Chapter 453 Six Ghosts in Tokyo
The so-called three major tactics are the towel-wringing tactic, sharing the difficulties together, and relocating the production base.
The towel-wringing tactic is to start from every little bit of the production process and save production costs to the maximum extent possible.
Recycling cutting fluids and reusing scraps, like Toyota, is a manifestation of this tactic.
To put it simply, when facing difficulties together, a large number of temporary workers will be hired, old employees will be given a pay cut, and everyone will work together to overcome the difficulties.
In Japanese culture, the Japanese have a belief that the company should "weather the difficulties together".
If the company is in trouble, everyone has to tighten their belts and help the company through the crisis.
Everyone has a strong sense of collectivism and can basically do this consciously. This is a cultural characteristic of the Japanese.
For example, the Nittsu auto parts factory in Osaka is now facing an operational crisis due to a sharp drop in profits caused by the appreciation of the yen.
Their solution was not mass layoffs but hiring more temporary workers.
At the same time, the wages and benefits of regular employees are reduced to minimize the losses caused by reduced profits.
Because of the employees' collective consciousness, although everyone's income has decreased, they still sigh in their hearts.
But employees will never go on strike or threaten the company to increase wages again.
What people are more accustomed to doing is to accept it all silently and wait for things to turn around.
If this happened in the West, believe it or not, the Americans would have been furious and might even fight you with guns.
Marches, strikes, union negotiations, all in one go.
But this is Japan, the country with the lowest job hopping rate in the world.
There are many people who work in a factory or company from graduation until retirement.
This spirit of "overcoming difficulties together" exists in small businesses as well as large multinational corporations.
If Shirakawa Electric is forced to do so one day, it might do the same.
This point will be recognized not only by the company's employees but also by the society as a whole.
This is Neon, a country that is stubborn, closed, traditional, and overly focused on collective consciousness.
As for the last tactic, relocating the production base, it is easier to understand.
Shirakawa Electric is already doing this, which is to relocate production capacity.
However, due to the sharp rise in exchange rates again this year, it is not just large multinational companies like Shirakawa Electric that are considering relocating production capacity.
Some bold self-employed Japanese businessmen have already begun to go to China for relevant investigations.
Most of these Japanese businessmen are presidents of small and medium-sized enterprises that rely on export trade, and what they make does not require much technical content.
Most of them are textiles, slippers, quartz watches, etc., which are light industrial products with average technical content.
After visiting China, these businessmen soon discovered that the products produced in China were too cheap.
A pair of slippers produced in Japan must be sold for at least $5 to avoid losing money.
But if they are produced in China, these slippers can be sold in Japan for $0.5 and make a profit.
The cost difference is more than ten times.
So these Japanese businessmen began to invest heavily in China and sell the light industrial products produced in China to Japan and abroad.
Merchants who tasted the sweetness soon discovered that this was a win-win-win situation for all three parties.
Japanese people bought cheap goods and won!
The Japanese businessmen made considerable profits and won!
Chinese workers earned a certain amount of foreign exchange and won!
Look, win win win!
Of course, this is only a superficial victory. In fact, it brings another problem to Neon.
That is, with the relocation of production capacity of large companies such as Toyota and Shirakawa Electric, small and medium-sized enterprises are now also accelerating their exodus.
The ultimate result is the acceleration of industrial hollowing out.
Of course, not all small and medium-sized enterprises choose to invest overseas. Some with more creative ideas quickly found ways to make a fortune.
For example, the TV news that Baichuan Feng is watching now, its reports are really eye-opening.
"Six Ghosts in Tokyo" suddenly appeared!
Listen to this second-year name, pure neon media style.
“How much do you make on average per day?”
"About 100 million."
"Oh, so many?"
"Haha, this is just child's play. I've tried making 500 million a day before. This kind of business is too easy. You can make money with just a computer."
On TV, there was a middle-aged man with a slicked-back hair and a bright face. He was grinning happily, showing a pair of gapping front teeth.
The middle-aged man's name is Kitamo, and he is the president of Hanwa Kogyo.
Hanwa Kogyo, the most representative of the “Six Demons in Tokyo”.
The so-called "Six Demons in Tokyo" refers to the fact that six companies are making huge profits in the Japanese financial market.
Hanwa Kogyo, Yamaichi Securities, Sharp Trading, Ito Corporation, Mitsubishi Trust, and Nippon Trust, they are all members of the Six Demons.
Without a doubt, the one that doesn't fit in the most here is Hanwa Kogyo.
Originally, it was just a traditional , honest steel producer in Japan. At its peak, it had 30 offices in Japan and abroad and employed more than 1,000 people.
As the president, Kitamao has been engaged in the export of round steel and steel wire for forty years. Because he mainly engages in export business, Kitamao is extremely sensitive to foreign exchange and exchange rates.
After the appreciation of the Japanese yen, this was undoubtedly a major blow to Hanwa Kogyo.
But Beimao did not "twist the towel", did not "lay off employees", and did not "invest in Hua Xia".
