In 1988, if you were lucky enough to visit Tokyo, Japan, you would find that there was no 10,000 yen (800 yuan discount at that time) to call a taxi, and 10,000 yen was only the starting price, and you had to add money after the mileage.
Japanese 10,000 yuan banknotes
This is the real situation in Japan in the 1980s, which the Japanese call the "10 most brilliant years", but in academia, it also has a professional name, called the "bubble economy era".
To what extent was Japan's economic development in the 1980s? Let's put it this way, as long as they can lose all the money in their hands, the Japanese are willing to buy anything.
A disco in Japan in the 80s
At that time, the most worthless thing in Japan should be money, everyone has a lot of money in their hands, acquaintances meet casually a meet and greet gift is a gold watch, tired of playing can not find paper towels, conveniently pick up a wad of cash to wipe sweat.
Many companies because can not recruit workers, simply relax the work restrictions on college students, regardless of whether there is work experience, as long as they are willing to come to work, the company directly prepays half a year's salary, sometimes in order to recruit a college student with zero work experience, business leaders will even invite people to dinner in a low voice.
College students with zero work experience were robbed by companies
Because the economy is too "developed", even the Japanese themselves say that "by selling a Tokyo, you can buy the whole Of America."
In the case of Japan today, this is nothing short of a fantasy, but in the 1980s, Japan really had this capability.
Japanese moms punch in the clock all over the world in order to spend money
If you want to use one word to evaluate Japan in the 1980s, it is "red wine and green wine, staggered chips", the most intuitive experience brought by the bubble economy to the Japanese is that the money can not be spent, in order to squander the cash in their hands, the Japanese are racking their brains every day.
For example, let the Japanese aunt go to the luxury stores in the United States, Europe and Oceania to sweep the goods, let the Japanese women go to the beauty salon to take oxygen, three minutes can spend 100 yen, at that time, Japan is undoubtedly the hottest existence on the earth.
In the 1980s, Japanese jeans were in full swing and were very popular among women
So why was Japan able to rise rapidly in such a short period of time after 30 years of defeat and surrender? How come such a good day is gone now?
In fact, Japan can experience such a good day, and it is really thanks to the United States.
Bubble socks were loved by Japanese schoolgirls in the 1980s
After the end of World War II, Japan, as a defeated country, should have cut off land and paid compensation and lived a tight life, but the United States helped Japan get rid of this post-war punishment.
Due to the rise of the Soviet Union, the United States urgently needed a pawn to contain the further expansion of the Soviet Union in the Far East, and Japan was the best choice for the United States, so the United States demilitarized Japan's economic reconstruction and sent the American five-star general MacArthur to personally guide Japan's post-war reconstruction.
MacArthur poses with the Emperor of Japan
Although MacArthur only stayed in Japan for 7 years, he laid the foundation for the subsequent economic take-off of Japan, during which MacArthur not only helped Japan carry out land reform, optimized Japan's education and industrial system, but also helped Japan get a large amount of aid from the US government, which allowed post-war Japan to avoid starvation and develop steadily.
Post-World War II Japan
After MacArthur left Japan, the Japanese government developed an export-oriented economic development strategy aimed at turning Japan into a huge export factory.
In fact, after World War II, the Japanese government has realized that there is no future by force alone, only the highly developed economy is the last word, so from the end of the forties, Japan began to carry out exports, encouraging private companies to obtain more economic income, during this period Japan had the Sony Group.
Sony Group
Japan's luck lies in the fact that it caught up with the outbreak of the Korean War in the 1950s, and after the Intervention of the United States, the consumption of the war increased rapidly, and in order to fill the bottomless pit of the war, the US government began to smash a large number of military orders to Japan, thus Japan entered the era of "special needs boom".
Although Japan did not participate in the war in name, it has in fact become a rear base for the United States, and a large amount of hot money from the United States has poured into the Japanese market, and in just two years, Japan's gross national product has returned to the highest level before the war.
Japanese female workers who work day and night to make war supplies for the United States
And when the Korean War ended, the United States fell into the quagmire of the Vietnam War, Japan got a wave of industrial development opportunities, Japan trained a large number of engineers and technicians during the war were all pulled on the production line by the United States, these orders from the United States made Japan earn more than 61 billion US dollars, which does not include the Marshall Plan for Economic Assistance to Japan.
Japan's post-war processing plant
With the accumulation of capital in the Korean War and the Vietnam War, the Japanese economy began to rise rapidly in the 1961s, and in 1961 alone, Japan's GDP exceeded 5.5 billion US dollars, while South Korea's GDP in the same period was less than 2.2 billion US dollars.
With the money, the Japanese government began to implement tax cuts and credit easing policies, strongly supported the start-up of enterprises, and accelerated urbanization.
