00:01 John Daub: Good afternoon. Welcome to Tokyo. This is another day. And a couple of days ago I saw the news. I was traveling at the time that the Prime Minister Ishiba is resigning. He's leaving his post, which was sort of expected, but I thought he had survived it. I thought he had gotten through some of the tougher parts of this, but apparently not. And look, in an election earlier, he lost his seats in the Diet, so he probably didn't have a lot of power.

00:32 John Daub: But we need a leader in Japan. And I'm going to explain to you why. I think that this might be quite concerning for Japan. If not, it was concerning in the last election and before that. But what's going on and what's going to happen, who might be the next prime minister, how this impacts the country and what my thoughts are of this because I kept many of them because I have been in Japan. I came here in 1998, and as an American, I can tell you I came here when the presidents were—

01:06 John Daub: It's so easy to name them. Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama. President Trump won. Joseph Biden and President Donald Trump. Two. That's it. Those are the presidents. It's so easy. America has an advantage in clear leadership going forward. I don't. I want to keep this on Japan now, but I just want to give you an example. Countries that have leaders that are in power for more than one year have more success. Take them with a grain of salt. Because there's some countries that probably don't. Russia. Okay, so I've been here for these prime ministers. Can anybody name them? Can you name them all? I came here with Hashimoto San in—Yuji Hashimoto in 1998. I came in July of '98. And he moved quickly to Obuchi. Prime Minister Obuchi, who I thought did a really good job. He was always on TV and he reminded me he kind of looked like Dracula to me. He had really nice hair. I liked his glasses. He represented Japan quite well. Then Mori came in. He's maybe not as popular. And Koizumi took office and he was in there for quite a long time. I remember when President Bush came to Japan, they went out to what is the Kill Bill Restaurant in Nishi Azabu—Gonpachi. And they had dinner there. I remember seeing that on the news. And then Prime Minister Abe won—Fukuda. Then Aso. Then it gets into Hatoyama and Kan and who is that next guy? I forget? Naoto. Is that Naoto Kan? And then Abe Part Two, then Suga and Kishida and Ishiba. And I think I got, I think I got them right. I think I got them right. But that's a lot of prime ministers. I just want to put this in perspective. When you have leadership changes that happen like every year or less than a year, it really means the country is going in the wrong direction. It's sort of an indicator that there's—the people are not content, there's a lot of issues and that person was just not the right one to lead them.

03:15 John Daub: Although I'm not sure if Kishida-san, who was the Prime Minister for three years, was the right person either. But after Suga-san, who came in after the pandemic and all the—and a lot of the scandals that were coming up with the LDP, which has been in power for most of the time since World War II—there are a lot of issues with a one-party system here in Japan because they've been in power for the majority of the time since World War II.

03:45 John Daub: It's sort of like they're the most competent, but it's the same old ideas. And this is the biggest and the most difficult thing. I think Microsoft had this issue with Windows, you know, like they just weren't evolving fast enough. They weren't changing because they were so dominant for so long. They needed more competition in order to get better. And there's really not a lot of competition to the— to the Jiminto, the Liberal Democratic Party. So it's hard for them to evolve at a better rapid pace or to get stronger leaders. And we're seeing a leadership vacuum. Who's going to replace Prime Minister Ishiba? So we've got such a divided—the worst part is my stomach isn't big enough to try all the food there. This is where my priority is. It's more in the food than the politics of it. But this does have very much an impact on the economy of Japan, the direction of the yen. It does impact travel and it is a fascinating thing to look at. So there are some leaders that can step up—in the last election, Sanae Takaichi looks like she's going to be the leader, the one who's leading the group of party heads to win the prime ministership. I guess you could call it that. The problem is, I don't know, a lot of people think she's a little bit too right. I think she'd be great. I think she'd be great. I think more than politics because I'm not sure how much it really matters. It's not like in the United States with far right and far left. I think even the left and the right in Japan, they're very much more in the middle. I don't think that there's—such a massive swing like there is in other countries for politics. And I think a lot of Japanese feel the same way. But there is a growing sense that they want to get back to—Japan first. I guess you could say it like this. Where Japan is the priority, Japanese issues are the priority.

