The new president of Toshiba Corp. told me it's a revolution.

We started getting a sense that things were turning around in late 1998.

There's been a revolution of ideas and creative thinking in Japan. Enough companies had their backs against the wall that they've been forced to change.

They are looking at key areas and where they can grow. What's the common thread here? There's a focus on getting higher returns. That's a key to everything we've seen.

It's very rewarding. The hope was that the things we were seeing take place in the U.S. and Europe would come ashore in Japan, and it's gratifying to finally see it take place.

It wasn't very long ago that France and Germany had ROEs of 2 percent, and now they're both in the double digits.