CL wrote:
> rcaetano wrote:

>> In any case, I'd assume business must be good for AEON  (the eikaiwa)
>> now.
> 
> Not necessarily.  There is some huge percentage of people who prepaid 
> for services that can't afford to go elsewhere until NOVA pays them 
> back.  IIRC, the bulk of the Yen 43 billion NOVA has as outstanding debt 
> are repayments for unfulfilled contracts.  Unpaid salaries were only 
> around Yen 2 billion.  It was one of the reasons cited by the teachers' 
> union for working out a teaching-for-food model, as well.

Here's the sort of cite I was looking for when I wrote the above. 
Unfortunately, the source is the Japan Times and not a respected news 
source but you have to work with the materials at hand:

> What about the unused lesson tickets still held by Nova students?
> 
> All the tickets will probably be deemed invalid. The trustees say there are "no prospects of refunds" since the liability is Nova Corp.'s.
> 
> G.education said it will offer Nova students equivalent lessons if they pay an additional 25 percent fee on top of what they have already paid.

And, I heard back from one of the people mentioned below, who says that 
the rumors are that most of the families irreparably hurt by the NOVA 
bankruptcy are outside the main cities where the chances of some family 
member(s) getting a second job to keep the dream alive are nil.

> Several news reporters I know are working on human interest stories 
> about poor families that saved up for years so that one child could go 
> to eikaiwa in hopes of passing the college entrance exam, get a good job 
> (or a government job), and pull the family out of its low economic 
> level.  Seems as though those sort were the second most important sales 
> target for NOVA after OLs.

There is some speculation that the longer-term fallout might be major 
losses by the LDP in the next election because they are most closely 
associated with stealing the rural Japanese dream of financial security. 
  And, letting NOVA steal people's money and keep them locked into 
small-town poverty is just another example that no one in the government 
gives a damn for the people just scraping by while all of their money 
goes to Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka (and Fukuoka ... and Sendai ... and 
Sapporo ... anywhere but back to the smaller towns).

But, most members of this list, like me, are politically just along for 
the ride, staring out the side window, and barking at the other cars.

-- 
CL