Takano:
It is widely said that "jusen" housing loan firms hold huge badloans and they are almost impossible to collect because the "yakuza" exists behind the scene. TKS also is reporting this news from that kind of standpoint. As I heard that you are very angry about that, Idecided to come to Kyoto to hear your comments.
Takayama:
First all, there is no corporation owned by or directly relatedto yakuza at all among the firms announced as the major borrowers of thejusen. Even if the management of the jusen is irresponsible, it'simpossible for them to make loans to companies where the yakuza shadow canbe seen. At least, when checking the companies located in Kyoto on thelists, there is no yakuza at all.
Secondly, it is true that some yakuza and their affiliated companies had a hand in forceful land eviction during the bubble economy, but large corporations and banks forced the yakuza to do so. Yakuza were just used as their tool.
Thirdly, the media has reported that after real estate developers went bankrupt due to the bursting of the bubble economy, yakuza barged into, and because of that, recovery of delinquent loans has obstructed. Actually, there were some cases where yakuza had offices or established leases in buildings owned by the major borrowers of the jusen. However, many of these cases were caused by real estate developers asking for loans from yakuza because they were troubled with funds, or they requested yakuza intervention in order to solve troubles with other bad guys. It was not true that yakuza entered into buildings haphazardly to occupy them illegally. Even for yakuza, if we loan, it would be natural that we try to secure credit, wouldn't it? If yakuza were troublesome, the building should legally work for eviction. Especially after the "Law" was effective, the court would have approved forcible exercise immediately if the other party was gangsters, and we would have been out of the building in just one day.
The reason why the real estate developers did not do that was they had their own reasons. The relations between the jusen and the real estate developers which were the major borrowers and the relations between these companies and the yakuza should be considered separately. All things were mixed up and to say that "the jusen had outstanding loans because of the yakuza" was wrong.
Takano:
You said that there were no yakuza among the companies in Kyotowith unrecoverable loans by the jusen, but having looked at the lists, forexample, included were the Yasaka Group (total loans: 27.2 billion yen) infirst, the Takayama Bussan (19.5 billion yen) in 8th, Pexim (17.9 billionyen) in 9th and Kyoto Juken (12.4 billion yen) in 17th among the largestborrowers of one of the seven jusen housing loan firms, Housing LoanService. There was also Nihon Kogyo (25.3 billion yen) as the 11th largest borrower of Nippon Housing Loan. In addition, Kyoto Tsushinki Kensetsu Kogyo (13.2 billion yen) was 4th and Kubota Group (13 billion yen) was 5th borrowers of Sogo Jukin, that stood out.
Who were those companies?
Takayama:
Yasaka is a real estate developer and seriously engaged inreconstruction. Takayama Bussan is a pachinko parlor and I don't know whythis kind of company could borrow money from the jusen? There were otherpachinko parlors on the lists. Oyama of Nihon Kogyo is a Korean living inJapan, but he once went bankrupt and when undertaking procedures ofcomposition, the Japanese nationality was more convenient, so he wasnaturalized. He is close to a politician who is an executive of Shinshinto and probably because of that, Nihon Kogyo made a successful bid on many of the works of the Japan Housing Corporation, but then went bankrupt. He is not a yakuza but usually wears a bulletproof vest and rides on a bulletproof car. This is enough to explain what he is doing.It is impossible that this kind of guy who is worse than yakuza to come ask something of the Yakuza.
Kyoto Tsushinki Kensetsu Kogyo is managed by Uesugi Masaya, younger brother of Uesugi Saichiro, chairman of the Buraku Liberation League, and he used to be almost a bum. However, he got involved in compulsory land eviction, borrowed money from here and there, using the threatening advantage of being a discriminated buraku relatedperson, and now is just prior to declaring bankruptcy. These kinds ofpeople borrowed money from banks without mortgages and without screening,got involved in forcible land eviction, and madly played in Korean clubs(high-class night clubs having Korean hostesses) with executives of banksand real estate developers almost everyday. Then, once the repaymentbecame skeptical, banks introduced the jusen, their subsidiary, thrustcredits upon the jusen and erased the loans from their books. In addition,people in charge of banks line their own pockets by receiving anapproximately 10% kickback from the borrowers calling it an introductionfee.
It is natural that the jusen hold unrecoverable loans, isn't it? However, no bank, no jusen lent the yakuza a single yen. In spite of that,when it is said that yakuza are the villains in the jusen issue, I lose all patience.
The central and municipal governments take measures by compiling a special budget in order to improve their living and social status. Partly, however, there are buraku related people who have abused it to make money and some of them have close relationships with the yakuza.
Takano:
If so, is the campaign that says because of the yakuza, the jusenwent bankrupt, a conspiracy of the Ministry of Finance and the police?
Takayama:
Japan was ruined by the military and was ruined by bureaucrats,including the Finance Ministry, after the war.
Was it true that they were smart people because they graduated from the University of Tokyo, Law Department and became bureaucrats? It was the Finance Ministry and their former officials landing fat jobs in the jusen after the Ministry who put the jusen into this kind of condition. They borrowed money from people, loaned it to erratic groups without checking them, then covered it up by national taxes because they were unrecoverable. Was that what smart people would do?
Politicians tacitly permitted it because many of them were former bureaucrats. There were many cases that politicians got involvedwith the borrowers of the jusen and benefited from it. On the other hand,the police regarded yakuza with enmity, and even if we attempted to run alegitimate business, just because of being yakuza, they discriminatedagainst us and tried to destroy us. Have they said that yakuza do not havehuman rights?
In the U.S., the Mafia gradually started legitimate businesses. In this way, the police have discriminated and oppressed theyakuza who were in a weak position and tried to deprive us of our place inthe society. In spite of that, the police have eaten and drunk withoutpaying by threatening bars or tried to secure the interest of the policeformer officials by netting to the pachinko industry, which is called a 30trillion yen business. They endlessly have done more bad things than theyakuza. This kinds of the Ministry of Finance and the police haveconducted a campaign to claim "yakuza are bad." in order to turn people'seyes away from their own evil acts. And the irresponsible media hasfollowed suit. When they have said that yakuza are bad, they should havesaid specifically in which cases, and how yakuza got involved only afterinvestigating that case individually.
In order to find measures to save the Japan's financial system which isdying due to holding bad loans totaling in excess of 200 trillion yen, thenafter analyzing the real posture of this country's underground economycorrectly, it is necessary to resolve how the Finance Ministry and bankshave been involved or established a giver-receiver relationship.