First of all, please help me celebrate a bit - we've finally reached issue No. 100! Maybe you're a new subscriber, and this is the first issue of Frugal Watch you've ever read. Maybe you've been with me since the beginning (March 13, 2004 - in case you're curious). Whatever the case - here's a cheery 'kanpai' to this not-so-shabby accomplishment...

2007 dawned brilliant in the Kanto. I joined several thousand other people to watch the sun rise above a hill on the beach at Kamakura on the 1st.
All gazed, cameras poised, in anticipation of the ascension, and it arrived to a cacophony of oohs and aahs and whoops and wails from a spectating crowd in a netherworld of sake intoxication and sleep deprivation...

Terrie LloydBy Terrie Lloyd

This Year has been a banner year for Japan. After something like 14 years of near recession, the country has discovered that there is such a thing as rebirth. Exporters are experiencing massive profit growth, and are busy reinvesting in plant, M&A, and R&D.

Watching TV last night reminded me, though, that this rebirth could be temporary. I can’t help noticing that Shinzo Abe, the nation’s new PM, is no Junichiro Koizumi. Maybe it’s just the foreigner in me, but I liked the way Koizumi jousted with the establishment and threatened the nation’s many cozy self-interest groups. I just don’t see that in the Abe government, so one wonders whether the period of reconstruction is now over. If it is, then that means the opportunities for foreigners will decrease as well, as the wagons are circled for the next down curve.