05:53 John Daub: And I think Ishiba was doing a decent job of that. Just he wasn't good at getting the message out because he was— dare I say he was too old. Because again, I said this before, I got concerned when he fell asleep at the Nagasaki ceremony for the atomic bombing in 1945. There's a ceremony every year on August 9th. He was caught and dozing off. And I get it, it's hot and you're busy. Don't go. Or— sense of—I don't know, you can't do that. They need somebody with energy. And I think Ishiba-san is a really good—I really like him. He's from Tottori Prefecture. He's trying to put an emphasis on the countryside for tourism. He's really trying to do a lot of stuff. I just don't know if he has the energy to do it. Even when he was meeting other world leaders, he's just so leaning back too much. We need someone who leans forward. Maybe someone who's younger, maybe somebody who's different. Somebody who shakes things up. So I think Takaichi or even Koizumi, who's the son of the former Prime Minister. Former Prime Minister who's in the top—in the middle there with the red tie. That's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is a very—he looked like a lion. He had like this lion-type hair. He was a fairly strong leader. I don't know how history's judged him. Japanese news is not so great at criticizing, like the Western media is, of the political leaders. I think we all kind of hope that each person who steps into the job does a really good job with it. But it's hard for me even now to understand his legacy even today. But his son is the agricultural minister, and he stepped in when the last agricultural—miniature minister from the LDP, who was tone-deaf to the price of rice for families and the situation that was going on—like, there's a lot of people hurting in Japan, but these politicians don't really know. Is it any different than any other country, really?

08:03 John Daub: But Koizumi's son came in and he did a really good job of cleaning that up and putting, I think, because maybe he's younger. But this is the biggest issue with Japan politics and it's not really good for—and I'm saying this with a lot of respect because to criticize leaders in Japan, I think is not really a great thing. To strongly criticize anybody here is not a good thing. So I don't really want to do that. I criticized Ishiba-san, but I think everybody was kind of concerned about him falling asleep and maybe leaning back too much in meetings and stuff.

08:42 John Daub: So there's something that we're a little bit concerned about. But again, I have to say what Japan needs is a boost of energy. It's a shame that Taro Kono is not in there. Kono Taro, he—I guess did not do so well in the last round of elections. But this is the issue and this is why everybody says that Japan lives in 2050. Do you ever see this on Instagram? Japan lives in 2050? I don't think so. I've been here too long to know better. It's like—that's what you think as a tourist coming here. You don't really know. People read newspapers. I love the newspaper. I like holding the paper in my fingers. I'm more in tune with maybe the older generation and the younger generation. But right now I know for a fact that what Japan needs is not the next man up. If you look at the next man up, these next man ups are usually in their like late 60s to early 70s. Okay. Not exactly the most powerful people to be taking over.

09:45 John Daub: Okay. What they need is—what they need is some energy. They need some youth. They need to show that Japan is moving towards 2050. Okay? So like, I don't know. Takaichi would be okay. I don't know if it really matters that much because the Diet is sort of mixed. Okay. There's not really a lot of stuff that gets through because the parties—nobody wants a clear majority here. So whoever it is is going to have to make coalitions and stuff, but also be a strong enough leader that perhaps in the next election, if they call one, they can win the majority back—and it's going to be LDP. I mean, the writing is always on the wall, but I'm hopeful that we get a strong leader now. The thing with talking Japanese politics, you talk in generalities and stuff, so it doesn't make a lot of sense. I feel like Sanae Takaichi would be a fresh breath of air. We don't really know too much about the political background of each person. We just have—like, he's an insider. He's somebody who can—coal can bring the coalition together.

10:56 John Daub: It's because the people of Japan do not elect the prime minister. Let's see if we got this here. Okay. This is why Ishiba resigned. So we're going to get into that a second. Let me look at—let's look at how the Prime Minister is chosen in Japan. This is a good civics lessons for people here. So the Japanese citizens do not vote directly for the Prime Minister the same way that we vote for the President of the United States. So what we do is—

