I am generally aware of it. I am no expert on the insurance industry. I think you will find that a company like Manulife has done very well in Japan.
As for the post office, it was wholly owned by government. It's not anymore. It is still government-controlled. The difference in Japan is that Japan Post became the retail depository of choice of almost every Japanese you could name, so it ended up with huge funds, which were then lent to government in the form of cheap bonds. It was a huge financing mechanism for the Japanese government in a way that was not the case in Canada. Japan Post will be an issue, but we'll just have to address it.