Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 572, The Revolutionary, Part 7.

So, to recap, by 1980, Miyazaki Manabu had been the son of a yakuza gangster who became

a committed communist, spent 10 years as a hot-headed revolutionary, a job that mostly

seemed to involve engaging in or inciting

others to violence, and then a few more years as a construction boss in his family's one legitimate

business before getting arrested by the police for fraud, released without charges, but having

his name so thoroughly tainted that no one would do business with him

to the point that the firm went under. I think it's fair to say he lived one hell of a life,

and we are coming up towards the end of our time with him, but there are a few more interesting

twists and turns to be had. After all, we're now in the 1980s, a fascinating period of post-war history. At the start of the

80s, Japan, like many other places in the developed world, was coming out of an economic

low point, triggered by various economic shocks during the period, like the OPEC oil embargo

and the shift of the U.S. dollar away from the gold standard.

Recovery was beginning, and then starting around 1985, the economy went into overdrive.

A series of agreements made between the United States and Japan to protect America's domestic economy from Japanese competition

drove Japanese companies to invest

their profits elsewhere.

The biggest place they would choose was the domestic real estate market, driving valuations

through the roof and leading to a period where Japan's economy, propped up by a real

estate asset bubble, was booming.

Money was cheap, it was free-flowing, growth was plentiful,

and just generally it was an era of excess and flush cash.

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