11:27 John Daub: And this is maybe part of the problem, but I don't know if Japanese people—to give people that kind of power. I don't know if that's a Japanese way. The Japanese—in like parliamentary systems in other countries, they vote for leaders who vote for the party leader who becomes the prime minister or the most powerful person in government. So they—the people elect the National Diet, called the parliament. That's in this building here, right here. So you see the prime minister making speeches in front of that—stand right there. Then both houses vote for the prime minister. The House of Representative choice wins if different. So if they have two different people, the house choice wins—is what they're saying. The emperor formally appoints the chosen prime minister. It's a ceremony only. And then the prime minister forms a cabinet. That's when they get in these tuxedos and get in front of the cameras. And usually those people are gone in a year. But the people standing behind that prime minister is typically the one who's going to be prime minister in the future. And you're looking at the political leaders of the party going forward. Or they're in a scandal and they get taken out eventually. You can have that picture of all the people in the tuxedos and you can put X's over their faces as they all get taken out from the brutal lobbying and corruption of Japanese politics, which is in a country that is known for—

13:05 John Daub: And I've had company executives tell me about this. In a company that's known for its honesty, politics is not one of them. It is a hard, dirty, rough game of business interests and lobbying. And it's beyond your constituents. Okay? Anyone who makes it to prime minister at age 65 has—is—does not have clean hands, which is why I think a younger person might be good. And then in practice, the ruling party leader—usually the LDP— it becomes the Prime Minister because we have a divided house—

13:40 John Daub: Like it could be anybody, but it's going to be the LDP because they have the most of the people and can build the coalition. But the coalition should have some input on it. But you know that it's like France. I don't know what's in France. I don't know what's going to happen there either. Macron's well past its expiration date over there, in my opinion. And the political back and forth and the darkness of French politics is real and they're in kind of a muddy hole. We'll see what happens there, too. That happened just today, I think. So the Prime Minister and the president are different. The president, I guess he nominates a prime minister and the prime minister got sacked today. Macron should be done. He's going to hold on to power. I don't know. In Japan, though, it does make a big difference again, because if the leader— let's hope. Pizza. Pizza. Oh, fendai pizza. Top 10 Thai. Let's hope. Because I got to be honest with you, when the leaders change this quickly, it is bad for the country.

14:49 John Daub: It is bad for the direction of the country. It shows that there's a problem with the economy, there's a problem with the direction. And it's not that weird, though. In Japan. You want to know why? If you look back since Meiji Restoration, when prime ministers started to take over the—when prime ministers and the government changed in the Meiji Restoration, not all of the prime ministers lasted a year. Some of them were here for three years, five years. The longest-serving prime minister was Abe-san. And before that, Koizumi and Kishida-san was there for three years. So we've had some prime ministers in the last 14 that I've been here, had some pretty long terms. This is maybe the more successful period of Japanese politics, so to speak. But if you look back, there's a lot of people who were there for a year—were there for less than a year. It's been like this throughout history. But over the periods where Japan had successful economies, the leader was there for an extended period of time.

15:58 John Daub: So now we're seeing the leaders change every year. And that signals it's going to be rough, man. It's going to be rough. Whether or not you liked Abe's politics in Japan, I think it's always about the less about the politics and more about the kind of person—whether he can bring people together and if he can bring the Japanese people together, not just the coalition of everybody else, but the Japanese people on his plans. And Abe-san seemed to—

16:29 John Daub: He was powerful enough to be able to have a will to do both, which is why you can stay in power for as long as he did. He learned his lessons from his first time. Right. That's why he's in there twice. They liked him so nice. They elected him twice because he learned from his mistakes. He had that pedigree. And I think that that's sometimes a good thing. You can see that. Not to get too much into US politics, that President Trump learned a lot in his first term. And you can make an argument that a second term is much more straightforward, whether you agree with the politics or not. I want to keep it off of that. It's hard to do, but he definitely has a more defined direction than he did in his first term. And Abe-san was the same way. But when we change leaders each time, it just—it destabilizes a lot of stuff because now we don't have a leader. And I don't know. I was here in front of Tokyo Station when Prime Minister Ishiba became the prime minister.

17:35 John Daub: You remember that? It wasn't even that long ago. And I was talking about—you know, maybe he's the right person. Probably not. I said all this thing less than almost a year ago. He's been in there almost a year. It's funny, I'm back here again talking about another leadership change. It seems to make sense that—yeah. Michael says I was in—Mahalo, my friend. I'm glad that you're here, too. At this time of day, I would—I would assume that you would have been here, Michael. I would have assumed you'd been here. I'll bring something back for Leo and Kanae with that. I appreciate it. Maybe some shoe cream. And only those that have been to Japan know what I'm saying? Look, the biggest problem with the leadership is not Ishiba, as much as the party. The LDP has some massive problems, and they have not proven that they've cleaned things up. It's like those people—they need to clean house. They need a young person in there that was not there during all of these scandals.

