The story with Japanese Banks is also much more interesting that this journalist apparently knows.<p>Essentially there&#x27;s a very close coupling between a bank, and it&#x27;s corresponding major company. It&#x27;s common knowledge which is which, f.ex. Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, which extends to all the conglomerate&#x27;s suppliers and the employees of those companies, who will all use the same bank. This gives the major conglomerates enormous economic information, through the bank, about the financial state of their suppliers, as well as a huge amount of power over the companies, through the bank lending system. And this is before you get to the problem of Bank&#x27;s making very low interest loans to prevent companies going bankrupt - which in any case is common practice everywhere. Bank&#x27;s are structurally not able to absorb very high amounts of losses, so the old saying about the bank having the problem applies to large loans.<p>The only viable way to compete with Sharp in this example (well, apart from leaving the country), would be to go to one of the other conglomerates and pitch to be taken under their wing.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Keiretsu" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Keiretsu</a>