震える日本
日本人は温泉好き、露天風呂好きで、日本では猿までが露天風呂に入ることは、世界的に有名です。風光明媚で温泉の多いことと、地震が多いことはどうやら一組になっているようで、大地震・大津波といった天災は忘れる間もなくやってきます。それでも、地震による被害が出るごとに耐震工法は見直され、改良され、我が国の建造物は、世界的に最高水準の耐震性能があると言われています。
共同住宅が、耐震性を偽って生産・販売されて大問題となっています。しかし、悪徳商法には無数の前例があります。有名ブランドの腕時計・バッグ・スニーカーの偽物は、笑い話のレベル。知っていて買うことすらあるようですね。もっと大規模な悪徳商法・組織犯罪もあります。一時は、官・公・学が揃って否定した、公害の歴史に残る「水俣病」、世界的に既知の事実を知りながら無知を装った「アスベスト禍」、危険を知りつつ使用を認め続けた、「エイズ感染禍」。官・学・業、一致協力の悪行は数えきれません。
しかし、住み家・住宅を種にした犯罪は、通常の悪徳商法と全く性格が異なり、あらためて別枠として対処されるべきだと私は考えます。家族団欒・休息・安眠を守る頭上の屋根は、 全国民に約束されねばならない国の負う当然の責務です。住居を業務用施設・建造物・投機対象リゾート等と同列に置いてはなりません。マンション耐震性偽装問題を、 単なる一商品の悪徳商法として取り上げ、分析・糾弾している限り、我々の社会は、住居産業の犯罪をタイヤの外れる大型トラック事件と同等同列と認識していることになります。
住居の購入は、だれでも子供達の成長、両親の、いや我々自身の老齢化までをも視野に入れ考慮を重ねて行う人生最大の買い物です。住居購入ローンの返済期間は、２５年間・３５年間という長さです。金融機関に、一生の半分以上を前倒しに売り渡すことです。 住居は、不動産業界・建設業界の商品・物件ではないのです。
かつて金融機関は、バブル期にゴルフ会員権の販売に肩入れをし、担保割れローンの負債のみを債務者に押し付け、回収不能分を国民の税金で補いました。もし、今回の被害者達の住宅ローンが基本的に白紙に戻されないとすれば、金融機関は、二匹目の泥鰌を捕らえることになります。
とうとう、日本は、教育・医療から始まり、住居をも金儲けの種として当然・平然としている国になってしまったのでしょうか。
Quaking Japan
We Japanese love bathing, especially the open-air hot spring bathing. Photo pictures of Japanese monkeys in an open-air hot spring are well known. The beautiful sceneries with many hot springs and frequent earthquakes are somehow sticking together. Therefore big earthquakes and tsunamis visit us rather often. The Japanese building technology against the earthquakes has been developed through the experiences and has high standard in the world.
A big scandal has happened that quite numbers of tall-multistoried flats with false construction engineering against the earthquake have been sold by a group of developers, engineering consultants and contractors.
But the dishonest businesses haven't been unusual. We have had many of them. The wristwatches, the handbags and the sneakers, there are so many fake exclusive brands goods. Some people consciously buy and enjoy them as a joke.
We have had larger scale organized dishonest businesses. Often our government, the authorities, the industries and the academic people work together. "The Minomata disease", "The asbestos disaster", and "The AIDS disaster" are just some of them. For many years well-known facts have been concealed from us such as the cancer developing effect and the high-risk AIDS contaminated transfusion blood.
But the crimes concerning the housing shouldn't be considered as just one branch of many malicious businesses. This is a grave sort of crime. To supply and to secure a roof on each one of the population are one of the bases of modern nations. The housings shall not be considered just like the building products as profitable real estates such as office or industrial buildings and resort facilities for the speculation.
So long when we pick up, analyze and accuse these housing crimes as a part of the dishonest businesses series, we regard the earthquake collapsing housings and the tire loosing lorries equally.
When we purchase our house, we think long, hesitate, and try to see our future, children, parents, and our coming old age. For most of us it is the most expensive adventure in our life. We take loans, i.e. borrow money. The loans are very long termed, for 25 years or for 35 years. We sell out our future life to the banks.
We have gone through a period called the bubble economy. The financial institutions sold us the memberships of the golf clubs. When the period got over and the membership lost its mortgage value, the debt remained to the loan takers. The government with our tax money compensated the remained debt for the banks, which they couldn't collect. If the victims of the false constructed flats must hold the debt of the loan, and must add another extra loan for their new flats, then the banks shall enjoy repeating their big fortune.
Our education and medical care systems are a matter of moneymaking businesses. Now our housing system is proved to be also moneymaking business.
How long shall we follow the route toward the money dominating society ?