7/29/2005

Walk on EVERY street of Japan–even the Ginza or ritzy Omotesando—and you will continually pass at dozens of small dead companies without any business all. Just say gray windows with old gray people staring blankly out.
Why do they persist?
They’re notfulfilled and certainly not even remotely happy.
Well, first is that they don’t have to pay any significant property taxes.
Second, they’ve been zombies all their life and know no other way.
I was playing poker with my neighborhood fruit vender sitting on a 15 million dollar piece of land and I asked why he doesn’t sell out, move to Vegas and play in the Poker Championships with a blond on both arms like he always wanted to do. He just laughed and brushed the fruit flies off his brown bananas. Saaaa, people just don’t know when to fold their cards.

Presidents hard to find for small companies
For some small companies, finding a president to succeed a retiring chief is so much trouble and the future so uncertain the owners just shutter the doors.
A survey made by the Shinkin Central Bank Research Institute found that 30 percent of small companies face problems in finding a new leader….
The survey also found that 5 percent of the respondents do not need successors because the future looks so bleak they plan to shut down their company.
Of the presidents at surveyed companies, 68.5 percent were between the ages of 50 and 69, while those aged 70 or more accounted for 12.8 percent, showing that such companies are steered by increasingly aged presidents.