He did something that stunned everyone in the industry, which was foreign exchange speculation.
Kitamao cleared out the president's office and renovated it, putting in place the latest monitors, telephones, fax machines, and computers.
Then Bei Mao formed a foreign exchange speculation team headed by himself and assisted by the other five standing directors of the company.
From then on, the foreign exchange speculation team started speculating in foreign exchange at 8 o'clock every morning and continued until one or two o'clock in the morning.
The scope of foreign exchange speculation extended from Tokyo to New York, and the daily amount of money flowing in and out increased from 10 to 20 million US dollars to 400 to 500 million US dollars.
Then the scene that is now on the news appeared, according to the reporter's report.
Hanwa Kogyo's profit for the whole year last year was 14.2 billion yen, of which 9.8 billion came from foreign exchange speculation...
In other words, the income from foreign exchange speculation has far exceeded Hanwa Kogyo's main business income.
The reason why this incident caused such a sensation is that Hanwa Kogyo was originally a small steel company.
Looking at the other five companies, they are either trading companies or trust institutions, so it is not surprising that they speculate in foreign exchange.
The neon manufacturing industry, which is conservative, cautious and rarely participates in financial activities, has now achieved great success in the foreign exchange market?
There is a saying that goes, nothing can upset your heart more than your friend or neighbor getting rich.
With Hanwa firing the first shot in foreign exchange speculation, all the physical manufacturing industries can no longer sit still.
Oh, we are working together to overcome difficulties, we are laying off employees, and reducing salaries.
You, on the other hand, sit comfortably in your office, watching the monitor and making phone calls, and huge sums of money come in.
What do other small companies in the export manufacturing industry think? They are full of envy and hatred!
If you can make money like this, then why bother with the real economy, steelmaking, car manufacturing, and machine tools?
Isn’t it fun to speculate in foreign exchange?
After eating the lemons, everyone started to imitate Hanwa.
As a result, a large number of companies began to deviate from their main business and began to learn foreign exchange trading.
Even a very incredible department was set up for this purpose, the Financial Technology Department!
Just listen to the name, finance is a technical job.
But think about it, trading stocks, futures, and foreign exchange, isn't that a technical job?
With the support of media publicity, most of Japan's manufacturing industries have joined finance, a huge, greedy and irrational market.
"Xiao Feng, do you think we should try the foreign exchange market?"
Seiko Matsuda, who had just finished breastfeeding her baby, saw that someone in the steel business could make money, and she became even more eager to make her own move.
However, Baichuan Feng was indifferent to her temptation. Those were just what I had left over. Why are you so excited?
"What's wrong? Are you short of pocket money recently?" Bai Chuanfeng glanced at her with a smile.
"I'm not short of money, but I have a few limited edition Hermès bags that look pretty nice..." Seiko Matsuda pouted and started muttering.
Baichuan Feng already knew what she was planning, and he took out a card from his pocket very familiarly.
"There's 500 million yen in it, and the password is the child's birthday. As usual, it doesn't matter if you spend money, but don't touch the financial market you don't understand. And..."
"And you absolutely cannot bet on football!" The clever Seiko Matsuda immediately raised her hand and answered.
"Yeah, that's good. I still remember it ~"
"Hehe~" Seiko Matsuda smiled foolishly.
Baichuan Feng is not afraid that his women will spend money, but he is afraid that they will squander the money.
You can only spend a few dollars on consumption, but when you lose, it becomes a bottomless pit .
Having received another card, Seiko Matsuda quietly put it into her own small treasury, where there were several similar bank cards and checks.
These were the odds and ends she got from Baichuan Feng. Some of them she begged for, and some of them were given to her by Baichuan Feng on his own initiative.
But without exception, she didn't spend a penny of the money.
Buying clothes and bags is just a cover.
Her real idea was to save some money for her two daughters, because without a boy, Seiko Matsuda always felt a little insecure.
She was worried that Fengxia and Chengxia would not be liked by Baichuan Feng when they grew up, and that since they were illegitimate daughters, no one would love them.
In fact, she was just worrying too much. Shirakawa Kaede was not a native Japanese, and he did not have traditional and conservative family concepts.
The girl is also his child, how could he favor one over the other.
It is true that the way each child is brought up may be different, but there will be no discrimination in terms of care.
With such a big fortune as mine, I won’t let them starve or freeze.
Besides, Seiko Matsuda is a small wealthy woman herself, and she used her savings to set up an artist agency.
The main business direction is to discover new generation female idols and actors, and of course singers are the top priority.
Although the scale is not large, it has been very successful in the past two years.
Bai Chuanfeng didn't care much about these things. It was good for them to have their own careers.
Just like Keiko Matsusaka entered the film and television industry, Yuko Tanaka founded her own comics column at Tokuma Shoten, of course using a pseudonym.
Baichuan Feng not only did not interfere in these matters, he even gave some resources a tilt.
He also believes that semi-independent women are not only attractive, but also make it easier for couples to get along with each other.
But then again, it's time to show off another thing that Shirakawa Electric has been developing for two or three years.
