Joblessness Spurs Shift in Japan's Views on Poverty

Why is it that efforts to end poverty is the sole domain of ‘left-wing radicals’?

And the only time serious attention is paid to the problem is when the main stream is faced with becoming a part of it?

Concerned about their own job security, many Japanese are seeing the homeless not as troubled individuals seeking handouts, but as victims of a failing economy and a government system that offered no safety nets.

Isn’t it amazing how your attitude towards government policy changes when that policy directly affects you?

clipped from online.wsj.com For more than a decade, Makoto Yuasa's efforts to end poverty in Japan were ignored by many as the quixotic campaign of a left-wing radical. But Japanese including Prime Minister Taro Aso are paying attention to the 40-year-old activist as the world's second-largest economy sinks into its worst recession since World War II, leaving an increasing number of people without work. While Japan's unemployment rate is well below the U.S.'s 8.5% and Spain's 17.3%, today's data are a blow for a country where workers grew accustomed to the guarantee of lifetime employment Many Japanese had little sympathy for the jobless and homeless, regarding their plight as stemming from laziness -- and an embarrassment to the country's profile as an industrial power. With manufacturers such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp. continuing to slash jobs, many Japanese for the first time are seeing poverty as a real possibility