things are tough in Japan

It's always good to get a neighbour's take on things from time to time.

This evening I spoke with a neighbour who runs the Japanese business unit of an international commercial auto insurance firm. Things are pretty bad in that line of work, it seems.

Globally, the firm he works for has gone from a $9B income to a $400M loss, all on a 25% collapse in sales. Here in Japan it's much worse: they're down 90% over last year.

No wonder we see so many bad signs, like the condo units in the new building next to ours not selling even at a 1/3 discount. If no one's buying commercial vehicle insurance, it stands to reason that they're not buying the vehicles. And that means that commercial activity isn't happening.