18:43 John Daub: And they're like—some of them are really petty scandals, but it shows—like, a scandal is a scandal in Japan. You break the rules. That's a massive thing for a government official. It should be a massive thing in any country. But in Japan, it's much, much more. So there was something—I think it was a cherry blossom party during Abe's tenure. And all of these—we would call Abe—he has children. They're the people in his cabinet that go on to become higher-level ranking officials. So Abe-san's—Koizumi's children became Abe's cabinet. And Abe's children are now coming up into other cabinets. That's why each prime minister has a family tree, so to speak. And the longer the family tree stays intact, the more powerful they become for leadership roles in the future. That's sort of the way that Japanese politics goes, right? So I'm guessing that Sanae Takaichi will become the new Prime Minister. And I'm hoping that it's a boost to Japan to have just a new face in there that has more energy than Ishiba-san. Not to say that Ishiba-san was just—he lost five times. So he really worked hard to get into the position. But by the time he did, he was just too old to do the job perhaps, but he didn't really instill confidence in the Japanese people. And I think that that's the biggest thing. And I know that the people—and I talked to my wife too about this. She's like—she said this to me this morning. She goes, nothing changes. Nothing changes.

20:24 John Daub: She just said there's two words. And I started thinking—yeah, Japan's not living in 2050. It's living in—in 1990, 1987. Nothing changes. So they need to change something. So Takaichi might be a great choice. They just need to change something. She's certainly got strong opinions. She's strong-willed. I never think you—you don't vote for somebody based on their sex. You don't vote on somebody based on their looks. You—you don't vote on somebody based on their—on this one, maybe not even on their party affiliation. You just vote on the best person—and she might be the best person. Regardless of that, I think that's great. So we'll see what happens. But you can see—I'll just run this down here. Electoral defeat and party pressure. He lost in July last month. Historic losses. Yes—Ishiba faced immense pressure. It wasn't just because of the scandal. It was because the economy was getting weaker because of the tariffs. And he—Japan really didn't have an answer. I don't think a lot of countries had an answer. Canadians might be kicking themselves saying, why do we—why do we elect Carney? The economy in Canada is not doing too well either. Like, what the heck's going on? All the double talk. I think what happened really tested Japan. I'm talking just about the Japan side now. I love Canada. I—I get so many friends there. We talk about this stuff in a loving way.

21:59 John Daub: Avoiding international split. The LDP was deeply divided and with talk of no confidence move to force leadership pressure. Ishiba stepped down proactively. He did it himself, which is such a respectful thing. He didn't wait until he gets sacked like Macron, who should not be there. Macron is just a political genius in order to move things. And that's not always a good thing. Geniuses are like Lex Luthor. But Ishiba-san said, nope, it's time—

22:30 John Daub: I can do more good by stepping down. And then let's see if we can get some young leadership in there. And he rode out some of that storm. He got through the tariffs, the trade deal as a finale. Right. Just before resigning, he secured a US trade agreement, the last major policy push. He framed this as an opportune moment to bow out. He made sure that everything was—the T's are crossed and the I's were dotted. Whether you think it was a good deal for Japan or not—I think it's a fair deal considering it could have been worse. So we will see. But he got it done, you know, he got it done and set up a template for other people. Now we have the—now we just got to get packages to get to the United States a little bit faster. Did I see who's in there? Go—san, as you're by the Japanese Rail Cafe, a little something to get you a coffee. Well, thank you. I'm going in there to get some tickets. I'm taking the family for a location shoot in October, so I gotta get some tickets here.

23:38 John Daub: I think I saw my sister from another—Mr. Brandania. It's going pretty good. Pretty good. I prefer Koizumi. I think if we look at this list here, all right, there could be somebody we haven't thought about. There's going to be a leadership election, I'm sure. Okay. I ran this down by age. Let me see if I can pull this up here. I don't know if I—maybe I didn't take a screenshot of it, but I ran this down to get the leaders by age. Okay.

