JAPAN: Soak the Rich

As long as he lives, Japan's "greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Korekiyo Takahashi" will always keep popping up again in the person of that lovable, rascally old greybeard himself. In the Empire's expensive career of wars, earthquakes, typhoons and economic crises he remains the lucky mascot of Japanese finance. Last week he was 80, full of chuckles and shrewd wisdom, when the Son of Heaven gazetted him for the seventh time Minister of Finance, amid popular roars of "Banzai Daruma!''

Daruma is...

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