I’m Not Gloating, but… 

You heard it here first (and again and again). For more than a year, I’ve been predicting that Biden would drop out of the 2024 presidential race in order to allow someone with a better chance of defeating Trump to take over. I predicted that it would happen sometime between Thanksgiving of 2023 and the new year to give his replacement time to build momentum – but despite increasing pressure, he refused to do it.

It’s already past my deadline to post today’s issue, so I won’t say anything more right now about Biden’s decision to step down. But tomorrow, I will tell you why I thought it was inevitable so long ago, and what I think is going to happen next.

Worth Quoting

“Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.” – Sydney J. Harris

One Final Thought on Japan? Hardly! 

Today, I want to dig into one of a half-dozen thoughts that have stuck with me since coming back from this trip. Thoughts that I’m pretty sure will lend shape to Wealth Culture, the book I’m writing about why some countries and cultures are indisputably much better than others at achieving certain goals.

So, picture this…

I’m in Japan, and it’s 11:00 at night. I’m on my way somewhere, on foot, approaching an intersection completely devoid of moving vehicles. And nearly devoid of people, except for one middle-aged Japanese businessman (I can see that he wears a blue suit), stopped ahead of me at the red light, waiting to cross this narrow, noiseless, utterly unoccupied two-lane road.

He knows, as I do after being in this city for only a few days, that the traffic lights don’t change quickly. If they stay red for a full minute before turning green, you are lucky. Most stay red for what seems like an eternity.

What I want to do, as I near this patient man, is walk quickly past him to cross the street and continue on my journey. But as the distance between us shortens, my resolve disintegrates. When I finally arrive at the corner, I stop and stand next to him. And the two of us stay there like programmed automatons for the next 90 seconds.

I can think of a few plausible explanations for his behavior – much having to do with the respect for order and compliance that is so much a part of Japanese culture. But how can I explain my decision to stop and honor the electronic signal? Never, in the US, would I NOT just jaywalk to the other side.

Before I give you my not-yet-baked theory, I should admit that this very same situation happened to me once before, years ago, late at night, at an entirely deserted crossroad. But that was in Bonn, Germany. And that time, I did hesitate for a moment at the red light, standing next to the only other person visible in that part of the city. But several seconds later, I came to my senses and jaywalked on my way.

I’ve been thinking about why I ignored the red light in Germany and respected it in Japan. The superficial circumstances were the same. But there was a difference. And that difference speaks volumes about Japanese culture, and why I think it is the best and possibly the most enduring national culture that exists today.