24:08 John Daub: I don't—I don't seem to have it here. And yeah, Koizumi is like 44 years old. I think Takaichi-san is—not much older. I think 50s. And then the last guy, number five, Kobayashi-san, you probably haven't heard of him before. He's an emerging figure seen as a consensus-building alternative. He's the same age as me. He was born in '74, I think Showa 49. So those are—there are three guys in there in their—43, guys and a lady in their 40s and 50s. So I think that the group is younger and more energetic. But the things I love about Japan are also the things I love about Japan—are also the things that concern me the most about Japan. And I'm gonna end with this. Okay. It's going to be interesting to follow how this all shapes up. Japan has an immense amount of respect for those that are older. Doesn't even matter if you're older—you get your respect by the younger generation. So it's very hard to buck the trend and do what the US did, like vote for President Barack Obama or vote for even a George Bush in Japan. He would be too young, too inexperienced. He would not have put in his time and earned the seniority in order to be even considered. So the fact that Koizumi is being considered—showing you that there is certainly a feeling in the Jiminto, the LDP that they need—breath of fresh air. And he wants this, I think—

25:40 John Daub: Didn't he win a governorship before? One of the prefectures? He did a fairly good job. And he's the agricultural minister. He's been stepping up fast. They fast-tracked him. Takaichi—Sanae, she's a fighter. She's been in the leadership races for a few times now. So I know that she's got a lot of fire in her. So we'll see either way. I don't really—all I care is that this is a person who's younger that is willing to stay into the battle and battle it out and be leader for more than a year, ideally three to four years. I'd like to see that. I'd like to see somebody emerge that can be more—I kind of knew that—Ishiba wasn't going to be around for too long. Like they're taking—they're taking the bullets, so to speak. Taking the political punches, so to speak, for the next guy to do a really good job going forward. I still like Kono Taro, the digital minister. I think he's more forward thinking, digital thinking, less analog thinking. He seems to know—the reason he's maybe not considered—

26:49 John Daub: They need somebody who can win over the Japanese people, not somebody who can win over me. It's not about me as a—you know, I don't even vote. But the Japanese people, they need somebody who can win over the people. And Koizumi can apparently win over the people. We need somebody young who can win over the people. Somebody with energy, somebody who's gonna be doing a hundred things in a day. Somebody who can jet around the country, be seen, not fall asleep. Somebody who has a serious face, a stern—Now I'm speaking in generalities, but this is what people want. And they want to feel like we're going in the right direction because we haven't felt it in a long, long time. We want to just feel that we're going in the right direction. We don't feel it now. Wages stagnant. You go to Hawaii, you go to Guam—No Japanese are traveling abroad. Very few Japanese are traveling abroad because the yen is so weak.

27:52 John Daub: We can't get around. We can't afford rent. The—Even though the rent—My rent's been kind of the same because I've lived in the same place for a while, but I can tell people in my building, they know they're getting hit. They're not making as much money. Cost of living has gone up. Costs have—for the majority of people, working salary jobs. You're not getting the same kind of bonuses you did 10 years ago. When the Lehman Brothers thing happened in 2008, bonuses were cut in Japan. So incomes have been flat for a while. Minimum wage is like a ridiculous—if you're complaining in the US—in Japan, it's like, what is it, like $7 or something like that? Maybe in terms of dollars, you can't travel abroad with that. And with everything getting expensive, Japan has to import so much. Japanese people just don't feel like—Think about that ramen chef who's trying to keep the prices the same and taking a loss at his shop because everything has gone up in price—

28:59 John Daub: But he's the man on the front line who wants to make a living, but he's taking a loss, using his life savings to not destroy his reputation by raising the price. And he's looking at the government to help out, make sure that they can—I don't know—help. His customers—he knows are not making a lot of money. His customers haven't gotten a pay increase. So it's not fair for him to increase the price of his ramen. So even though he's getting hit with the ingredients and a lot of the stuff that the ramen cost, because the pork farmers and the people who make the wheat for the noodles—all of these—

29:40 John Daub: The farmers, all these people, they need to charge more because a lot of the stuff that they need to do this comes from abroad. And so that gets passed down to the people eventually. But right now it's—those people in the front line that are eating it because those salary people aren't making enough money to pay more. And I so much respect that. And I think I echo the feeling of a lot of Japanese here. And I'm kind of emotional about it because I know a lot of small business owners are taking hits.

