheaval like hasn't been seen in this country since the 1960s.

[RobinSeattle]

Yeah, you'll see more concern about the "karyu shakai" (lower lifestyle society marked by wider divisions between rich and poor) phenomenon and this current generation is quite a bit more impatient than its predecessors.

Japan is a lovely country (though with nearly totally incompetent politicians) and it really irks me when I read stuff like this. The average Japanese deserves better.

Gambare Nippon!