It is time for an election.

▼「日本の危機悪化、政治のせい」　英紙、社説で批判
http://www.asahi.com/international/update/0225/TKY200902250305.html
《「日本の危機は政治がマヒしているせいで悪化している」。英フィナンシャル・タイムズ紙は２５日付の社説でこう指摘し、日本はすぐに総選挙を実施して、意思決定できる政府をつくるべきだと訴えた。
　社説は「邦銀は外国の金融機関ほど不良資産にさらされていなかったことから、日本は当初は金融危機から守られていた。しかし、慢性的な輸出依存により、世界の需要が衰えると経済が止まってしまった」と日本経済の現状を分析。こうした状況に麻生政権は、不十分な対応を続けていると批判した。
　さらに「麻生政権は弱体化しすぎていて、政策を通せない。自民党も不人気すぎて、（任期満了となる）９月より前の総選挙を、検討もできなくなっている」とした。
　浮上している「税金による株式買い上げ対策」も「金がかかりすぎ、銀行が一息つけるだけで一時的な対策にしかならない」と断じた。 》

▽FT
Japan still needs a government
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/94fcd746-02aa-11de-b58b-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
At first, Japan was shielded from the credit crisis. Its conservative banks, though they paddled in toxic waters, were not nearly as exposed to poisonous assets as many of their foreign peers. But Japan was vulnerable because of its chronic export dependence. As world demand has faltered, its economy has seized up, plunging the political class into shellshock. Falls in the stock market are now causing problems in the banking sector, but a proposal by an industrial umbrella association to prop up share prices is misguided.
When Japanese exports dropped in December by an alarming 35 per cent, the game was up. Sure enough, output shrank 3.3 per cent, quarter on quarter, in the last three months of 2008. The rate of decline shows no sign of easing. The crisis – set to be the worst recession for 35 years – has been deepened by political inactivity and paralysis.
Led by the hapless Taro Aso, the government has long been inadequate in its response. Only a few months ago it was backing a purely token stimulus package and advocating waiting for world recovery. Now, the Aso government is too weak to force measures through the Diet. But the governing Liberal Democratic party is too unpopular to consider an election earlier than is legally required in September.
While the government flails, the deepening real economy crisis is infecting the banks. After a savage sell-off, the Nikkei index is down by nearly a fifth this year alone and the Topix index is back to levels it last saw in the early 1980s. Japan’s banks, which still have large equity holdings, are on shaky ground. They have already been forced to raise billions of dollars to prop up sagging capital ratios.
One proposed response is to start “price-keeping operations” – spending 25,000bn yen of public money to prop up the stock market. This is an old staple for Japanese policymakers, and a smaller plan has already been put forward by the government but – predictably – is being held up in the Diet. Either version would be expensive and the breathing space it would buy for banks would only be temporary.
The Japanese should, instead, focus on rebalancing their economy. In addition to a real fiscal stimulus to jolt its citizens to spend, the government needs to stop Japanese companies retaining unproductive cash. If Japan needs to recapitalise its banks, it should do so directly – not by supporting the stock market. The virtues of these policies, however, remain academic when the Aso administration is so weak. It is time for an election. There is little point to paralysed governments.