30:15 John Daub: They're not raising the prices. They're doing it even just a little bit. There is a sort of loyalty—I don't know about the next generation, but it happened in my generation and the ones before that, the older generation, where—I'm going to tell you a quick story where they know that they're taking the hit. And when things get better and more successful, it will come back and reward the store owners. I don't think that—I don't know if that would happen in America—

30:47 John Daub: Too often happens a lot in Japan. So I was friends with an executive who went to a school called Waseda. And Waseda's backyard is Kabukicho. Kabukicho is the entertainment district of Shinjuku and Waseda students—and I'm talking like in the Showa period, like 30 years ago. I don't know if it's the same today—30, 40, 50 years ago, when they were students, they would get almost free drinks or free drinks and entertainment at Kabukicho. And Kabukicho owners told them, all right, you're a Waseda student. When you get a job, remember us and come back. And they did. A lot of them got executive jobs, expense accounts. They kept it for decades and always went back to Kabukicho, even through some of the tougher times for entertainment. Keep the whiskey bottle there, paid for the entertainment. And he said the same thing. He says, look, I'm extremely loyal to Kabukicho. It has a crime issue and everything. But I'm extremely loyal to the same business people that allowed me to drink for free when I was a student. Small cost and investment on their part paid off big for decades for that. And Japanese people understand that loyalty and understand it. So I think ramen shops might be doing the same thing. I think they're keeping the price low despite—and taking a—a hit, maybe 20, 30%, using their savings and hoping that it'll come back.

32:20 John Daub: So that's why we need a leader who can at least have a clear vision or the energy to formulate one. Not to riff too hard on Ishiba. I thought he was a good prime minister, but just—wrong. Right person, wrong timing, bad timing. He should have maybe have been prime minister before—he's got a good military mind. They say—what are you talking about? We have the same problem here in California. Yeah, but California can elect directly these people—

32:51 John Daub: Okay, California decides. California seems to want these problems. Right? The issues. That's the thing with the US—I think you make elections and elections have massive changes. It's not always who you voted for, but it seems like there's a lot of places. And this is maybe my biggest issue with US politics is the last thing I'll say on it. It's not a good thing to have one—it's the same issue that Japan has. You have one party in power for the majority of that time, and when you do that, things start to decay.

33:27 John Daub: We can say that with Chicago, with a lot of the cities—things start to fall apart. The LDP has been in power in Japan for a long time. How do you make yourself stronger when you have a system of leaders that pretty much the status quo—like, small increments, small changes, small jumps. When President Trump basically nudged the prime minister and said, we're redoing everything—Japan's not used to that. And that's a good thing. Actually—that was a kick in the butt to Japan to make some changes. Problem is, it had not the greatest impact initially, but the clarity now—instead of dragging it out, it's a lot clearer now than it would have been if we had dragged this out. So—so there are some good things and challenging things with it, but we just have had the same party in power for such a long time. That party better have some fresh blood or some young blood that's not corrupted or tainted by the system going forward. I think that's what I'm saying about it. Yeah, trolls are always here when any kind of politics are discussed. But on the whole, I think it's important for you to understand where this is coming from—a different angle. Maybe somebody who's been in Japan for a long time. It's not that I'm a political insider here, and I just have followed this for a very long time because I've survived—I guess you could say that I've survived 14 prime ministers living in Japan.

35:03 John Daub: My favorite prime minister, I would say, is Obuchi. I don't know why. I'm just very fond of Obuchi. And I always—I didn't always agree with Taro Aso on the top right, but I love his smile and his hats and his bizarreness. I remember when he was elected prime minister, he was rejoiced in Akihabara because he was a massive manga fan, right? They had—like, caricatures of him all over Akihabara. When Taro Aso—he's on the top, right—

35:33 John Daub: I kind of liked Suga, who was the Reiwa guy, but he came in at a really tough time after Abe and during the—you know, the pandemic. The other party—when it started with Hatoyama, I think they had a really rough time because—right. As soon as they came into power, I think the tsunami came and the earthquake, you know, Fukushima, they had a lot of issues. And that's when—after three prime ministers with the other party, the LDP came back in after being in charge for all of World War II—

