Terrie Lloyd, founder of Dai-Job and well-know foreign entrepreneur in Japan writes:
" Although Japan is nominally a capitalist democracy, in
fact it has been run for the last 50 years by bureaucrats
who are obsessed with having the State control and retain
the nation's wealth. Indeed, their activities make Japan
look more socialist than countries whose stated political
system is socialism."

Given that Japan has risen from the ashes of defeat to become the world's second largest economy, I would imagine that some countries will be extremely envious of Japan's socialist bureaucrats!

With all the talk of Mixi's 200+ PER, it was intersting to see this week's Nikkei Weekly report on the fact that many analysts are suggesting that the small caps in markets such as Mothers and JASDAQ are underpriced, with average PER's of 17.1, below the TOPIX average of 17.2. This situation presage a resurgence in the share prices of small caps in these markets.

The founder of Hotmail is planning to create a new city of his very own -- Nano City -- in India. A bangalore with infrastructure and US universities. I saw his presentation at the FCCJ -- fascinating stuff, and you realize that this guy can really make it happen. More on this later.