| Replanting farmhouses
Stanley has gone into debt to finance his dream of building Shizutani School, a place where Japanese craftspeople will teach their arts.
"I'm sure my kids will remember me for this adventure," he said. "Whether they learn to chase their own dreams or learn a big lesson in common sense is yet to be seen."
Even before the house is loaded onto the ship, Takishita, the go-between on the project, felt that maybe he had fulfilled his purpose.
"We have a saying in Japan: 'The lighthouse shines and you can see far, but not at your feet,' " Takishita said. "The villagers have treasures under their feet and they never noticed it before."
Susan Essoyan was in Japan on a Fulbright journalism grant.
home@latimes.com .
Pave over the swamp ยป
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is advocating a measure that would allow mortgage servicers to modify the terms of repayment (interest rates) on a greater percentage of loans than are usually allowed in a grouping of loans sold to investors. The upshot would be that on a case by case basis, interest rates on loans that are nearing foreclosure could be modified to help the borrower maintain the ability to repay the loan. This would seem to be a win-win proposition. The borrower keep his home, and the investor isn't stuck with a bunch of reduced value properties in the midst of the biggest surplus of homes in decades.Posted by: knightswhosayni on Thu Dec 06, 2007 8:55 am .
Michigan's economic woes on the ballot
Bankruptcies have swept across the region's auto parts makers and suppliers - large and small - leaving many workers without jobs. "Michigan is definitely in a recession, no ifs ands or buts," said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's. "Detroit is suffering badly and it's not going to improve any time soon." Manufacturing employment in Michigan has dropped by nearly a third - or 300,000 jobs - since 1999. At that time, the Big Three accounted for more than two out of every three cars sold in the United States and profits were strong on growing demand by American buyers for expensive SUVs and pickups. But those profits and market share seem like distant memories, and U.S. sales are about evenly split between domestic and import brands. General Motors Corp.
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