Japan's GDP and Chinese mainland in 1978 compared to the Four Asian Tigers
In 1958, it took a year and a half to build Tokyo Tower, which is 8.6 meters higher than the Eiffel Tower, and in 1964, Japan built the world's first high-speed rail system "Shinkansen" put into commercial operation, making local economic development easier and narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas.
After the 1970s, Japan basically achieved economic take-off and surpassed West Germany to become the world's third largest economy, and since then, Japanese goods have begun to replace American manufacturing and become international hard currency.
Tokyo Tower, 332.6 meters high, is 8.6 meters higher than the Eiffel Tower
However, Japan's rapid rise has seriously damaged the interests of the United States, the wanton rampage of Japanese goods has greatly affected the market of the American manufacturing industry, and the continuously increasing trade surplus has doubled the trade deficit of the United States every year, and the United States has changed from the largest creditor country to the largest debtor country after World War II in just a few years.
Workers in the American auto industry who smash Japanese cars
Throughout the seventies, the basic national conditions of the United States were soaring prices, soaring unemployment, and difficulty in commodity exports, while Japan was thriving, so the Americans did not want to look at japan, so they changed their ways to think about Japan.
The Americans first put a big hat on Japan as an "unjust trading country", accusing Japan of stealing high-tech from the United States, triggering a strong hostility to Japan in American society, and a large number of "old white men" took to the streets to call for a boycott of Japanese goods, and even smashed Japanese cars in public to show their dissatisfaction with the Japanese.
The "old white men" believe that Japanese goods have robbed the market, so they smash Japanese goods in public
With the blessing of this wave of national sentiment, in 1985, the United States and Germany, Britain and France signed the "Plaza Agreement" with Japan at the Plaza Hotel in New York, at which the United States proposed to depreciate the dollar and appreciate the yen, thereby stimulating the export of Goods from the United States and reducing its trade deficit.
Five-Nation Plaza Agreement
For this request put forward by the United States, the Japanese government generally felt that the problem was not big, because at that time, Japan's semiconductor technology, nuclear power technology and automobile manufacturing technology were far ahead in the world, and there was a technical basis to ensure that the Japanese government predicted that the appreciation of the yen would not only not have a big impact on the Japanese economy that had already taken shape, but would also enhance the purchasing power of the yen.
If the time is ripe, it is not impossible for Japan to reverse takeovers of European and American companies, so the Japanese government signed the "Plaza Agreement" very cooperatively, and in the future, it took the initiative to increase the appreciation rate many times, and by 1988, 1 US dollar could only be exchanged for 120 yen.
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone
The purchasing power of the yen has more than doubled, Japanese stocks and real estate have begun to grow wildly, a large amount of hot money has poured into Japan, making Japanese people feel like they are living in dreams, working-class people eat a meal, usually cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars, women buy luxury goods is easier than going to the market to buy vegetables, even Japanese mothers are punch cards all over the world.
Japanese members eat bento boxes better than the American middle class
At that time, the average land price in Tokyo was 10 million yen per square meter, and the average price of slightly better places, such as Ginza, could be fried to 120 million yen a square meter, and kobe beef, golf, and French red wine all entered the homes of ordinary people.
With endless money, the Japanese began to sing night and night, living a life of red wine and greenery
It's just that Japan's highly developed economic base is very virtual, the stock market and real estate market bubble that has been speculated up is very large, and Japan does not have the real economy that can match it to support, once the bubble bursts, there is no traditional manufacturing bottom, japan's entire country will collapse immediately, this day comes quickly, in 1990.
Become a golf ball for civilian sports
January 12, 1990, a day that the Japanese will never forget, the Japanese call this day "the darkest day of the stock market", this day Japan's stock market is like a wild horse that is out of control, Ladu can not hold back, in just a few hours, the stock market plunged 70%, and the stock market collapse is only the first step in Japan's despair, followed by Japan's housing prices began to plummet.
The stock market crashed, and most Japanese people became poor overnight
Many Japanese people have not yet reacted to what has happened, from a net worth of tens of billions to a low-level civilian who can not even afford a loan, the big villa is gone, Kobe beef is gone, in order to pay off the debt, countless Japanese people squeezed into a few square meters of cottages, living a poor life of food and clothing, that day the whole of Japan fell into chaos and despair.
Poor Japanese with nowhere to live
Since then, Japan's economy has begun to decline, and for a full 20 years, Japan's economy has not grown, the market has not been dynamic, and Japan has called these 20 years "lost twenty years."
The Japanese concept of consumption and investment has undergone a fundamental reversal in the past 20 years, from the original profligacy to the current "minimalism" and "abandonment", and gradually lost interest in large houses and luxury goods.