The biggest Japan story this week happened in California. Nikkei calculated that five US tech giants now carry about $3.2 trillion of AI obligations that sit off their balance sheets, almost double six months ago. Those promises are the order books of Tokyo's chip and component makers, and today, as the US midterms raised doubts about Big Tech, the same stocks led the Nikkei down. Meanwhile the Bank of Japan said underlying inflation has reached 2% after 13 years of trying, the Hamaoka scandal I wrote about last week now has a price tag, and Tokyo is still paying to keep fuel cheap. Here is how I see it. Last week I turned to Shibusawa Eiichi. This week I want to go back one generation further, to Ninomiya Sontoku (1787'1856), the farmer's son who rebuilt hundreds of bankrupt villages and estates in the late Edo period. His statue, a boy carrying firewood on his back and reading as he walks, still stands outside many Japanese schools. At the centre of his method was bundo, '': know...
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