Honolulu Lite
Takahiro Kono, president of a research and consulting firm, thinks the main reason Japanese investors lost money in Hawaii is because Hawaii workers have a poor attitude. I'm not kidding.
He actually said that Japanese investors got crunched here because of "a lower return on investment caused by the low productivity of workers."
If Hawaii ever wants to get all these philanthropic money men back in the islands, it is going to have to assure investors that the worker bees here in paradise have been whipped into shape with a revolutionary new work ethic.
"After all," Kono says, "success of a business depends upon each worker's quality and attitude."
There has been a sentiment brewing for some time that Hawaii somehow let down Japanese investors. But I think this is the first time someone actually has come out with the idiotic assertion that lowly Hawaii workers, and not rabid foreign land speculators, were responsible for investors not making money here.
I guess it would be asking too much for Japanese investors to simply admit that they screwed up. They paid too much money for what they were buying, thereby creating a false economy that was bound to collapse.
The public has a short memory, Mr. Kono. But not this short! Do you think Hawaii residents have forgotten billionaire fat cats roaming through island neighborhoods, buying up houses like shave ice? Have they forgotten that it was a Japanese investor who tore down the venerable landmark Ranch House restaurant, only to erect a gaudy eyesore, designed by a relative, that no local resident would step foot in? What kind of work ethic would the average Hawaii employee need to assure that these real estate speculators were able to make a killing by eventually dumping their overpriced products on other saps?
AND what do the workers have to do with investors willing to pay way too much for golf courses and hotels? Your average greenskeepers or hotel clerks can have the best attitude in the world, but that's not going to change the value of a hotel on the world market.
It might make Japanese investors feel better about themselves to blame Hawaii workers for their mistakes. But it isn't the truth. No amount of historical revisionism can change the fact that most of the foreign investment in Hawaii was speculative, designed not to make a decent return, but to make a killing in a real estate market goosed to new highs by zany zillionaires willing to buy houses without even getting out of their limos.
The most insulting thing about Mr. Kono's allegations is that people in Hawaii - the basic Hawaii "worker" that he puts down for having a poor attitude - are still suffering because of the rampant foreign speculation. Our pumped-up property taxes didn't go down when the big boys left town.
Another odious aspect of Mr. Kono's flimsy attempt at historical make-over is that while he dumps on Hawaii workers for not kissing the feet of foreign investors, the prospect of any of us opening a business in Japan are nil. When investor T. Boone Pickens tried to invest in Japan and was rebuked, at least he didn't blame his misfortune on Japanese workers.
So, Mr. Kono, I humbly suggest that you look for other bogeymen responsible for Japanese investors' ill-conceived foray into the Hawaii real estate market. Attitude does have a lot to do with why investors lost money. But it was the investors' attitude, not Hawaii workers.
