The results of all the deficit public spending of the last few years is now visible. The roads (famously awful in the past in this part of the world with supersevere winters) are now fantastic. Where a road used to wind along a valley there's now a tunnel straightening the road, and the old road is often a walking/bike path. Every large town seems to have a new museum. The year-old salmon museum in Shibetsu-Chu is at the point in the river where returning salmon faced a cataract; now you can watch them jump from behind a glass wall. If there's a new dam there's also a viewspot with parking, an attached new museum, and "nature trials." And everywhere new public toilets.
Sometimes out in the middle of nowhere with no apparent reason why they were built there. All with electronic gadgets that automatically turn on lights and open doors. And with wheelchair accessible toilets. And fresh cut flowers. And even in some cases with the gadgets now universal in toiletbowls in new hotels and ryokans that wash your private parts with warm water (separate dials for front and rear - and warnings to sit down before using lest you get your clothing wet).
Harry Magdoff asked me how the Hokkaido visit went & I told him some of the above. He said: "It is interesting what a sensible ruling class and its self-confident representatives can do in depression years."
john mage