36:07 John Daub: Right. Post World War II—is any—Ishiba's here? And who's next? I don't know. But personally, I would like somebody who doesn't have to dye their hair. I don't—but I'd like somebody who doesn't have to dye their hair. Somebody who has maybe a nice smile, but who can connect with the Japanese people and make people feel like we're heading in a good direction. And Ishiba, I think, had a tough job because Kishida-san left with some political turbulence and some corruption issues on his own. It was lonely for a second—what happened. So I guess in the chat, you guys are going to have your own ideas of who should be the next prime minister. Again, it's up for Japan to—I'm not Japanese. I don't vote in this—Japan will—Japanese leaders will make this decision. To be honest with you, I'm not gonna—whoever is the next prime minister, I'm gonna be very supportive. I've always been—whoever's been—I was very supportive of Ishiba-san.

37:12 John Daub: Actually, I rejoiced when Ishiba-san became prime minister because I was just so happy for Tottori Prefecture. Because for the prefectures—when you have somebody—I love Tottori. When you have somebody from your prefecture and they were a prefecture that had never had a prime minister, you're kind of cheering for them, cheering for his success. So whoever the next prime minister is, no matter the party, no matter their stance, I'm going to be cheering for them because we really need somebody who's a strong leader.

37:48 John Daub: So I just hope that the people in power come up with a really good plan for the future of Japan for all of you guys. Because Japan looks like—Hold on a second—Japan looks like it's in living in 2050, you know? God, I hate those Instagram reels. I'm keeping honest. It does—in a way, it's all on the surface, folks. It's on the surface because if you—if you dig behind the facade of Japan, it's living in 1987, okay? But you don't know that because you're a tourist.

38:20 John Daub: This is all just a front. All this—all this beauty, newness. They're doing this because they have to because of the earthquakes. It's all just a front. It looks beautiful and it is, but the heart and soul of Japan resides in its culture. And it moves slower. And I love it. I love the fact that it's based on an older generation values like that. But at the same time, you have to understand it and respect it. If you don't disagree with it—If you do disagree with it, you still have to understand it and respect it. I don't agree with it all the time and just wish for—who would ever vote for somebody based on their—their—their sex or looks? I don't think that's the right way to do it, but it'd be a pretty big milestone. All right, guys, take care. Take care of yourself. I'll see you in the next livestream. Oh, was I gone? Maybe—I think I might be on the—I might have connected to the WiFi here because Peter and I did a livestream here, so I automatically connect—

39:28 John Daub: I guess you didn't see any of the thing I just said. It's probably for the best. Anyways, matane. Take care. You lost the last five minutes. Holy crap. I said illuminades—okay, a loom—one ads, right? Wrote in here in 2015. And I said Japan's is basically a facade. I can—I can do it a lot quicker the second time. All this that you see here is just the facade. Japan is actually living in 1987. And this is just—this is just the facade. The core of Japan is like millenniums old. They're living in 2015—I'd say like 2010. Because when I was at NHK at Tokyo, I—the studio set in 2008 looked like it was 1990. And the shows on NHK World, they feel like they're a generation behind. So fax machines—I still have to go to the convenience store and send them now every now and then. There's an analog part of Japan that I'll have to do another episode on this because it's a really great issue—

40:29 John Daub: There's an analog part of Japan that we all have to respect because it works. Because sometimes we move too fast in the digital era. I think AI is moving too fast, without the safety constraints, without even discussing it. I saw a podcast where—I was listening to a podcast where we're all in sort of a—what is it, like a simulation or a test? Right now, we're not actually in the real world. I thought that was weird. But Japan isn't like that—

41:00 John Daub: It's very analog. It's paper driven still. And that's not always a bad thing. You have to respect that it's based on something that's solid. But I don't know—we need somebody who can also help this economy look forward. That could be Koizumi, who's 44, I don't know. But we—we had some good wins and losses over the last 14. And this next person is going to be my 15th Prime Minister here. And I've been here since Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump 1, Biden, Trump 2—it's so easy. But Japan, it's a lot more complicated. All right, guys, take care. I'll talk about this in a different way. I hate talking about politics, but to touch on it is the direction that Japan is heading. And this really does impact a lot of the stuff that is happening with the tourism scene. The travel, the money. How crowded is it going to be? Can Japanese travel abroad? That means that the Shinkansen will be less crowded. It's all—it's all related.

42:04 John Daub: Matane.