I would not worry about your Japanese investments. The cross-shareholding between corporations in Japan actually make the institutions more robust than in most other countries.
Yes. Japanese auto parts suppliers have been busted more than once in the US for price fixing, because the kinds of back-room “gentlemen’s agreements” they’re accustomed to in Japan are illegal as all hell here.
The thing is, from my perspective, the treatment Ghosn got would be considered a raw deal here in the US for someone with money and lawyers. For your common or garden variety armed robber (minority), it would be par for the course.
My feelings on the matter veer between, “Nobody should be treated like that,” and “Good to see a white collar criminal getting the business for once.”
I’m also not sure we here in the US should be too smug about our supposed superiority to the Japanese system. Especially now in the era of Trump, but it’s not exactly a new thing either. The big difference is that we don’t treat foreigners with money that way.
I’m not sure if this is relative privation or whataboutism, or even just mealy-mouth wishy-washyness, but yes I’m comfortable with the belief our justice system is in general much better than theirs. We at least notionally hold innocent until proven guilty, place the burden on the state to prove a defendant’s guilt, and in most cases don’t allow indefinite jailing of someone based solely on an accusation. Yes, we do have bad actors here and there who break those rules, but the system is at least structured against it.
in contrast the Japanese system (and culture) breeds the idea that if the prosecutor doesn’t get a conviction, or the police don’t extract a confession, then they haven’t done their jobs and have lost face. That leads to something that isn’t a “justice” system, it’s a “throw people in jail” system.
the latter is simply using the “justice” system for revenge. if you’re going to moralize about the way the US does things you might not want to entertain that idea yourself.
I think we need to get past the part where we first establish that he is a criminal, and then I will join you in feeling good about a fat-cat getting caught.
I am not a juror in the case, therefore I can draw conclusions from the general reporting. If I were called as a juror, I would be obliged to refrain from judgement, but I am only some guy on a message board.
In my opinion, it has been established by a preponderance of the reporting that Ghosn did commit financial improprieties that could rise to a criminal level.
If he had used a gun in his activities, and didn’t have a hundred million in the bank, his treatment would not be at all unusual, and not necessarily unjustified.
Well, isn’t that what a trial is about? Other than the issue of his colleagues having it in for him since he is non-Japanese (which is totally plausible and also reprehensible) the main point I think you have raised in his defense is that everyone does similar things.
That’s not a very compelling argument: “But officer, don’t you know how much other crime is going on in this neighborhood?” If anything, your comments so far make me think that his actual crime is committing crimes and not being Japanese.
If this were that Reddit sub, I’d say everyone sucks here. Even criminals can be mistreated.
You said it better than I did.
No it was just obvious to me, as a guy who has lived in Japan for 23 adult years that he was not tried in a court of law in Japan because they didn’t have sufficient evidence that he had committed a crime. As a police investigator what magic bit of evidence could you be waiting for one year after you had arrested him?
This, this, this. It really needs to be understood that he was arrested in November of 2018. They’ve been holding him for a year with no trial in sight.
Yes, but one cannot credibly say that he along with many other executives in Japan regularly ignore the law in various compensation matters, and also question whether Ghosn actually broke the law.
His treatment of course is a big problem, but that doesn’t actually go to whether or not he did something wrong.
yes, but saying “I’m glad to see a fat-cat get what’s coming to him” is exactly like the Japanese mindset. “If we’re accusing you, you must be guilty of it.” 'cos right now all we have are still just accusations. And anyone who has served jury duty in the US has likely (hopefully) had it hammered into them that an accusation is not evidence of guilt.
It seems to me, from what I’m reading here, that the problem is not that Ghosn is being punished. The problem is that his Japanese colleagues are not being punished.
If illegal activity is routine in Japanese businesses, and you want to stay on the right side of the law, then the solution would be to not be involved in Japanese businesses.
No you got it all wrong. First time for you.
The problem is you need to prove someone guilty of breaking a law before you take away their rights.
That never happened with Ghosn.
They took away his rights without ever convicting him of a crime.
Yeah, but none of us here are in a position where coming to preliminary conclusions actually has any effect on anyone’s legal rights.
I don’t find that there’s anything particularly wrong with average people saying things like, “Boy, sure seems like OJ did it! And that guy from that Netflix series sure seems to have been manipulated by police into a false confession!” Whether a Japanese person approaches accusations in a different way is something I don’t actually care at all about, because I can’t see how it impacts on my opinion one way or another.
Similarly, from what I’ve read, it sure seems like Ghosn’s dealings were not above board. But, it seems like the judicial process has not been speedy or fair. It’s difficult for me to pick a side when both seem to be pretty shady.
It seems pretty clear that the arrests, re-arrests, and water torture of additional charges are a deliberate plot to harass and punish him in advance of a process where he can argue his innocence. I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with that.
What I can’t figure out is how one can simultaneously argue, as you have done, that everyone including Ghosn flaunts Japanese financial laws in certain ways, but then also question others to provide proof that he’s done something wrong and declare him to be innocent. This makes literally no sense to me.
Between the thing with Olympus, and the general reporting on Yakuza penetration of Japanese Corporations, I think that is a sound conclusion.
Firstly, I don’t get the impression that that is the Japanese mindset. The Japanese (or the Japanese prosecutors at least) seem to be more of the opinion that the Gaijin got what was coming to him.
Secondly, we here are not on the jury. We are entitled to make (tentative) conclusions from the reported evidence.
Oh OK, the difference is in who get punished. Japanese don’t get punished, gaijin do.
Traveling in Japan was an eye-opener for me. There was some blatantly open racism directed toward this gaijin. Small things like people walking up to me in public to take their picture with me without even asking to being refused service. It felt like they only saw white guys on TV and I was almost like a unicorn.
ETA - the VAST majority of people were very friendly, nice, and polite - I don’t want to paint too grim a picture