Can Money Alone Build More Factories?
Let us take a short detour into the world of schools. After the war, Japan experienced a sudden rise in the number of children. More children meant more pupils, but schools could not double in size overnight. They lacked classrooms, teachers, desks, chairs, and buildings.
In other words, the children were ready to learn, but there was not enough room to receive them.
Today’s Factories Face a Similar Problem
Now replace the school with a factory. A company may have money, orders, and products it wants to manufacture in Japan. Even so, it cannot build a factory immediately.
It needs land, builders, machinery makers, electricity, water, workers, engineers, components, and logistics. Money alone cannot create a factory.
The Missing ‘Classrooms’
A school needs classrooms, teachers, desks, and buildings. A factory needs land, construction capacity, engineers, power, water, machines, parts, and transport.
Japan can therefore resemble a school in which the pupils have returned but the classrooms are full. Companies want to invest, yet the people and places capable of receiving that investment may be insufficient. This is our ‘classroom shortage.’
What If Electricity Is Scarce?
A large semiconductor plant consumes enormous amounts of power. Even if the site and building are ready, the plant cannot operate fully when the region lacks electricity.
That creates new work: additional generation, stronger transmission lines, and more substations. One factory investment can lead to another wave of investment in infrastructure.
What If Workers Are Scarce?
A factory may be planned without enough people to build it, or completed without enough workers and engineers to run it. Companies may raise wages, train people, introduce robots, and automate tasks.
A labor shortage is a problem, but it can also create demand for education, labor-saving equipment, and automation.
Every Shortage Can Create the Next Job
Electricity shortages lead to power investment. Labor shortages lead to robots and automation. Logistics shortages lead to warehouses and delivery equipment. A lack of industrial sites leads to new industrial parks.
A shortage is not only an obstacle. It can also be the entrance to the next field of work.
Return to the School
When children increase and classrooms run short, society builds schools, adds classrooms, hires teachers, buys desks, expands meal services, and perhaps adds school buses. One change creates many kinds of work. Factories do the same.
Look Beyond the Giant Factory
The headline may announce a huge semiconductor factory. NIGHT FLIGHT looks one step beyond it: Is there enough power, water, labor, housing, equipment, materials, and logistics?
Asking what will become scarce next can reveal where money may flow next.
A Shortage Is Not Always Only Bad
Too many shortages can delay projects and raise prices. Yet when people begin investing to increase what is scarce, new capital expenditure is created.
Instead of viewing every shortage only as an obstacle to Japan’s revival, we can also view it as a map showing where the next investment is required.
Beginner Route - Key Point
Even when companies want to build factories in Japan, money is not enough. They also need land, people, electricity, water, machinery, components, and logistics.
Companies have returned, but the classrooms that receive them are full. Ask: What is missing? Once the missing element is visible, the next necessary work also comes into view.
Our next route follows the chain: shortage → price → investment → productive capacity.